6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Anime | 100% |
Foreign | 93% |
Comedy | 27% |
Fantasy | 25% |
Action | 23% |
Romance | 22% |
Sci-Fi | 8% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: Dolby TrueHD 5.1
Japanese: Dolby TrueHD 2.0
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Four-disc set (2 BDs, 2 DVDs)
DVD copy
Region A (locked)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
A by now somewhat politically incorrect anecdote about Asian restaurants has a customer ordering “one from Column A, one from Column B”, and so on, finally arriving at whatever the Eastern version of a smorgasbord might be (dim sum, maybe?). While tropes like this may have fallen out of favor in daily discourse (or even innocuous enough joking), they’re still alive and kicking in the world of anime, where various ideas and plotlines are often cobbled together from preexisting parts, kind of like an animated Frankenstein monster. Date A Live is a middling series that features a post-apocalyptic setting, certainly one of the more traditional contemporary anime tropes, and then works in everything from mecha to harem to lots of fan service just for good measure. In a few fairly tangential ways, Date A Live manages to occasionally offer a few relatively distinctive features. For example, unlike a lot of post- apocalyptic anime, we actually get to see the apocalypse, though it’s clearly labeled as having happened some thirty years previously. A huge “spacequake” envelops large portions of Japan, seeming to erupt downward from the heavens and then mushrooming out like an oily looking hydrogen bomb cloud. Though narration tells the viewer that hundreds of millions of people died in the ensuing carnage, Date A Live segues seamlessly into its perky and bouncy credits sequence, where a host of teenagers are plopped down in what look like pretty nicely developed urban environments. When even the apocalypse turns out to be kind of lackluster, it may not exactly augur well for any dramatic momentum, but then Date A Live takes the first of several fairly radical turns and indulges in a kind of smarmy sequence featuring the series’ hero, a teenage boy named Shido Itsuka, whose little sister Kotori is attempting to wake him up, evidently by flashing her panties at him as much as possible. Fan service between brother and sister is certainly nothing new in the somewhat morally questionable world of some anime, but after having seen cities fall and countless people perish in Date A Live’s opening gambit, it’s a fairly strange change in tone that may catch some viewers completely off guard.
Date A Live is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. While just a tad on the soft side some of the time, especially with regard to some of the backgrounds, Date A Live benefits from a nice blending of traditional and CGI animation as well as a very colorful palette that pops quite nicely in high definition. While some of the character animation isn't especially innovative, line detail is sharp and crisp. While backgrounds can look soft, they're also quite colorful at times, with some especially lovely orange and purple hues in the skies providing some visual allure. Some of the CGI elements are quite cool looking, including the huge bowling ball sort of globe that erupts from a spacequake, as well as some of the whirling and twirling helixes that characters appear in once Spirits start showing up in greater numbers.
Date a Live is a typically rambunctious harem/action romp and therefore provides both the English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix and Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0 mix plenty of opportunity for a fairly crowded soundfield. For that reason, even original language purists may prefer the noticeably more opened up English dub, a track which also offers more convincing accounts of the foley effects in the action sequences. Dialogue is very cleanly presented, albeit in a kind of chaotic fashion some of the time due to the general "noise" level of the series. Fidelity is excellent and dynamic range is very wide.
Date a Live is an agreeable enough enterprise, but it's over convoluted attempt to hook Shido up with a bevy of buxom beauties just seems too ridiculously overwrought for the small scale pleasures it ultimately delivers. The show is neither laugh out loud funny nor adrenaline pumping exciting, and tends to exist in a kind of middle ground that's okay, but rarely much more than passably interesting. This Blu-ray boasts generally very good technical merits, so fans of the series should be well pleased with this release.
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