ADV continues their trend of releasing subpar DVDs, the notable exception being the excellent Gamera: Attack of Legion DVD, with their release of Tokyo: the Last Megalopolis. In general: the disc's video presentation is very poor, the audio quality tends to be adequate, while at heart the DVD is a bare bones release that features no note worthy extras to speak of.

Video:
The video presentation here leaves a lot to be desired. The most apparent set back in this regard is the very noticeable artifacting, as the entire movie appears very blurry; furthermore, the amount of grain is very distracting during some scenes. The brightness and contrast are also a problem here, with the film being overly dark in this presentation and the colors are anything but the vibrant array one has come to expect from the DVD medium. Overall, the print used in the transfer is in good condition, and rarely contains any noticeable scratches during the course of the film; however, it should be noted that ADV "hacked" up the film's introduction pretty good for their western audience. If one thought the black boxs, placed conveniently over where the Japanese text would lie, with English green text placed inside of them for ADV's presentation of Gamera: Guardian of the Universe was shameless, wait till they see the opening work for Tokyo the Last Megalopolis, which simply cuts to a black screen with English text on it every time Japanese text would have appeared in the introduction, or it simply uses a scene freeze framed with English text placed over it; the ending result is pretty horrendous and adds a very low budget quality to the production. Thankfully, the credit sequence here is left alone, and ADV instead added a English credit sequence after the Japanese one finishes, adding four minutes to the running time as ADV does a very thorough job of detailing the entire cast of the production in English. Also, in the video presentation's defense, the film is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1.

Audio:
In heavy contrast, the audio presentation is easily the disc's strongest point, although not perfect. The Japanese audio track here is presented adequately, and while it doesn't contain any pops in the audio track the stereo presentation here isn't quite as rich as it could be and sounds slightly mono in tone during some moments. The one audio discrepancy which should be pointed out, though, occurs during the long music cue that plays during the credits. For the most part, the ending theme sounds spot on, until the credits near their closing point, which is when the audio track sounds slightly scratchy as the orchestra music increases in volume. Like ADV's Toho releases post The Hypnotist, the Japanese audio track here is complimented with removable English subtitles. Unfortunately, Japanese text which appears in the film is not translated for the viewer.

Extras:
The extras found on this disc are pretty stock, in terms of a ADV release, as the only extra is a collection of six trailers, ones which ADV created (not the original Japanese trailers), for other DVD releases. Something that should be noted, though, is that the disc only has eight chapter breaks, with two of the chapters leading to different parts in the 4 minute introduction. What this results in is chapters that are 20-35 minutes apart from each other, which almost defeats the purpose.

Overview:
Bottom line: if one doesn't have a large interest in the, rather twisted, nature of the "Megalopolis films" then they would probably be better off skipping this mediocore release of Tokyo: the Last Megalopolis (1988). Those who are interested, however, might want to check some of their local chain outlets as I was able to pick it up for the very resonable price of $12.