Coicent / Five Numbers: Double Feature Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		5.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Coicent / Five Numbers: Double Feature Blu-ray Movie Review

Two for the price of. . .two?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 23, 2011

Anime lovers are used to getting a pretty fair bang for their consumer buck in terms of their home video purchases. Full series of anime classics are regularly released, and in fact there have been complaints in some quarters about how many series have been rereleased in various iterations through the years. Even OVAs are frequently relatively high budget affairs and can run well over two hours at times, with copious bonus features added into the mix once they matriculate to DVD and Blu-ray. Shorter form productions often get the short end of the stick and very few see the home video release light of day. Sentai Filmworks is helping to remedy that deficit by presenting two minimally related OVAs from Sunrise, Coicent and Five Numbers!. While both are futuristic tales, they have little else in common in either story, overall content, style and characters. This sort of double feature may well rise or fall upon the strength of each individual title, for with both of these features running at less than an hour combined, if any given viewer feels that one or the other is lackluster, that makes the putative value in purchasing this two-fer less palatable. Even those who end up loving both of these features may do a quick cost-benefit analysis with regard to these features’ short running times, for these two pieces are certainly the antitheses of more labyrinthine fare like the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex franchise, to give just one example. Both Coicent and Five Numbers! are in fact much more analogous to short stories. Neither of these features have much backstory, and in fact it may take the viewer a moment or two to acclimate to plots that are seemingly joined mid-stride, and neither really goes for anything other than a quick plot arc with minimal development. But within this somewhat limited context, both Coicent and Five Numbers! offer some appealing content and bright and vivid animation styles.

Coicent

The positives and negatives of short form anime are completely on display in Coicent, especially in the short’s opening sequence, which plops the viewer down midstream in what is evidently a 27th century future, albeit one where a school class is visiting a recreation of a 21st century city known as Nara. Got that? That’s just the beginning of what viewers need to quickly get up to speed on, as schoolboy Shinichi has a crush on some sort of totemic projection- automaton who acts as a tour guide of sorts for the arriving class. In the meantime, we’re introduced to a daffy inventor and his two, Blue Meanie-esque thugs, as the inventor tries to put the finishing touches on the latest iteration of his automaton, a young female android who seems to be developing human feelings and desires of her own. The android manages to escape at almost the same moment that Shinichi is surrounded by a large coterie of stags (as in deer), including an all white one who laughs mysteriously and grabs Shinichi’s backpack, leading the youth on a mad scramble that ends up with Shinichi flying through the air on the albino stag’s back. That enables the boy and his deer to rescue the android, which has just that moment been falling to a precipitous demise after one of the Blue Meanie- esque thugs pushes her off the side of a building.

As might be clear from that brief précis, Coicent is at the very least a surreal effort that doesn’t waste much time setting up its bizarre characters and having them proceed along a short, but rather sweet, story arc. Shinichi and the android, who is named Toto, quickly develop a relationship which is heightened by the fact that the mad inventor and his thugs are out to reclaim the girl. Shinichi wants to get Toto to the sea, which she has never seen before and which she longs to view before whatever nefarious aims the mad inventor have for her come to fruition. That’s pretty much the sum total of Coicent, an odd little film that nonetheless is beautifully animated and which has a surprising amount of heart packed into its 28 minute or so running time. With some very well rendered CGI and fantastic character design and precise backgrounds, this is a joy to watch and also has some daffy humor sprinkled into the mix. It’s slight to be sure, but it’s also immensely enjoyable.

Five Numbers!

Five Numbers! is a considerably more serious effort, but one which falters perhaps due to that very seriousness. The animation style is much more early-CGI looking, with smooth, textureless features and unrealistic character designs which further grates against what is meant to be a sort of identity mystery a la Six Characters in Search of an Author or that great Twilight Zone episode with the four characters stuck in the gigantic barrel. In this case we get a handful of disparate characters who all wake up in a labyrinthine structure with no windows and evidently no way of escape. They soon meet up with each other, but none remembers how they arrived where they are, and none seems to quite know what’s going on. Five Numbers! plays on that kind of And Then There Were None paranoia (in fact one of the characters actually says just that: “And then there were none. . .”), as each characters attempts to figure out what’s going on while being at least a little suspicious that others may in fact know what’s going on.

