Medaka Box: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Medaka Box: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 25, 2013

It’s probably a truism that the cool kids always get elected to student council positions (except for treasurer—but I digress), but in the case of Medaka Box, Medaka Kurokami, the newly elected Student Council President at her school, isn’t just cool, she’s unbelievably gorgeous (and curvaceous), smart, popular and, just for good measure, seemingly superpowered when it comes to various martial arts battles. Medaka institutes a suggestion box (hence the title—though it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this fan service laden vehicle might have a euphemism or two up its veritable sleeve), and the series centers around Medaka and her cohorts (including childhood friend Zenkichi Hitoyoshi) dealing with various problems that are brought to their attention.

Medaka Box trundles along with a kind of “problem of the week” premise until a somewhat darker aspect starts to rear its head toward the end of this twelve episode arc. The series is fitfully entertaining, but never seems to really know what it wants to be—a typical shōnen entry, a comedy leaning more toward fan service, or an action series that’s full of battles. Medaka is a fun character, especially when she deliberately toys with Hitoyoshi’s affections, but the series is kind of a long slog with only occasional highlights to relieve the tedium. In fact, it’s rather like high school.

Medaka Box: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Medaka Box is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Sentai Filmworks with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. The series is very colorful, with blues being especially notable (even Medaka's hair can be a bright cobalt color). That palette is reproduced beautifully on this Blu-ray, with some gorgeously saturated hues. Backgrounds are occasionally a bit minimalist, but character designs are quite distinctive, including Medaka's incredibly voluptuous body. Line detail is sharp and well defined.

Medaka Box: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Medaka Box is one relentlessly noisy series, and the two lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 tracks (one in English, one in Japanese) sound fine, if awfully crowded a lot of the time. Dialogue spills over sound effects to the point that it becomes difficult to know which is more important at times. That said, fidelity is excellent and dynamic range is extremely wide.

Medaka Box: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Clean Opening Animation (1080p; 1:32)


• Clean Closing Animation (1080p; 1:32)


• Medaka Box Jump Festa Promo (1080p; 1:03)


• Medaka Box Teasers (1080p; 1:05)


• Medaka Box Promo (1080p; 1:32)


• Medaka Box Home Video Spots (1080p; 00:51). This supplement had a bit of trouble loading.


• Medaka Box Abnormal Teaser (1080p; 00:17)

Medaka Box: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Medaka Box is a bit too unfocused to ever really develop momentum in any specific direction. There are passably decent elements for any number of genre fans here, but the fact that there are so many genres popping up at various times may indicate the somewhat scattered nature of the series. There are some decent seeds here that may bear fruit in the next season, however. One way or the other, the show does look great.