The less expensive of the two Onmyoji DVDs released by Pioneer. This would probably be the version most will want to pick up. It's missing the excellent behind the scenes footage and the 10 pg. booklet on the movie, that come with the Onmyoji Special Edition release, but in the end are those really worth $10? This depends on how much you enjoy the film, although first time watchers would be better off going with the regular release.

Differences amongst the two versions aside, Pioneer did a excellent job on both Onmyoji (2001) DVDs. The video quality in the regular edition is, in every sense of the word, flawless. As can be hoped with a film only two years old at this point, no scratches appear at all in the print. Artifacting is all put unnoticeable, and the picture quality is quite sharp. The audio presentation, like the video, is done very well here. Both the original Japanese language track and the English dubbed track are presented, flawlessly, in Stereo. Audio quality aside, the dubbed track is poorly done, unfortunately: voices manage not to fit the characters and the reading of lines is extremely dull. The dubbed track ends up being a nice extra, but one that many will probably skip after a few minutes of hearing it. The extras are decent, at least compared to other Toho region 1 DVDs. It's kind of sad when a "bare bones" release of a film qualifies as having more extras than most other Toho region 1 DVDs, but so it goes. This disc includes numerous trailers for the film, along with some filmographies of the stars in it. Bottom line is that this is a excellent release of Onmyoji (2001) to introduce more people to the film, and it, or the Special Edition release, would be a worthy addition to any Toho enthusiast.

This disc is also featured in the DVD box set: Onmyoji DVD Collection.