Absolute Duo: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Absolute Duo: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie Review

Absolute Duo is an action-anime series with a spin on schools with students harnessing unique abilities. The series is from creator Takumi Hiiragiboshi and with illustrations from You Asaba. Produced by Hidetake Komiya, Kazuo Ōnuki, Keisuke Kaminaga, Makoto Ito, Mika Shimizu, and Uesama, Absolute Duo will take audiences on a big scale adventure. The animation is from production studio 8 bit (Aquarion Evol, The Eden of Grisaia).

Thor Kokonoe (Yoshitsugu Matsuoka) joins a special school of students at Koryo Academy. The famous and esteemed school helps students to harness their unique powers and also how to learn to be the heroes of their own tales. Kokonoe finds himself in a special position at the school when he is soon paired up with vixen Julie Sigtuna (Nozomi Yamamoto). It isn’t long before Kokonoe finds himself spending time with Julie – the two even sleep in the same room. Is it business time?

While things become more complicated between Kokonoe and Julie, the year becomes even more interesting when more female students toss themselves at Kokonoe – Miyabi Hotaka (Ayaka Imamura), Lilith Bristol (Haruka Yamazaki), and Tomoe Tachibana (Ayaka Suwa) can’t resist. Kokonoe’s superpower turns out to be a shield – and he might just need it to survive the school year (with so many girls tossing themselves at him). Shield up!

The series has impressive animation. This is one of the strengths of the series and one of the reasons audiences might consider checking out the show. The animation has excellent character designs by Keiichi Sano. These designs highlight the unique personalities and character-types of the central characters. The mecha designs by Takashi Kojima manage to expand the series creativity as well: highlighting the elements that contribute to the action backbone.

The animation direction is by Keiichi Sano (A Certain Scientific Railgun, Love Live! Sunshine!! The School Idol Movie Over the Rainbow) and Kii Tanaka (Yo-kai Watch: The Movie, Kaguya-sama: Love is War). In developing the series animation, Absolute Duo does a solid job of bringing forth good effort from the team of animators involved in the production. The animation showcases the background art and the detailed line art as well.

The visual aesthetics of Absolute Duo translates over to the cinematography by Kei Machida (Penguin Highway, Belle). The cinematography is unquestionably one of the finer points of the production. A impressive effort on many levels, the cinematographic style showcases the unusual world of the Koryo Academy and the lives of the students. Showing a balance of light and dark aesthetics, the animation is certainly well lit and cinematographer Machida understands the material and what to showcase at the forefront.

The score by Atsushi Hirasawa (Uchi no Oochopus, Kigurumikku V3) adds little value to the production. Unfortunately, the music doesn’t seem to stand out much in comparison to other anime score. This is underwhelming and not something that helps the series stand out as much as it could have with a more immersive or compelling score. Hirasawa provides adequate background music but it doesn’t make a big impression.

Written by Takamitsu Kouno (We Without Wings - Under the Innocent Sky, She Professed Herself Pupil of the Wise Man), Absolute Duo is not a series with a exceptional script, but it does have a clever enough concept and the execution is solid enough that it will entertain. Nonetheless, character dialogue and dimensions could have been better on the whole.

Directed by Atsushi Nakayama (Transformers: Cybertron, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime), Absolute Duo is no classic but it does offer fans some action anime fun that audiences will enjoy. Certainly, Absolute Duo is a series that audiences can relax to and enjoy if they want some simple pleasures with beautiful animation and some solid action.

Absolute Duo: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Arriving on Blu-ray from Funimation, Absolute Duo is presented in 1080p MPEG-4 AVC encoded high definition in the original television aspect ratio of 1.78:1 widescreen. The release showcases some beautiful imagery in high definition. The color reproduction is excellent and capably handles the cinematography alongside the efforts of the animators involved in the production. The animation is colorful and engaging. The encode handles the action and doesn't struggle with compression woes.

Absolute Duo: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The release includes a selection of audio options: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround sound and Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0 stereo (with English subtitles). The lossless audio sound encoding is something that will enhance the experience for audiences. The English dub has a decent surround presentation with a slightly expanded soundstage (used mostly for expanding the score and some of the occasional effects). The score is especially well integrated. Even though the Japanese language track only offers stereo audio, the stereo soundstage will satisfy fans with lossless encoding.

Absolute Duo: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Episode 10 Audio Commentary

Episode 12 Audio Commentary

Textless Opening Song – "Absolute Soul" (HD, 1:32)

Textless Closing Songs:

"Believe x Believe" (HD, 1:32)

"Appuru Tii no Aji" (HD, 1:32)

"2/2" (HD, 1:32)

Promotional Videos (HD, 3:04)

Commercials (HD, 1:06)

U.S. Trailer (HD, 1:20)

The release also includes a selection of trailers promoting other releases available from distributor Funimation Entertainment: World Break: Aria of Curse for a Holy Swordsman (HD, 00:48), Blood Blockade Battlefront (HD, 1:50), Garo the Animation (HD, 1:05), Doamygar-D (SD, 1:09), The Heroic Legend of Arslan (HD, 1:05), The Rolling Girls (HD, 1:08), and Yona of the Dawn (HD, 1:03).

Absolute Duo: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Absolute Duo is an action-packed series with a clever concept and an interesting cast of characters. While it isn't a top-tier production, the series showcases beautiful animation. The animators did exceptional work on the design of the series. The Blu-ray release features a solid video and audio presentation. The release also includes a small selection of bonus features (including two audio commentaries). Fans of Absolute Duo will certainly be pleased with the release. Recommended.