* ~ DVD Impressions ~ *

This review of the Limited Edition Utena movie DVD was written 12/19/01.

Quick access to the review:
* Packaging * Menus * Features * DVD-ROM features * Commentary Track * English Track * Japanese track * Image Quality * Overall *

After months of eager anticipation, the big day finally came.

October 23, 2001.

Which, incidentally enough, was my birthday. I was quite happy at the news, of course. But anyhow, the big day came and went and all I was waiting for was Amazon.com to ship me the Limited Edition version of the DVD.

It came quickly. IIRC it arrived on Friday. Happy me! Open box! Pause.

Wasn't the Limited Edition box supposed to be pink? Because it looked, well, white to me. And it felt, well, rather light for a package supposedly holding 2 discs...

A quick hop online to official CPM Utena Movie website confirmed my fears. I was sent the wrong DVD.

The plastic outer wrapping was mislabeled. Although the inner packaging declared the DVD a "Collector's Edition" it did not declare it a "Limited Edition." Both Limited Edition and regular versions of the DVD packaging say "Collector's Edition," which must have caused the confusion. Needless to say, I sent it back and didn't ask them to send me the right version. The exact same problem happened to my friend in San Diego and I wasn't quite ready to trust them yet.

I figured the folks at Planet Anime would know their Limited Editions from their regular editions, considering they were having a big 30% off the LE and only 20% off the regular version, so I ordered from them and waited again.

After a short while, a package arrived from Planet Anime and this time, the package was heavier and a brilliant shade of fuschia. Bingo!

Although I had seen images of the DVD cover from various other sites (namely Anime on DVD and the various retailer sites, it was still a bit of a disappointment. But then again, I went out and had fun designing my own cover which was, er, much darker and used entirely different graphics. I felt the title took up too much space and am still wondering why CPM decided against putting one of the other titles for the movie on the box besides The Movie - anything from Adolesence Mokushiroku to The Adolescence of Utena would have made it sound more interesting than just The Movie. But, then again, isn't X/1999's movie given the same title: X the movie? You can't win them all, after all, and it's a minor point. I was also wondering why the didn't use their previous Utena title logo with the sword, but again, nothing major, just curiousity. The back is fairly nice with several screenshots from the movie, except that a few of the images are reversed. A minor point but one worth noting. The teaser copy on the back is interesting if slightly cheeseball at the end, but hey, if it draws in a potential customer, why not?

Opening the cover reveals the sheer pinkness of the plastic. Nested on the right is the Utena movie DVD with a soft pink rose background and the same image of Utena and Anthy used on the bookmarker. Flipping the flap over reveals the second bonus DVD, Anime Zone 1.1, which has images of Space Captain Harlock and Shamanic Princess on it. Through the pink of the cover you can lightly see the other side of the DVD insert, which is printed in soft greys - it looks nice through the pink. There you find information on chapter stops (12 in all), credits, cast information, and on the right (under Anime Zone 1.1) the same image of Utena and Anthy on the DVD.

Enough of that! Let's get onto other topics... Having a busy schedule, I waited until my apartmentmates had all gone to see Harry Potter opening night. I stayed back and borrowed my apartmentmate's computer with a DVD-rom, sat back, and enjoyed the ride.

Well, not exactly. Having watched the movie so many times I felt browsing the other goodies first would have been much more fun, so I proceeded to do just that.

The first impression a DVD gives you when you pop it in the player is the menus. The main menu is animated and plays a portion of Toki ni Ai wa as Utena and Anthy dance on the Rose Platform. The roses which are the menu selections spin around, but all in all it was nice looking but not that impressive. Then again I've heard the Japanese DVD release had their menu format as the Kage OS system, and that just sounds cooler. Menu access was speedy, however, so no complaints there. First I went and checked out the languages option. It defaults to English (no surprise there) but you can only choose English (with soft subtitles to translate the few bits of Japanese here and there and with a translation of the songs) or Japanese (with soft subtitle translations and romanji lyrics of the songs.) Most people find no problem with these options but I often like to mix and match my languages and subtitles. No problem, just use the remote when the movie is running. This menu was static. Then I went to check out the DVD-rom menu, which basically tells you how to access the bonus material. (More on that here.)

