Love and Lies: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Love and Lies: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie Review

Love and Lies is a romantic-drama anime. Created by Musawo, Love and Lies comes from producers Fumiki Yamazaki (Black Bullet, Blue Drop), Gouta Aijima (My Roommate is a Cat, The Quintessential Quintuplets), Hirofumi Itō (Tokyo Mew Mew New, SSSS.Gridman), Kensuke Tateishi (Attack on Titan, A Silent Voice), Masaki Fujie (The Royal Tutor, to the abandoned Sacred Beasts), Shin Furukawa (Blue Exorcist, Captain Earth), Takamasa Takeuchi (Moonlight Mile: Touch Down), Tetsuro Satomi (Girls Beyond the Wasteland, Devil May Cry) Yōko Shiraishi (Saiyuki Reload Blast, Joker Game), Youhei Yamazaki, and Yusuke Sakuraba. Featuring animation produced by LIDEN FILMS (Blade of the Immortal, After School Dice Club), Love and Lies will appeal to fans of short romantic anime series.

The future is bleak for hopeless romantics when the government begins to determine who will wed one another. In a future where the government controls how and who you are allowed to marry, romance doesn’t exist in the same way. Even though someone might have feelings for another individual, the government might step in and try and prevent true love – dictating who one is to get married to. As Misaki Takasaki (Kana Hanazawa) and Yukari Nejima (Ryota Ohsaka) share deep feelings of love for each other, both would like to marry.

Yet despite their own desires for marriage, the government wishes for Yukari to be wed to Ririna Sanada (Yui Makino). The only thing that might prevent this from occurring is Cupid (and a special loophole that might solve things). Yet despite the interventions of Cupid, it seems as though romance might actually begin to bloom between Yukari and Ririna. As the tale unfolds, the answer to who Yukari will marry becomes increasingly complicated.

Being a romantic anime, the characters are at the forefront of the Love and Lies series. The concept allows for the characters to take the spotlight of the series and to be developed. The central leads are involved in the romantic entanglements of the tale.

Misaki Takasaki, Yukari Nejima, and Ririna Sanada are each given a unique role in the romantic tale and the drama unfolds from their interactions and experiences. This allows for the characters to be more thoroughly developed and explored. This is something that adds some extra depth to the series.

The art direction by Yukihiro Saitō (Boarding School Juliet, Magical Sempai) is somewhat simplistic and often average looking. The animation isn’t quite as impressive looking as one would hope to find on a romantic series. The production has a somewhat standard aesthetic and it could certainly have used some more creativity.

Though it is a decent looking animated production, the sense of scope and scale on this production was somewhat underwhelming. The animation simply doesn’t make as big of an impression as a result. This is an obvious drawback of Love and Lies and it certainly doesn’t help the series to reach the heights of better romantic anime productions.

The character designs by Eriko Itō (Magical Sempai, Midnight Occult Civil Servants) are reasonably good if also a bit unoriginal. The designs seem perfectly well suited for this type of production but the art is somewhat reminiscent of too many other shojo anime series and the result is something that is a bit bland at times. It could have been better with a greater sense of uniqueness to the designs but the results here are simply average most of the time.

The cinematography by Hitoshi Tamura (Princess Jellyfish, Terror in Resonance) is one of the strengths of the visuals. The cinematography is bright and colorful and has a nice visual aesthetic that enhances the production and the tone. The style certainly feels right at home with this type of production and it fits the genre well. For the most part, the cinematography looks excellent and Tamura is one of the more notable cinematographers in anime.

The score composed by Masaru Yokoyama (Arakawa Under the Bridge, Place to Place) and Nobuaki Nobusawa (Astra Lost in Space, Lord Marksman and Vanadis) is charming and a definite highlight. Composer Yokoyama in particular is an exceptional composer and the music here provides some enjoyably light and romantic music. The score is a nice component of the whole and it imbues the production with a nice sense of jazziness. The result is worthwhile.

Written by Natsuko Takahashi (In Another World With My Smartphone, Yo-kai Watch), Love and Lies has an excellent concept and this is certainly where the story takes some more interesting turns as the tale explores the idea of the government making determinations about romance and who can and should become married. Of course, this is a disturbing concept, and it recalls to mind arranged marriages but with an overarching governmental slant. It provides room for the characters and traditional romanticism to be explored.

Directed by Seiki Takuno (Poco's Udon World, Boarding School Juliet), Love and Lies is a decent anime and the director seems to have fun exploring the concept and giving it a nice enough visual style to help carry the series. Although the animation is somewhat simplistic, the style is still compelling enough for the head director to explore the world of the tale and the romance within it.

Love and Lies: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Arriving on Blu-ray from Sentai Filmworks, Love and Lies is presented in 1080p MPEG-4 AVC encoded high definition in the original television broadcast aspect ratio of 1.78:1 widescreen. The series has an impressive high-definition presentation. The release does an excellent job at providing the series with excellent color reproduction. The animation is bright, vivid, and compelling looking with the quality of the encode. The encoding is crisp looking and shows a good amount of detail.

The animation isn't too soft looking and has the more refined element inherit with native high-definition encoding for anime series (compared to the sometimes-underwhelming upscales provided on some releases). The set also benefits from a nice encode. Streaming presentations often provide series with a lower bit-rate and more compressed video data while the Blu-ray presentation offers a higher bit-rate presentation. Fans looking to experience the series with the absolute best picture-quality will be pleased with the release.

Love and Lies: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The release is presented in Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (with English subtitles). The release does not include an English dubbed audio option. This might seem like a significant drawback to the release for viewers expecting to watch the series with an English dub option. However, purists and fans of original Japanese language audio will be pleased to know that the Japanese option is excellent. A rewarding presentation – crisp and engaging. Dialogue sounds clear and easy to understand. The score is well reproduced on the release as well. Streaming bit-rates tend to tap out at around 320kbps for many television series and are presented only with lossy audio encoding while Blu-ray offers a significantly better sounding lossless mix. This is one of the best strengths of the format and something that will appeal to audiophiles.

Love and Lies: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The release is unfortunately lacking in the supplemental department. The release doesn't include much in the way of bonus features and doesn't include any behind-the-scenes, audio commentaries, or photo galleries and the like. These types of supplemental features may have gone a long way to enhancing the extras package on the release. Instead, the release is standard and doesn't provide anything substantial. The release comes packaged in a standard case and does not come with an o-card or any other added package elements.

The on-disc supplements are as follows:

Clean Opening Animation (HD, 1:32)

Clean Closing Animation (HD, 1:32)

Love and Lies: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Love and Lies is a decent enough romantic anime series. The series is bright and colorful looking and the concept is compelling. The tale explores a world in which the government dictates who one must be married to. It is a scary concept and one that is compelling. The character designs and some other animated elements are a bit generic looking and reminiscent of too many other anime series but ultimately it is a reasonably colorful creation.

The Blu-ray release from Sentai Filmworks includes a strong video and audio presentation. The release does not provide an English dub option. The set only includes the Japanese language audio (alongside English subtitles). The package doesn't include much in the way of supplemental features and this is unfortunate. Nonetheless, fans of Love and Lies who would like to own a copy of the series with the best video and audio quality available will be pleased to add the Blu-ray release to their collection. Recommended.