Not counting the OVAs, which AnimEigo did also release to DVD, this disc marks the halfway point for the Kimagure Orange Road television show release to the format. This particular disc features episodes 21 through 24. Sadly, although not shocking, the quality here is lacking. The video track could be a lot better, which is sad because the audio quality here is good but the overall quality is further held back by ugly menus and almost no extras.
| Video: |
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For this disc, the video presentation continues to be lackluster although an improvement over the state of things on the first three DVDs for this series. As before, the presentation here is an isolated intro track that is transitioned to for each episode. For the earlier DVDs, this intro was better quality than the episodes themselves. Here, it's a bit of a wash, showing that things have improved versus those earlier volumes.
Now, intro aside, let's look at the episodes themselves here. In terms of colors, the four episodes are a mixed bag. All the colors are pretty muted, although episodes 23 and 24 do have some deep blacks which is nice. Episode 21 has a pretty overt yellowish tint to the colors, while episode 24 has a mild teal tint. As for compression, episode 21 and 23 are very soft, either due to the source material used or because of artifacting. Meanwhile episode 22 has some very rough edges, likely from compression techniques used. Episode 23 has moments where, due to the running scenes, things get really pixilated from the amount of changing details in the frame that play havoc with their compression techniques. On the plus side the print damage is pretty light for these four episodes... at least compared to the earlier ones. Episode 21 does have an unstable frame which is frustrating and starts at the 14 minute mark, lasting for a few minutes. Episode 23 also has an unstable frame, but only for the "next time" segment which isn't a huge loss. Episodes 21 and 22 also have brief transition damage between scenes, but nothing too distracting.
Kimagure Orange Road is presented in its original
aspect ratio of 1.33:1.
| Audio: |
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As before, this series continues to do well on the audio quality front. Each episode here is presented with a single Japanese audio track in two channel stereo. Clarity on the audio is solid, and episode 22 does push this a little with a musical number that sounds good so a testament there to the source. That said, speaker distinction is weak, but can be attributed to the source material rather than AnimEigo's work on this release.
The audio on the episodes here can be accompanied by removable English subtitles. Two options are present for these: limited translations or all speech and text will be translated.
| Extras: |
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Hardly any extras worth talking about. It's got a really ugly menu with the bare minimum of selectable navigation, basically to just the start of each episode. There is also an extended credit feature, which takes the new intro that was introduced in the last grouping of episodes and overlays English subtitles to fully credit the staff. It takes up most of the screen, so one can see why they didn't normally due this during the episodes themselves, but not an interesting supplemental material.
| Overview: |
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Bottom
line, the subpar quality continues for these DVDs. It's better than the first few discs, but not dramatically so. All the same, those without a Blu-ray player this does provide an option for watching the late 1980's show. ...those with a Blu-ray player, though, are better off getting the restored Blu-ray release by Discotek.
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