Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie Review

Hell on wheels.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 12, 2012

The 1970’s are alive and well, at least in Japan. Just recently we’ve had the live action cartoon of Karate-Robo Zaborgar, a lunatic reboot of a popular television series that portrayed the love between a butt kicking hero and his transforming robot which had been fashioned out of the DNA of the hero’s deceased twin brother. (Yes, it’s crazy, intentionally so.) Now comes this anime, which is actually a reboot of a reboot, but it, like Karate-Robo Zaborgar, can trace its DNA back to the era of bell bottoms and Farrah Fawcett hairstyles. In 1973, Kiyoshi Nagai, who is perhaps better known under his nom de plume of Go Nagai, created a manga called Dororon Enma-kun which was quickly adapted into an anime. Nagai had been at the forefront of those updating the manga format for what was then a new generation, and his attempts weren’t always met with universal acclaim. His introduction of elements of fan service as well as some burgeoning violence were decried, much as many mass market pop cultural phenomena in the United States of the late sixties and early seventies which now seem incredibly tame were lambasted for supposedly leading to the incipient decline of Western Civilization. Dororon Enma-kun hid some of its controversial elements behind a thin veil of goofiness, and the original series captured the hearts of generation with its manic energy, something it definitely shares with the original television series on which Karate- Robo Zaborgar was based. Go continued to develop a number of idioms in manga and anime which would later become instrumental in making the genre a world wide phenomenon, including shows featuring mecha plotlines and more controversially, the sexually enflamed ecchi idiom, but Dororon Enma-kun must have particularly appealed to its creator, for he has returned to it several times since. In 2006 there was a brief reboot which removed some of the comedic elements, and then in 2011 there was another reboot, originally titled Dororon Enma-kun Meera Mera, which is now receiving an American release as Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up.

Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up may remind anime fans of a number of titles that have spanned that last several years, shows like Yu Yu Hakusho and Soul Eater. For those unfamiliar with Dororon Enma-kun’s long gestational period, then, Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up may seem derivative when it fact predates many if not all of these shows by decades. Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up definitely reintroduces goofy comedy into the mix, and the show sometimes tends to undercut its spookier aspects with its over the top humor.

The main (human) character in Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up is a young girl named Harumi. As the series opens, Harumi is debating whether or not to be brave enough to journey to her school at night time, since rumor has it the building becomes full of malevolent spirits once darkness descends. Harumi encounters a coterie of her friends who want to brave the elements and get into the school that night, and since one of them is named Poindexter, it doesn’t take much to imagine how efficacious their attempts to round up errant spirits will be. Spirits in fact do show up, and they’re kind of reminiscent of some of the hallucinogenic characters in Yellow Submarine, with huge lips and long tongues that actually lick the faces right off of Harumi’s friends.

That sends Harumi into a panic and she ends up stumbling into a bright green pool of slimy water, where she assumes she’s a goner. A shadowy figure appears above her and pulls her out of the water, and Harumi, after expelling an absurdly large amount of water, turns to her savior and—screams. The hero is a frog like creature (Harumi in fact mistakes him—or it—for a frog) called a Kappa, and whose name is, appropriately, Kappavier. Kappavier becomes Harumi’s tour guide in a way in an alternate world which is rather felicitously called The Hell-iday Inn. There she meets several characters who are reboots or newly imagined versions of several iconic characters from the original Dororon Enma- kun. These include Enma himself, a red eyed young boy who is the nephew of the King of the Underworld; Yukiko, a comely ice princess whose abilities are kind of like X-Men’s Storm, as opposed to Enma’s more Torch-like proclivities; and Chapeauldie, a talking witch’s hat.

That sets the series off on its main plot arc, where Harumi and her underworldly cohorts begin rounding up malevolent spirits which have escaped from Hell and need to be returned to their proper place in the cosmic order of things. That may sound familiar, but Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up manages to invest the premise with a consistently lunatic sense of humor that helps to give the show its own peculiar flavor. Some of the humor pushes the bounds of what some will find politically (and/or sexually) correct, so despite the childlike (and childish) veneer applied to Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up, this is definitely not a show for younger viewers.

Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up may surprise those who have been collecting all of the NIS America Premium Editions of anime outings, most of which have been incredibly gentle, even slow, offerings that are long on character and sometimes pretty short on plot. This series, on the other hand, is just a nonstop assault of carnival like mayhem, with a patently bizarre sense of humor, extremely peculiar goblins and spirits, and an animation style that definitely favors a retro, quasi-1970’s look. None of these are bad in and of themselves, of course, but for a label which has seemed to be attempting to brand itself as the “kinder, gentler” anime distributor, Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up seems like a decidedly risky move.

Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of NIS America with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This show features an intentionally "old school" animation style which actually has some interstitials that look like they were scrawled in crayon (see the third screencap accompanying this review for a good example). Other stylistic elements include rampant chibi and other changes in characters that give the series a really nicely varied appearance. The overall look of the show is on the soft side, again intentionally show, with a kind of slightly hazy look that helps to recreate the almost dreamlike ambience that Harumi finds herself in once she hooks up with the denizens of the deep. Line detail is precise, and colors are extremely well saturated throughout the series.

Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up features a great sounding uncompressed LPCM 2.0 soundtrack in the original Japanese. It should be noted that while the inserts of the disc cases state that the English subtitles are nonremovable, they are indeed optional, something NIS America has wisely been offering after its first few releases did not have removable subtitles. Dialogue is very cleanly and clearly presented, the series' fun score is very well represented, and the crazy quilt of bizarre sound effects which come into play with a variety of outlandish spectral entities wreaking havoc are extremely enjoyable. Fidelity is top notch and dynamic range is very wide.

Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This is yet another deluxe NIS package which includes a sturdy slipcase which holds two slimline cases, each with one Blu- ray and one DVD, as well as a lushly illustrated hardback book. The book includes the typical assortment of character illustrations and descriptions, but this particular volume also has some very interesting multi-page interviews with various members of the creative crew, including Go Nagai himself. The actual on disc supplements are relatively slim, but include:

• Clean Opening Animation (HD; 18:01) features 12 variations on the opening.


• Clean Closing Animation (HD; 15:06) has 10 variations on the closing.

Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

My hunch is some Westerners will feel like they're on the outside of an inside joke with Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up, due in part to the fact that the source anime is just not that well known in the United States. Imagine an American reboot of the old 1960's series Batman playing in a Japan that had never seen the Adam West – Burt Ward show, and you might have at least some idea of the cultural disconnect which is going to confront at least some viewers. That qualm aside, though, Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up is a decidedly weird little series, one that should definitely appeal to those who want a bizarre sense of humor and some interesting otherworldly characters. However, there's one major caveat to those who have been lured into NIS America's "kinder, gentler" anime offerings thus far: Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up is considerably lewder and cruder, so buyer beware. Recommended.