Rozen Maiden: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

Rozen Maiden: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Neil Lumbard March 22, 2024

Rozen Maiden is a dark fantasy anime series. The series features supernatural elements and some gothic undertones that expand on the series narrative. Sentai Filmworks has unleashed an incredible box-set for fans of the anime franchise.

The collection spans the complete series and includes multiple sagas of the franchise. The set includes the original Rozen Maiden, Rozen Maiden Träumend, Rozen Maiden: Ouvertüre, and Rozen Maiden – Zurückspulen. The franchise features animation production by Nomad. Created by Peach-Pit, Rozen Maiden is a franchise broadcast originally on the Tokyo Broadcasting System. The series features the voice performances of Asami Sanada and Miyuki Sawashiro.

These maidens might look like ordinary dolls intended to be played with by children. The features are reminiscent of toys. Toys that one might expect to fly off the shelves to adoring children. Yet these peculiar dolls are not in fact aimed at little children. Rather, the toys are the creation of the quirky toymaker Rozen. Rozen is the master of making toys and the dolls are unlikely anything else on the marketplace.

The dolls each have Roza Mystica gems installed inside of their architecture. These are gems that provide new life to the toys and bring them out of dormancy. The dolls are given true life: bestowed with life and given actual purpose – to battle other dolls.

There are seven dolls in total and battles ensue to see who will win in a fight to the end. The winning doll gets the gem of the doll who is defeated. Jun Sakurada (Asami Sanada) find himself feeling overwhelmed when he becomes the master of the doll Shinku (Miyuki Sawashiro). Can Jun be a good doll master and rise to the challenge? Or will Shinku eventually be defeated?

The characters are an essential part of the franchise. The main characters of Jun Sakurada and Shinku play a significant role in the franchise roots. Without these characters, it is hard to imagine the anime becoming such a long-running franchise. This is something that is unsurprising to consider when one thinks of how essential it is to create compelling leads for a long-running franchise (anime or otherwise).

The character designs by Kumi Ishii are compelling and add to the series aesthetic charms. The designs certainly help to create a supernatural and gothic undertone to the production. The dolls look quite eerie at times and the design attributes are largely due to the design efforts for the production. An impressive aspect of the series.

The series features notable animation. The animation includes art direction by Chikako Shibata. The franchise also includes animation direction by Kumi Ishii. The animation team brought a lot to the production table. The series art style is often dark, gothic, and haunting. The series animators understood the genre element requited darkness and imbued the series with the right kind of ingredients to make something unnerving and memorable at the same time.

The animators add considerable eeriness to the production as a result. Fans of grittier and darker anime aesthetics should consider the animation style here to be especially impressive to behold on the series production. The series doesn’t simply display a cookie cutter style that is typical of some of the more lighthearted anime series (with an emphasis on comedy routines). The style here is considerably darker and more mature. The cinematography for Rozen Maiden is effective at emphasizing these elements to make the aesthetic all the more unnerving.

The score composed by Shinkichi Mitsumune is an impressive element of the production. The music is good background music and helps to fit the eeriness of the production. The score helps to bring the quirkiness and strangeness of the series to life. Composer Mitsumune understands the gothic and brooding atmosphere and helps to bring that element of the series to life.

Rozen Maiden and its associate seasons Rozen Maiden Träumend, Rozen Maiden: Ouvertüre, and Rozen Maiden – Zurückspule offer strange and eerie fantasy to fans of more unusual curiosities in the anime medium. The franchise is one with a good number of fans. Sentai has truly done an impressive job in compiling the complete package in one budget-friendly complete collection.

Rozen Maiden: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Released on Blu-ray by Sentai Filmworks, Rozen Maiden has received a 1080p MPEG-4 AVC encoded high-definition presentation in the original 1.78:1 widescreen television broadcast aspect ratio. The presentation isn't totally pristine and there are some ups and downs to the presentation quality. A presentation that highlights some positive and negative elements to the release. The first three seasons comprising Rozen Maiden, Rozen Maiden Träumend, and Rozen Maiden: Ouvertüre are in a 1080i high- definition presentation.

The picture quality for these seasons is somewhat inconsistent looking as the video quality shows jaggies and signs of artifacts that is common with interlaced video. The series has somewhat soft and average-looking high-definition presentations. Colors look somewhat muted and don't manage to make a big impression on the whole. The presentation looks similar to that of a standard-definition upscale on each of these seasons.

