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SUMMARY

Elk is a bounty hunter with a mysterious past. As a part of a prestigious bounty guild led by the even more myssterious Chu, Elk takes on the types of jobs other hunters are afraid to do.

During one such job that involves a highjacked air ship, Elk encounters a young girl named Lieza. The very mysterious Leiza can talk to Monsters, including the lion-like Pandet, who is traveling with her. While helping her escape, they encounter a genetically made monster called a Chimera. Quickly defeating the creature, Elk attempts to gain information about the White House, the place the Chimera came from. It is also the place where his father was killed, as a very young boy. Before Elk can find any information, a really, really mysterious airship appears and attempts to kill our young hunter.

After Elk recovers from his near death expirence, Chu, arrives in town to help him track down Lieza and Pandet. Somehow, there is some connection between the mysterious girl and the more mysterious White House. No one relizes that the White House is all too aware of Elk and his new friends. The White House will stop at nothing to ensure that Elk and Lieza figure out theri secret. Now Elk must figure out the secret of White House and track down the one person he believes is responsible for killing his family, Arc The Lad!

DVD VISION TEST

VIDEO:Video from ADV is consistently well done. No distortions or pixels evident except in some very dark portions. No color bleeds or red overblast to be noted. With the digital animation, you would not expect too many errors.

AUDIO: Good audio mix on both English and Japanese versions. The audio on the Japanese version is sharper and louder with better directionality. The English audio track seems a little more muted. However, this does not detract from the overall presentation.

EXTRAS: No extras. A shock for an ADV release.

WIDESCREEN REVIEW

STORY: Story Supervisor Ryoji Akagawa and Series Writer Akemi Omode have written a very methodical and slow moving story. Attempting to be epic, it just comes off dull. There are no surprises, no shocks. If the game is anything like this, I'll go play Parasite Eve.

ACTING: Frankly, neither the Japanese nor the English do anything for me. It's not that the acting is bad, it's just the fact that the story is so slow and sterile that there isn't really a lot of need for emotion.

FAN SERVICE: Nope. Not even a panty shot. Unless you want to see Elk in the shower.....ewwww!

CONCLUSION 

Whenever you see the tag line "Based off the Game", a big warning sign pops up. Will it be cool like "Street Fighter"' or will it blow like "Tekken"? Well due to the strength of the trailer, we popped in this disc for a look.

This is one of the most predictable, boring, and slow moving films ever made . In comparison," Wings of Honneamise"is lightning paced. From the rather slow fight sequence in the first episode, to the lame chases, this feels like a rather dull RPG video game. The story barely moves. By the end of the third episode, we are no closer to finding out anything and the star of the series, Arc appears for just 30 seconds in episode three . Despite having access to the entire series, I simply couldn't go any further. In all honesty, if the rest of the series is this slow, I would rather watch Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen's animated series.
The animation is very well done. It's good to see some early work from the folks who made "Noir". I do love the fact that it was shot on digital video. It gives a cleaner and more professional feel to the finished product . However, despite great animation, the character designs are pretty uninteresting.

Arc The Lad. Well, if it was called Elk the Boy, then this would be a hentai release. If it had been a hentai release then maybe I could have stayed awake for this "epic" series. Arc The Lad will mostly appeal to the RPG game fan. The rest of us will have to go somewhere else for a double shot of anime.

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