Then I checked out the special features menu. There are a lot of special features so they thoughtfully offered them on 2 screens to avoid crowding you out. Again a static menu with nice graphics of Utena and Anthy. The trivia portion was fun but, having seen the movie so many times, I could anticipate the question even before it got asked. But I'm sure for someone who hasn't seen the movie before it provides a challenge to see if you're really paying attention. The video about the dubbing was a very interesting spot, as it including short interviews with many of the voice actors and actresses as well as comments by the director, Kunihiko Ikuhara, himself, along with a look into how English dubs of anime are produced. Gives you a lot of respect for all the work put into it, even if you don't end up liking the voices! The art sketches and commentary as well as the character sketches were also interesting, but wanting to move on to other things I watched them in fast forward. The Japanese TV spots and theatrical trailers are ones I've seen before, since they were added to the end of my fansub, but it's a really nice touch to see them on a North American release, because I'm sure many folks haven't seen them and otherwise wouldn't have a chance to. They're quite a different type of trailer than one thinks of. The US trailer and teaser were also quite enjoyable and I thought they were very well put together. The mix of images doesn't spoil anything but fit the chosen music well and the choice of words helps draw you into the movie. The fan tribute was nice - some of the art was stunningly gorgeous, with the fanfare of Fiancee ni Naritai in the background. The only quibbles I have are that I think they've overused that song in the DVD extras (couldn't they have used Toki ni Ai wa for at least one of them? Oh well) and the fact that they said I was from GA (Georgia) instead of CA (California.) How they mixed that up... I won't go there. But it was nice of them to mention all the names of people who submitted an entry. I checked out the sneak peeks as well, but they are mostly short music videos to scenes from the respective series. They weren't as engaging as I hoped they would be, although it did remind me what a cool song the opening theme to Nightwalkers is. (Must find CD with that song now...)

Those extras explored, I went and checked out the DVD-rom, which is apparently done quite nicely with Macromedia/Shockwave/Flash (I still don't quite get the distinctions between them.) It's set up in an interesting manner that's unfortunately a bit difficult to describe, but it's like exploring an art gallery by slowly spinning in a circle; each piece links you to a different feature. There is the entire dub script available, the cast and credits, the same list of contest entries, an art gallery, and a few other things. The links page was rather sparse, with links merely to CPM's sites and Animeone. I would have expected at least a link to Ikuniweb, Ikuhara's site which has an Utena section in English. Oh well... The music playing in the background is Toki ni Ai wa (yes!).

That said and done I checked out the chapter selection menu.

While the main menu, as mentioned before, didn't impress me much, this menu blew me away! It had incredibly cool setup! It depicts the Observatory with the various paintings of the Rose Bride and Rose Prince, except all the paintings are replaced with the chapter selections. And they're animated chapter selections! You can preview the first moments of each scene on the menu, all while listening to Bara no Kokuin softly in the background. And since 12 stops is way too much for a single page, they broke it up into 6 and 6, so it's not crowded but you don't have to scroll through 4 pages to hit the last scenes. Excellent choice for this menu!

I decided for my first viewing to exploit the last DVD feature and watch the movie with the Director's commentary. Except I got really annoyed with Ikuhara's constant "eeeeehhhhh's" and decided to mix and match languages and subtitles, so I ended up watching the movie in Japanese with the subtitles being the Director's Commentary track. It was a much more enjoyable experience that way, at least for me. Having seen the movie so many times I can quote part of it in Japanese and know essentially what is being said in most scenes, so watching it in Japanese proved no hardship. The commentary track was interesting in seeing what Ikuhara had to say about his work, and provided some insight into his interpretation (as he mentions in the track, he doesn't want the fans to be stuck on his single interpretation, because there are many ways to view the movie.)

All was well and I finished up and went to sleep long before my apartmentmates returned from the Harry Potter movie.

I didn't have another opportunity to play with the DVD until I came home for Christmas break and was able to utilize my dad's home theatre system. (Heh. Heh. Heh. Surround sound.....) So I pop the DVD in the player, sit back, and decided to watch the English dub this time. However, as a personal preference I like to watch the English dub (at least for the first time) with the translated subtitles to compare the two, so I proceeded to mix and match the languages and subtitles yet again.