The video quality isn't that much better than a standard-definition upscale, even with a somewhat modest high-definition source. With these types of anime productions, the actual clarity and definition is likely somewhere between standard definition and a fully native high-definition presentation quality. Much of this is due to the production era – a transition era of sorts in which animation in Japan was often finished digitally and before all of the modern high-definition video specs became more mainstream and baseline as is common today.

As a result, one will notice some slight video inconsistencies and it is a bit disappointing to see that the presentation isn't as crisp or as colorful looking as modern anime productions. Nothing much can be done about it and these are certainly source-related production issues but one can't expect to get that much more out of the presentation. Despite some imperfections in the presentation, the transfer quality isn't as bad as it could be and there are some positive attributes to the presentation. The video quality is still a bit better when compared to standard- definition. Even at 1080i, despite the interlacing and soft high-definition video, it offers a marginal improvement over a DVD.

On the bright side, Rozen Maiden – Zurückspulen – Season 4 is a big improvement in presentation quality. Season 4 is in 1080p MPEG-4 AVC encoded high-definition. The fourth season has a native high-definition presentation and one that doesn't show any jaggies or soft video picture-quality issues as are seen on the previous three seasons.

The quality jump is significant and cannot be understated. The animation has more rewarding color reproduction – bold and vivid colors. Outstanding, beautiful, and immersive. The background animation and line art look significantly better for the fourth season. The native high- definition presentation shines and showcases a vast uptick in quality over what came before.

Rozen Maiden: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The audio on the release is presented in lossless English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 and Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (with English subtitles). The lossless audio quality on the release is generally pleasing across the board. Dialogue sounds crisp, clear, and easy to understand.

The score is well reproduced. Despite only being in stereo audio, the stereo sound design imaging sounds impressive and has an element of immersion for the sound effects and the score. The first three seasons sound a bit less robust, detailed, and LFE immersive compared to the fourth season. This is no real surprise given differences in the production years and the fourth season has a bit more crispness to it that reflects the fidelity of the time-period.

Fans will find the audio presentation to be satisfactory overall and it is well encoded on the release by distributor Sentai Filmworks. Purists will want to opt for the original Japanese language audio over the English dubbed option. Regardless, Sentai Filmworks wisely includes both options on the release for fans of either the English or Japanese language versions. The English subtitles were well done for the release.

Rozen Maiden: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The first thing one will notice about the set is that the release comes packaged in an oversized case with a nice flip-tray for each of the discs in the collection. The flip-tray was a nice touch for the release and fans will be pleased that discs are not overlapping or crammed into the box-set (as is sometimes the case with releases with a higher disc count). The packaging works well for the release. Sentai provides a nice cover-art and the package is certainly going to satisfy series fans.

On disc supplements include:

Disc 2:

Clean Opening Animation (HD, 1:32)

Clean Closing Animation (HD, 1:32)

Disc 4:

Clean Opening Animation (HD, 1:32)

Clean Closing Animation (HD, 1:32)

Disc 5:

Clean Opening Animation (HD, 1:32)

Clean Closing Animation (HD, 1:32)

Disc 7:

Clean Opening Animation (HD, 1:32)

Clean Closing Animation (HD, 1:32)

The release could have benefited by receiving a more robust supplemental package. The release is almost barebones. The set could have benefited a great deal by including more supplements and detailed bonus features for each season. Audio commentaries, behind-the-scenes documentaries, cast/crew interviews, art galleries, and other high-quality supplements might have added some nice extra value to the complete package. While it is wonderful that Sentai provides the complete series in one collection, supplemental junkies will have to accept the standard offerings included in the box set.

Rozen Maiden: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Rozen Maiden, Rozen Maiden Träumend, Rozen Maiden: Ouvertüre, and Rozen Maiden – Zurückspulen are all included together in one reasonably priced box-set complete collection. Sentai Filmworks has done a great job bringing together the complete series run for fans of the popular gothic fantasy anime series. For audiences who prefer darker anime series, Rozen Maiden may be worth a look.

Enthusiastic fans who are chomping at the bit to own the complete collection on Blu-ray will find this to be an impressively assembled package with plenty of content across the box-set. The release provides a lot of value with each season being included even if the supplemental package leaves something to be desired (and could have been more robust). Fans will certainly want to consider a purchase.