Appleseed XIII: Tartaros & Ouranos Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

Appleseed XIII: Tartaros & Ouranos Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 18, 2014

So much anime, so little time. Have you ever felt like that? If so, and one of your “must see” outings is the recent reboot of the venerable Appleseed saga, called Appleseed XIII, take heart: this new release cobbles together a kind of “greatest hits” from the latest series and compiles them into two “feature length” (meaning around ninety minutes or so) films.

For anyone wanting a more in depth overview of the plot of Appleseed XIII, you might want to check out our Appleseed XIII Blu-ray review. This redaction actually does a relatively decent job in maintaining a through line while jettisoning some less important character beats. It may not be the whole story, but it's enough of it for busy fans to make do.

Appleseed XIII: Tartaros & Ouranos Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Since this release was obviously sourced from the same data files that Appleseed XIII was, I'll simply repeat here what I said for that release. Appleseed XIII is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. I'm frankly a little conflicted about this CGI enterprise. There's no denying the sleek, often quite nicely crisp, looking animation, but at the same time, it often feels like we're stuck in a videogame rather than an anime. Watch, for example, how discrete blocks of various characters' hair moves—it's a weird anomaly and completely distracting at times. On the other hand, the CGI allows for some really nicely nuanced dimensionality as well as some extremely fluid action sequences. But the patently "fake" look to some of the proceedings perhaps is antithetical to Appleseed XIII's attempts to craft a "real" feeling future world. In any case, no matter how you personally may respond to the CGI, the transfer here is largely flawless. There is some minor banding evident at times, but otherwise no horrible artifacts are apparent. Colors are bold and well saturated, and line detail is largely impeccable. Surfaces often have that overly rendered look, depriving the series of any real feel of texture, but that's part and parcel of this series' tendency to look more like a videogame than an anime.

Appleseed XIII: Tartaros & Ouranos Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Appleseed XIII features Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mixes in both the original Japanese as well as an English dub. While there are some fairly dramatic differences in the voice work between the two languages, otherwise the mixes are quite similar. There's some excellent immersion throughout this series, especially noticeable in the bombastic fight sequences (which are also rife with LFE). Some of the aerial scenes offer impeccable panning effects as various objects or characters zoom through the air. Dialogue is very cleanly presented and the really lovely score sounds fantastic. Fidelity is excellent and dynamic range is extremely wide.

Appleseed XIII: Tartaros & Ouranos Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Original Movie 01 Preview (1080p; 1:36)


• Original Movie 02 Preview #1 (1080p; 1:06)


• Original Movie 02 Preview #2 (1080p; 1:51)


• Textless Closing Theme #1 (1080p; 2:58)


• Textless Closing Theme #2 (1080p; 2:55)


• U.S. Trailer (1080p; 2:02)

Appleseed XIII: Tartaros & Ouranos Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

While these two "films" are interlinked, they stand on their own as well, and neither takes a completely discrete approach toward the source series (in other words, you'll see some repeated items in both iterations). This is a decent enough condensation of the series, but I really can't imagine anyone would want to watch these in addition to the original series. This is a niche item for those who simply don't want to devote enough time to watch the original.