The sound is presented in Dolby Stero format. Although there isn't a lot of directionality in the movie (most of the dialogue comes from the central speaker anyways) there are points where it helps set the stage, such as when Anthy knocks on the door to Utena's room, heard solely from the left side, or the car horn that sounds when Utena searches for Anthy in the hallway reminiscent of Nemuro from the Black Rose Arc of the tv series. The sound was clear and crisp and pretty cool coming from surround sound. The dub is actually a fairly good dub. As a whole it sounds fine on its own without anyone being too jarringly out of character. However, after hearing the Japanese track so many times, some characters sounded rather strange. Utena, Anthy, Touga, Juri and Saionji had excellent English voices that developed their characters on par with the Japanese voices. Juri had an authoritative and confident voice expected of her, Utena sounded withdrawn and hurt, Anthy, although softer with an English voice, still fit her more daring movie personality, Touga was the same playboyish/fighting for power person, and Saionji was just as brash and rude. I found Shiori's voice and Akio's voice more enjoyable in English than I did in Japanese. Shiori's Japanese voice is too high and breathless and squeaky to me, which rather got on my nerves, but her English voice sounds more in control and more conniving, fitting her sneaky personality better. Akio also sounded better because, well, I was never a fan of his Japanese voice (after listening to the seiyuu who voiced him as a deeper, darker, sexier man in the tv series, hearing him as a silly, fruit playboy didn't cut it) and his English voice was well done. I was also amused how they changed his "Toh!" when he's sliding across the car hood to "Ciao!" as well. Miki's voice sounded too old for him - he's in junior high, but his English voice sounds like he's a college student whereas his Japanese voice was much younger and more innocent. I can't comment much on Kozue's, Nanami's, or Wakaba's voices since they have such small parts (and how do you judge how well someone voice acts if all they can say is the word "Moooo!!"), but I will mention that Chu-chu's "chu's" were higher pitched in the English version. (Strange but true..) As for the Shadow girls... I didn't like them much in the English version. They kept ennunciating every syllable and drawing them out, possibly to fill the timing needed, but it sounded artificial and strained. And what was with the word "Scandalatious"? It was "Scandalous tape!" in the Japanese track - and spoken in English too.

The name prononciation was off at points, but again this is no surprise. The emphasis is merely on different syllables because of the differences in Japanese and English, and while strange, in the end has no effect on the story development. I did find it interesting that when Utena's English voice actress was yelling out "Himemiya" the pronunciation matched the Japanese one quite well, although when merely speaking it, the emphasis went back to the "mi".

Regarding the faithfulness of the dub to the translated script of the Japanese track, it was so true to the original that the subtitles matched the dialogue for more than half of the movie. The timing was sometimes slightly different (expected) and most of the changes were to make the wording fit the mouth flaps or timing or to make it sound more natural in English. There was only one point I noticed a dialogue change that, to me, changed the meaning of the movie. It occurred near the end when Anthy was facing off Akio. Anthy realises she has to say goodbye to her brother, her prince, if she is to make it to the outside world with Utena. In Japanese she says, "Sayonara... watashi no ouji-sama." (Loosely translated, she says, "Goodbye, my dear prince.") In English she says something more on the lines of "Goodbye brother. You are no longer my prince." It didn't quite feel right for Anthy to outright say Akio isn't her prince anymore. She knows it, he knows it, but she never acknowledges it in the Japanese track. But I suppose it is a minor detail. All in all it was a fairly good dub, and in the end told the same story the Japanese track does, fluidly and naturally.

Although I haven't listened to the Japanese track in its entirety, I can't see how it would differ from the times I've seen it fansubbed or raw. After all, it's the straight Japanese track. I will mention that switching back and forth between the English and Japanese tracks rapidly, I discovered the Japanese track to be louder and slightly richer in tone - in this I am talking about the background music, since I started switching during points of no dialogue. Again, it's a minor detail but one to make note of.

The image quality was top notch, whether viewed on a 17 inch monitor or a 32 inch television screen. It is present in widescreen format, meaning everything is preserved and nothing is lost to pan-and-scan. All the the colors are rich and saturated and there was nothing to detract from the beauty of the artwork. The lines were clean and crisp and clear and it sure beats the quality of my fansub and blows my raw .avi copy out of the water.

All in all this is an excellent DVD release. The quality is excellent, the dub, for its quirks, is still enjoyable even by someone who is far more used to the Japanese track, the sound is awesome (Toki ni Ai wa, anyone?) and there are more special features packed on the disc than you can shake a Sword of Dios at. For anyone who is a fan of Utena, this is a great disc to pick up, a good investment, and well worth the wait I had to put up with to get it.

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