SUMMARY
In
a post apocalyptic future, a young Cyber Doctor named Ido finds
a broken cyborg girl in the rubble beneath the sky city of Zalem.
Excited by his find, Ido decides to rebuild her and gives her the
name of Gally.
In
Scrap Iron City, there is no law, no police. Hunter Warriors are
used as law enforcement. Whether it is to stop brain eating
cyborgs,
spine thieves, or other various criminals, they do their job, and
get paid very well for it. One night, Gally sees Ido sneaking
out of the house.
Worried
that he is a spine
thief,
she follows him. It is when he stops two brain eating cyborgs from killing
a young woman, that she discovers that
her savior is a hunter warrior. During the fight, Ido is wounded. When she
comes to his rescue, Gally's combat abilities are awakened. She quickly
kills one cyborg, and seriously injures the other. Enjoying the thrill of
the battle, she decides to follow in her mentor's footsteps, despite his
objections.
It
does not take long for her to become one of the best Hunter Warriors in
the city. This does not go unnoticed by several people including a local
crime boss named Mr. Vector and Ido's rival, an exiled Zalem scientist
named Chiren. Now Gally becomes embroiled in a seedy underworld where
right and wrong are not as clear as she thought. A place where the innocent
can die just as quick as the wicked.
DVD
VISION TEST
VIDEO:
Very well done. Colors are beautiful with no bleeding. This is important
since the color sets the tone of the scene. The actual video is somewhat
light in spots and there is some garbage, but that is due to the source,
not the transfer. Lines are full and strong. A little wrinkles here and
there, but not that noticeable.
AUDIO: Richer than many DVD's, it sounds great on our surround sound setup.
On the Japanese track, the voices get a little drowned out by the music
and sound effects. With the English mix, the music and voices are balanced
out quite well.
EDITS:
Japanese text titles have been eliminated from the ending and replaced
with two different angels of English credits. Other than that, no
edits have been made.
EXTRAS:
A nice photo gallery and some character design drawings, nothing
that I would get excited about.
WIDESCREEN
REVIEW
STORY:
Battle Angel is based off of the Gunum manga by Kishiro Yukito. Pretty much
all of the OVA is lifted right from the pages of the first two books, with
even whole blocks of dialogue scripted into the series. There are some minor
divergence's, mostly in the area of pacing. The only major change from the
manga is the inclusion of Chiren. The excessive gore found in the Gunum
manga has been toned down as well. It is a shame that this excellent OVA
didn't make it as a series. The story of Gally goes way beyond what we see
here.
ACTING:
The Japanese voices are great. Good range and tone. My favorite is Ryuzoburo
Otomo as Grewsha. His deep voice and mocking tone when he calls Gally
"Baby" is very creepy.
With the English cast, its kind of a mixed bag. ADV regulars Amanda Winn
and Spike Spenser are great as Gally and Yugo. Having become big fans
of these voice actors while watching Burn Up W and Evangelion, it's great
to hear some of their early work. Unfortunately, some other members of
the English cast are not as "animated" as the Japanese actors.
FAN SERVICE: Not a lot of fanservice in this series. You do get some nice
shots of hot scientist Chiren naked. Since this is a hard core cyber punk
story, there are no real places for panty shots or anime in-jokes.
CONCLUSION:
Battle Angel is one of the first OVA's to be released in
the early 90's. With it's combination of over the top violence, fast paced
action, and interesting story, this DVD has earned a place in the hearts
of anime fans. While not a "classic" like "Akira" or "Yamato", it definitely
is better than some of the dreck (Turn A Gundam for example) that has
been produced to date.
Hyper
Future Vision Gunnum is still a run away hit, on both sides of the
Pacific. In Japan, first run prints are getting harder and harder
to find. Acceding to demand, KC comics printed a larger "Akira"
sized manga. The final volume contained something for the true "Battle
Angel" fan....a special DVD with a CG animated Gally. Now,
with the new manga coming out, we expect them to disappear completely!
On
the U.S. side, "Battle Angel Atilla" comics are hard to
find. A reprinting has started, but no special DVD for us.
"Battle Angel" has proven to be so popular, that copies of the
original DVD pressing run at over $45 on AMAZON.COM! Very few DVD's can
boast that kind of price hike.
While this
is a manga come to life, it is sadly too short. Just as you start to get
into the story, the second episode is over, and you are left to wonder
what direction the Gunum anime would have take, if more episodes had been
made. I would love to have see her in the arena, like in the manga.
On the
technical side, ADV
has done a great job in transferring this early OVA to the new DVD format.
Looking much better than their video or Laser Disc release, the image
is clean, with out blemishes, rainbows, or color overblasts. The extras
are the only weak spot.
Overall, Battle Angel is an excellent DVD in both quality and story. Despite
its weak extras, all in all, it should have a place on your shelf.
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