Guin Saga: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Guin Saga: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 9, 2012

Kaoru Kurimoto is a name that’s most likely unfamiliar to many, if not most, of you, and yet she holds a couple of significant world records in the publishing field. Kurimoto, who died in 2009 at the age of 56, spent a staggering 30 years of her life writing the immense light novel series Guin Saga, entering the record books as the crafter of the longest running work by a single author in history. Kurimoto wrote an unbelievable 126 volumes in the Guin Saga series, and just as incredibly, the series was so popular it continued after her death with another four volumes being published. Along the way Kurimoto sold some 30 million copies of her magnum opus and as is so typical of these franchises, gave birth to a multimedia empire that has included adaptations in a variety of genres, including manga and anime. But a series this sweeping in its original form almost automatically begs the question as to how something so long and involved could be properly telescoped into a 26 episode television series. The answer is perhaps surprisingly “rather well”. Though of course large swaths of material were of necessity left by the wayside in the Guin Saga anime, there’s a compelling attention to detail and especially character in what amounts to a kind of quest story with some mystery elements. Fans of cult television shows (perhaps a not so subtle euphemism for flop television shows) may recall an extremely short-lived CBS series called Coronet Blue, which featured Frank Converse as an amnesiac trying to piece together his identity, armed with only the half remembered title phrase as his sole clue. Something kind of similar takes place in Guin Saga, when a seemingly superhuman warrior named Guin awakens with no memories other than his name and the word “Aurra” on his lips. His awakening is spurred by a vicious attack on two royal children named Rinda and Remus, who have escaped an attack on their palace by an invading horde known as the Mongauls. Rinda and Remus seem to be about to meet their maker when Guin stumbles onto the scene and almost by instinct manages to take out an entire small army of Mongauls, saving the royal pair and forging a halting friendship with them.

Guin Saga then becomes a sort of parallel set of stories, one where Guin attempts to keep Rinda and Remus safe from any number of impending disasters while at the same time he attempts to discover several salient points about his existence. While his memory has evidently been obliterated, he’s troubled by a perhaps more pressing problem: a leopard mask is seemingly fused onto his head. Or is it in fact a mask? Could he be some sort of quasi-alien hybrid fighting machine? This dual quest aspect to Guin Saga gives the series a nice ability to diverge into various plot arcs as the writers see fit, and that helps keep the series from seeming like a series of anecdotal battles that Guin gets involved in, either due to his status of protector of Rinda and Remus or in fact simply due to his interior struggles to figure out who (or what) exactly he is.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Guin Saga is the wealth of really fascinating characters, many of whom undergo major, if at times slowly evolving, changes as the series wends its way through its 26 episodes. While Guin remains distant and stalwart, a number of other intriguing characters provide dashes of color. There’s the sweet little quasi-simian creature Suni, who ends up becoming a mascot or even pet of Rinda’s (and might remind viewers of a certain age of Penny’s little alien monkey on Lost in Space). And several of the court personalities in both Rinda and Remus’ home as well as the Mongauls are quite well depicted. Perhaps the most interesting character, though, is Remus himself, as he charts a course from whining brat to an uncertain reign as king. In fact it’s one of Guin Saga’s nicest achievements that most of these characters are drawn in shades of gray, so that even one of our putative heroes has “issues” and therefore things aren’t resolved cleanly by the series’ end.

Guin Saga is so epic in scope (even in its abbreviated anime form) that it does require a certain amount of patience and fortitude to make it through. But this is a surprisingly fleet footed adaptation that ably moves the story along and rarely if ever lingers too long on various sidebar issues. The ending of this particular iteration seems to hint that more satisfying answers might be forthcoming in some future enterprise, but it’s to this series’ immense credit that few viewers will probably feel cheated after having gotten to the end and not having been handed pat little answers about everyone, most of all Guin. While the series is undeniably occasionally a bit on the silly and hyperbolic side, the characters here are so well drawn and the basic storyline so effectively handled that even if the destination is a bit of an enduring mystery, getting there is more than well worth the while.

Guin Saga: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Guin Saga is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Sentai Filmworks with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is an often breathtaking high definition presentation that features some very well rendered CGI in quasi-3D, with a lot of environments offered in something akin to the old Disney multi-plane technique. Colors are rich and extremely varied, and there are a number of very effective segments bathed in a golden amber color (see some of the screencaps included with this review for some good examples). Character designs are quite well handled, with Guin's leopard mask especially effective. Line detail is strong and sharp throughout this enterprise, and while the animation style sometimes is kind of like live action soft focus, the overall look of this series is very clearly and strongly presented on this Blu-ray set.

Guin Saga: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Guin Saga is a series that certainly would have benefited mightily from a lossless surround mix, but instead this Blu- ray features two DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mixes, one in English and one in Japanese. With a series this huge and varied, a surround mix is almost being cried out for, especially since there are action elements aplenty here, as well as a really appealing score. But if you can get past what will probably be at least some minor disappointment with "only" a stereo track, both of the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 options here offer sterling fidelity and some really nice dynamic range. Both tracks can get a bit busy at times during action sequences, but overall things are presented very crisply and cleanly. I actually preferred the English voice actors to the Japanese voice actors, but both are interesting to at least check out. One nice bonus is the English subtitles that accompany the Japanese audio track are in yellow, making them extremely easy to read no matter what's going on in the background.

Guin Saga: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interview with Original Creator Kaoru Kurimoto (SD; 55:16). This is an often fascinating sit down with Kurimoto, who reviews her 30 year trek of writing the Guin Saga. She actually gets into quite a bit of information from the source novel series that isn't in the anime adaptation, but this is a very worthwhile piece for any Guin Saga fan, especially since Kurimoto has since passed away.


• The Men Who Searched for their Own Star: Interviews with Kenyuu Horiuchi (Guin), Tsubasa Yonaga (Remus), Shintaro Asanuma (Istavan) and Yuya Uchida (Norisse) (SD; 29:40) provides some decent background on the work that went into voicing these characters.


• Another Guin Saga: An Interview with Kiyoshi Imaoka (Guin Saga Novel Editor) (SD; 11:53) features Imaoka's remembrances of Kurimoto, including his long working relationship with her.


• Japanese Premiere Event (SD; 13:12) features footage from February 18, 2009 at the United Cinema Toyosu, where Kurimoto and a lot of the cast and crew were in attendance. (There was a slight glitch on my copy of this disc where this wouldn't exit back to the main menu. It hung up at 13:12 and I had to hit the Top Menu button to get it to exit.)


• Japanese Trailer Collection (SD; 8:15) includes the Extended Trailer, the Japanese Trailer and the English Trailer.


• Clean Opening Animations (HD; 3:04)


• Clean Closing Animation (HD; 1:32)

Guin Saga: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Guin Saga manages to convey the general gist of Kaoru Kurimoto's massive light novel series without getting too bogged down in detail. The central mystery of who Guin is plays out nicely against the efforts of Guin to keep Rinda and Remus safe and restore them to their rightful place as royalty in their homeland. Several of the supporting characters offer pleasures of their own, with some nicely detailed subplots that manage to weave fairly intricate interrelationships without sucking the life out of the main storyline. The ending may leave some fans wanting more, which is probably a good thing, though that desire may also be linked with a wish that some definite answers about Guin had been more forthcoming. This four disc Blu-ray set offers some nicely sumptuous visuals along with a decent soundtrack and some appealing supplements. Recommended.