SUMMARY
After
narrowly escaping an assassination attempt, Griffith works quickly to
silence those who would stand in the way of his aspirations.
Through intelligence and a little detective work, Griffith soon
learns, as he suspected, that the King’s brother the Duke Yurius we
behind the assassination plot. Secretly,
Griffith commissions Guts to kill Yurius.
Under the cover of night, Guts sneaks into Duke’s
study and catches him off guard. Unfortunately,
the Duke’s young son Adonis sees Guts standing over his father’s body
with a bloody sword and shouts for the guards.
As a reflex, Guts kills the boy to quiet him. Shocked at his own actions of killing a defenseless child,
Guts attempts to console the young man as he dies.
As the guards arrive Guts quickly dispatches them and narrowly
escapes the castle without being identified.
The news of the Duke’s death travels quickly, and
with the Duke gone, Griffith is appointed to take his place in leading the
King’s royal army. Meanwhile,
Griffith is also nurturing his “friendship” with the King’s
daughter, the Princess Charlotte – slowly allowing the young princess to
fall in love with him.
Ordered by the King, Griffith leads the Midland army
into a great battle that will hopefully end the hundred-year war between
Midland and Chuder empire.
DVD VISION TEST
VIDEO:
The picture is sharp and clear. No digital fragments are apparent. The colors are vibrant, and there is no “bleeding” of the
reds. And the blacks, for the
most part, are solid.
AUDIO: : The
Dolby Digital Stereo supports the awesome soundtrack for this series well.
While an option for 5.1 audio might have been nice, there are no
complaints about the stereo sound here.
EDITS: Clean open and close animation have been used,
with the Japanese logo being replaced by the English logo. Episode
titles have been changed as well.
EXTRAS: Storyboards (from episode 13), Production Sketches, Outtakes,
Original TV Opening (same song, only slightly different video edit),
Textless Closing, and trailers for more AnimeWorks/MediaBlasters titles
(EX-Driver, Babel 2, De:Vadasy, Earthian).
The addition of the storyboards was a nice touch to the
“standard” extras. In
some parts it looks like they actually used panels from the original manga
(comic) for setting up the scenes. Once
again, the Outtakes are hilarious (hear more randomly great songs by Kevin
Collins!)
WIDESCREEN REVIEW
ACTING:
The voice casting for both the Japanese and English versions are great,
particularly in the lead characters (Guts, Griffith, and Caska).
Both Nobotoshi Hayashi and Mark Diraison do great jobs portraying
the tough, stubborn Guts. Toshiyuki
Morikawa and Kevin Collins are excellent as the cool, calculating, and
charismatic Griffith. We also
hear good work from some of the actors for the secondary characters.
One that should be of note is Tessyou Genda and Mike Pollock, the
actors for the Chuder military captain Adon.
Both do wonderfully at portraying Adon as the hilarilously
egotistical and inept captain that he is.
FINAL SPIN
In this volume, we get more action and also a break
for more character development. The
story progresses further as Griffith’s place in the court is further
solidified with his appointment to lead the army of Midland, and (as
though it may be his back-up plan), he continues to earn the affections of
the young princess Charlotte.
Best of all, we get to witness the origins of Caska
and how she came to be a member of the Hawks.
We also get a glimpse of Griffith’s past, and learn more about
the extent of the sacrifices he has made to accomplish his success
(including selling his body to a depraved noble in order to fund his
growing army). I thought it
was interesting decision on the part of the director to make the
flashbacks appear different from the “immediate” story by giving them
a softer set of colors. The
use of these lighter, more pastel, colors made the characters in the
flashbacks appear more faint, like we were watching the apparitions from
the past as Caska narrated the story.
Be
warned though, this volume ends with a pretty big cliffhanger as we see
Guts and Caska in a battle with Adon and his forces, with the odds heavily
against them. If you
haven’t already, you’ll definitely want to pick up the next volume to
see what happens next. So,
are you hooked yet?
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