DVD: Kimagure Orange Road: TV Series Volume 2 (AnimEigo)

Order

Kimagure Orange Road: TV Series Volume 2


English DVD Title (Region 1)

Kimagure Orange Road: TV Series Volume 2 - Episodes 5-8

Sound:

Japanese (2.0 Stereo)

Subtitles:
Length:
Release:
Company
:
Discs:
Aspect Ratio:

English
100 minutes
2003
AnimEigo
1
1.33:1

Movie:

Kimagure Orange Road

DVD

Extras

  • Menus (English)
  • Chapters (4)
  • Extended Credits (English)

Captures


Review

By: Anthony Romero

This is volume 2 of 12 from AnimEigo devoted to the 1987 program Kimagure Orange Road. This particular DVD contains episodes 5 - 8 from the television show. While these releases remain the only way to get the show on DVD in the United States, the quality on volume 2 leaves a lot to be desired. The chief issue is the video track, which overshadow an okay audio presentation that is further let down by a total lack of extras.


 Video: Star Rating


To be short, the video quality here is very subpar. It's a little misleading as when an episode starts the quality seems okay, to be polite as it's still not quite up to snuff. This is because the show's intro is a separate video track. It's actually a pretty smart move by AnimEigo, as not only does it save disc space but allows them to utilize the best source they have for the intro. That's especially important because the video source for these episodes are sometimes shaky, literally which we'll cover in a bit.

First order of business for these episodes is to talk about the overlaying issues, which are common among them. That is in respects to the level of compression applied to the video here. That compression causes smudging of details, while also obscuring pretty much any noise that might be present as the image is just too soft. For the close up scenes this isn't so bad, and Kimagure Orange Road has a lot of close ups, but for any sequence where the characters are even a little distant in the frame it becomes an issue. What's shocking is that the video also demonstrates some edge enhancement, as there are halos around characters, but even this can't make the footage look sharp. Motion also looks a little blurry, and from taking a lot of screenshots it's apparent that AnimEigo set a low keyframe interval as part of their compression.

As for the episodes themselves, unlike volume 1 the brightness level is a bit more manageable here for episodes 5 and 6. For episode 7 and 8 it's a major issue again though, as it's set way too high. In terms of colors, episodes 5 and 6 have a bit of an unnatural blue tint to them, while episodes 7 and 8 look better but are so washed out due to the brightness level it's hard to really say. What's particularly troublesome, though, is the damage apparent on the source. In particular episode 5 has a flicker at the top of the screen that starts about a minute into the episode and lasts for a painful 15 minutes. In addition, the frame isn't always stable here, being an issue for both episodes 6 and 7.

Kimagure Orange Road is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1.

 

 Audio: Star Rating


Each episode has a single audio track, which is the original two channel stereo presentation in Japanese. The clarity in dialogue here is good, very rarely sounding rough. There isn't much in the way of speaker distinction, but then the source itself wasn't really trying to push much in this area anyway. The best directionality is heard in the songs, which open and close the show. Overall, it's a good effort, certainly much better than the video presentation.

The audio on the episodes can be accompanied by removable English subtitles. These are available in two options, which are either limited translations or all speech and text will be translated.

 

 Extras: Star Rating


Like the other discs from AnimEigo on this show, the DVD has virtually no extras. It features a pretty ugly menu, which is bumpered by a short snippet of the show's main opening. That menu will allow the viewer to select which episode they want to watch, of which there are no chapter breaks beyond that although the title for the episode does appear on the menu when the selection is changed. The disc does have the ability to see extended credits, which include the crew behind the DVD on a menu screen but also the option to see the show's credits. For this, the credit sequence from the actual show is played while the TV program's cast and crew is captioned on top of it.

 

 Overview: Star Rating


Bottom line, if one really wants the show on DVD, this is an option. It's not a great or even particularly good option, but it's there. In general, though, I'd recommend seeking out the Blu-ray set instead for this show, which is not just easier to get now but doesn't have the huge array of issues that these individual DVDs do.