BPS Battle Programmer Shirase: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.0
Video		2.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		1.5

BPS Battle Programmer Shirase: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie Review

A misfire anime production with no redeeming merit

BPS: Battle Programmer Shirase: Complete Collection is a high-tech computer hacker comedy-drama which revolves around a freewheeling work-for-hire hacker who makes a big name for himself in the digital world at his fingertips. Produced by television production studios AIC and GANSIS, the short anime series had a brief life and originally broadcast on Japanese television network TV Kanagawa in 2013.

Akira Shirase (Nakai Kazuya) is considered a legendary computer hacker who refuses to take jobs for traditional financial compensation. Determined to wreck havoc on giant corporations while working odd jobs for bizarre forms of compensations, the laid-back hacker takes on one big task after another from a variety of clients. The strange requests received for his odd-job hacking skills repeatedly come into play.

As the series progresses, the storytelling becomes increasingly repetitive and downright dull in the way its approached. The anime lacks imagination and relies heavily on perverted comedy for shock effect for viewers. The hacker's young great-niece Misao Amano (Fukuen Misato) is frequently in strange sexual positions with Akira Shirase and the anime pokes fun at this constantly.

Control. Alt. Delete.

Every episode seems to find a way to insert the exact same pervy jokes about the inappropriate pairing (with those hiring Akira proclaiming their shock for his deviancy). The entire production relies on this comedy and its one of the reasons the series is such a major let-down. The comedy is cheap, gross, and altogether juvenile.

The animation is nothing to write home about, either. With average art direction by Maho Takahashi (Tenchi Muyo GXP) and uninspired character designs by Ryoichi Makino (Gunbuster, Shuffle!), the experience falls flat on its face. There's nothing exciting to make the experience a worthwhile one. It meanders about for the brief run.

Hiroki Hayashi (Strike Witches, Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040) directs the series with a voice that feels entirely stifled by generic anime conventions and a lack of genuine creativity. BPS: Battle Programmer Shirase is a complete and utter letdown which lacks the type of production merits necessary to make things work. The series has a lack of storytelling finesse in all the areas that are important: character, plot, and thematic elements are entirely forgotten. BPS: Battle Programmer Shirase fails to ever create genuine magic and instead meanders through episodic stories with a “hacker quest of the week” mentality.

The release of BPS: Battle Programmer Shirase is advertised as being a complete collection of the series run and includes five episodes. However, while the Blu-ray release is advertised as being a complete collection, the series is listed as having had 15 12-minute long episodes produced (which should total 180 minutes), while the disc contains 125 minutes of content. This may be some kind of discrepancy in the content included. Viewers are advised.

BPS Battle Programmer Shirase: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The release is presented in 1080i MPEG-4 AVC encoded high definition. The presentation on this release is altogether underwhelming. The opening and ending themes are both window-boxed as outdated credits with black bars on all sides of the picture. The presentation is underwhelming throughout each episode (with obvious interlacing on the image causing a distraction).

Although the release doesn't indicate this as a standard-definition upscale, it's obvious this production is from the early age of digital anime and the source animation has a decidedly underwhelming quality with weak resolution and a subdued color reproduction. This is a soft, average presentation that looks only slightly better than a standard-definition DVD. There's simply nothing special about it.

BPS Battle Programmer Shirase: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Blu-ray release arrives with a Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo audio track. The release does not contain an English dub option and the series is only available to experience with the original language audio presentation. The audio quality on the track is extremely mundane. The track has very limited fidelity and it sounds only slightly better than a compressed track. The clarity in the audio is rather uninspiring.

The track lacks any knockout elements with regards to LFE and the experience is merely acceptable at best. The only segments which sound a bit more impressive are the opening/ending themes (which are more punchy sounding) as the audio is extremely flat and the soundstage is uninteresting. The English subtitles are non-removable.

BPS Battle Programmer Shirase: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The release only has a small selection of supplements as detailed below:

Clean Opening Animation (HD, 1:17)

Clean Closing Animation (HD, 1:32)

The release also includes a selection of trailers for other releases available from distributor Maiden Japan.

BPS Battle Programmer Shirase: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

With a lack of imagination at every turn of the series, BPS: Battle Programmer Shirase is a anime which misses the mark. The production values are atrocious, the storytelling is altogether weak, and the comedic hijinks on display feel seriously irritating. The Blu-ray release includes a below average presentation with mediocre video and underwhelming audio. Skip It.