Into this mix wanders an elderly man and his pet cat, two denizens of this weird environment who don’t seem to be part of the original group. Slowly the new inhabitants figure out they’re on a penal colony in space, one which may be headed towards a fiery reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere. That isn’t as much of a spoiler as it may seem, as Five Numbers! takes that supposed surprise and then turns it on its head with a quick series of revelations in the short’s denouement which casts an entirely new light on what’s actually been going on. Five Numbers! is even shorter than Coicent, at least by a couple of minutes or more, and that brevity does not help the film establish its ideas or especially its putative twist, which comes so fast and furiously in the film’s final couple of minutes that some viewers may need to rewind and play it again to fully comprehend exactly what’s been revealed. Five Numbers! isn’t bad, and in fact boasts an intriguing premise, but thrust up against the light and ebullient Coicent it makes for a decidedly less enjoyable piece by way of comparison with the other short if not taken on its own.

Coicent / Five Numbers: Double Feature Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: With the exception of screencap 20, which is the Main Menu screen, odd numbered screencaps are from Coicent and even numbered ones are from Five Numbers!.

As might be expected from fare created in a purely digital environment, Coicent/Five Numbers' AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1 is a pristine and artifact free presentation that offers nicely simulated 3D environments in two radically different animation styles. Coicent looks more like traditional anime, though it has a wealth of detail and just plain gorgeous color that are not typical of weekly series fare. Character designs are fairly traditional with regard to Shinichi and Toto, but some of the supporting cast, especially the mad scientist and his two goons, are appropriately weird looking and offer some great comedy relief. Coicent boasts exceptional line detail, saturation and rendering. While Five Numbers! is just as sharp in its own way, its more decidedly old school appearance pales somewhat in comparison to the first feature. Here we're offered shiny smooth textures and characters without a wealth of detail. It's obviously done intentionally, and it helps to make some of the actual detailed moments pop all the more dramatically, but overall Five Numbers! comes off as Coicent's much poorer cousin. Colors are nicely saturated in this piece as well, and while the short doesn't quite offer the same incredible sharpness and clarity as Coicent, it's still very well done.

Coicent / Five Numbers: Double Feature Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Both of the lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mixes on this Blu-ray, one in English and the other in Japanese, sport excellent fidelity while also providing at least occasional boisterous surround activity. Once again, as with some other elements on this two-fer, Coicent probably comes out at least a little ahead with regard to consistent use of surround channels and especially with regard to LFE. Both the opening crowded schoolbus sequence, as well as some festival scenes and especially a fantastic segment where a gigantic Buddha statue come to life wreaks havoc on a temple provide ample low end and some fun sound effects populating the surrounds. Coicent also features some great voice work in both languages and some appealing music. Five Numbers! actually does very well in terms of creating a spacious, ambient environment where there's actually not a lot of sonic activity, helping to evoke the large empty space where the characters find themselves. There are some occasional nice effects sequences in this short as well, notably the rocket flight which caps the short. Dialogue in both of these offerings is clear and well prioritized, and both features offer excellent fidelity and dynamic range.

Coicent / Five Numbers: Double Feature Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Coicent Special Features:

• Japanese Trailer (HD; 00:32)
• Clean Opening Animation (HD; 1:13)
• Clean Closing Animation (HD; 1:50)

Five Numbers! Special Features:

• Interview with Miyu Irino (voice of Noir 17) (1080i; 11:17)
• Interview with Dai Sato (Scriptwriter) (1080i; 17:29)
• Japanese Trailers (1080i; 2:34)

Coicent / Five Numbers: Double Feature Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This is an interesting two-fer which offers a lot to look at, if not exactly a lot to think about. These two "bedfellows" are an odd pairing with little in common other than their futuristic settings, which may work more to Five Numbers's detriment than anything else. Coicent is a very sweet and gorgeous looking tale, and Five Numbers! is intriguing, if not fully realized, probably due to its selfsame brevity. On the whole, though, this is a great looking and sounding pairing that certainly shows what some contemporary anime artists are attempting to do in a shorter form exercise. Recommended.