Needless: Collection 2 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.0

Needless: Collection 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

Adam(s) and Eve were never like this in the Bible.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 11, 2011

Like a glut of current "complete series" anime releases, Needless has been split into two parts for its Blu-ray release. Part One of the collection was reviewed here. For convenience sake to bring those of you new to the Needless universe up to speed, I'll repeat a few opening comments about the series as a whole from that review before getting into details about the second half of the series in particular. It makes perfect sense that Needless is the product of Japanese animation studio Madhouse, because it is one flat-out crazy show. Lots of animes take place in a post-Apocalyptic Tokyo, but few have the goony and goofy elements that pervade Needless at virtually every turn. Needless explodes into "meta" commentary with great regularity and also isn't above suddenly stopping in multiple freeze frames to give us brief interstitials about what we're seeing. A crazy quilt (emphasis on the crazy part) of dramatic and comic elements, this is a series with cult appeal written all over it, probably especially alluring to younger males who will no doubt love its sexual undertones and bevy of scantily clad beauties. The anime is based on a manga by Kami Imai, but it evidently strays fairly radically from the story originally presented in graphic novel form (where have we heard that one before?). The nuts and bolts (emphasis on nuts) of Needless has to do with the survivors of a devastating global conflict which has left Japan the victim of nuclear near-annihilation. The epicenter of the explosion activity in Tokyo is now known as the Black Spot, a highly irradiated sector where survivors who flocked there became exposed to the radiation and mutated, becoming a sub-species of super-powered humans known as the Needless. (I think something may have gotten slightly lost in translation, as the series tends to bandy about the word "needless" as meaning something akin to "unnecessary"). Needless sets up a number of camps of good guys (and gals) and bad guys (and gals) from virtually the first moment. Our heroes are Cruz Schild, a green haired little boy who's part of an armed rebellion, and Adam Blade, the sort of spectacularly muscled priest you probably never had in your catechism class, who rescues Cruz in the first episode and reveals himself to be an interestingly powered Needless. On the villainous side of things we have the nefarious aggregation known as Simeon, the sort of multi-national corporation it's easy to hate, headed by hiss-worth Adam Arclight (note the identical first names for our hero and villain, it's not coincidence). For some reason Simeon is interested in tracking down both Cruz and Blade, leading to a number of close scrapes and out there battles. The first half of the series ended with Cruz's female cohort Eve in desparate straits, and an unfolding series of plot developments which hinted at a grand cloning experiment, with the Simeon baddies acting as proto-Gods (note Adam and Eve in the character names).

Is it possible to jump the shark while standing perfectly still? That question becomes relevant in the second half of Needless as the series comes to a screeching halt of sorts while the bulk of the second half plays out in one room during one extremely extended battle. The first half of Needless displayed such a patently manic energy most of the time that this decision is at the least very odd. There’s certainly no problem with the showdown itself, which brings to a head a number of important plot developments which had been building throughout the series’ opening run of episodes, but then we get what pretty much amounts to a “very special episode” of Yu-Gi-Oh or some such show, with an endless array of powers being invoked, something Needless returns to again and again as it winds its way fairly fitfully to its surprisingly abrupt conclusion.

It’s completely odd that a show that started off with such a frankly goofy sense of humor should tie up so many loose strings with such a resigned air of tried and true formulas, but that’s pretty much exactly what Needless ends up doing. Though we get a good deal of background information on a number of important characters, and the nefarious aspects of Simeon are more or less completely explained, the series, which had been unique at least by dint of its outré sense of humor and “meta” sensibilities, just kind of sits there for the ending gambit, as various characters do battle and people scream at each other.

Needless continues in this second half to not shirk from any chance to provide a little “fan service” (and sometimes quite a bit more than just a little), but as the series builds to its climax, it seems especially ridiculous that as several characters may be careening toward their demise we get a several second shot up a girl’s skirt. In fact as several of our female heroines are bandied about by a couple of bad guys, they’re more than apt to land with their skirts over their heads, with panties in full view, limbs akimbo in usually frankly sexual poses. It adds a completely weird element to a show that had more of a childlike ambience about it in the early going.

Needless tries to provide some supposedly adult commentary about human hubris and delusions of grandeur, all wrapped up in some scientific jargon about a cloning experiment gone awry and several characters’ attempts to attain Godhood. Of course our main hero Cruz, who has never considered himself much of anything, ends up holding the keys to the kingdom and helps to hatch a plan which leads to good triumphing over evil. What is particularly odd about this climax, however, is that after several episodes of virtually nothing happening, the “big moment” is over in a literal flash, and the pieces are then picked up in an equally brief voiceover by Cruz, letting us know that “everything is back to normal.” In the case of Needless, normal is an exceedingly relative term.

Needless: Collection 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Needless Collection 2, like the first collection, is presented with a VC-1 encoded 1080p image in 1.78:1. While this second half sports just as sharp and robustly colored a transfer as the first half of the series, it's perhaps hobbled by an overuse of still images which are layered into the animation with some fair degree of artistry, but which tend to give this second half a more static feel than the first had. Overall, though, this is a very sharply designed series, full of interesting character work, and while the big showdown which caps the show seems rather haphazardly drawn at times, overall the show benefits from excellent styling which is very well represented on this Blu-ray. Fine line detail is great, colors are strong and true and the overall image is very sharp and clear.

Needless: Collection 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Again as with the first collection of Needless, this second outing sports two great lossless stereo tracks, one in Japanese and one in English, both presented courtesy of a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix. This second half of the series has two fairly extended battles which allow for some omnipresent LFE and lots of loud effects rumbling through the soundfield. Fidelity is excellent on both of the tracks, with especially robust and impressive low frequencies. Dialogue is well reproduced and is uniformly well mixed into what can often be a very busy overall soundtrack. The score is typically rock oriented, with lots of pulsating beats, and that also sounds fantastic on both of the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 tracks offered on this release.

Needless: Collection 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Secret of the Lilly Academy (HD; 15:30) contains another six episodes of this mini-series of sorts which has Cruz cross-dressing and infiltrating the all girl Lilly Academy to help uncover a mystery.
• Needless Information is a text-based supplement that provides a surprisingly wide amount of information about translations as well as various terms utilized throughout the series. It's a great resource and chances are if you have any questions about something "technical" that's said in the show (not to mention Eve's unending series of non sequiturs), it will be answered in this supplement or the corresponding one in the first half set.
• Production Sketches (HD; 6:41) offers a wealth of sketches from basic to fully painted, playing to some music.
• Clean Opening Animation (HD 1:32)
• Clean Closing Animation (HD 1:32)

Needless: Collection 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I was frankly a little disappointed with this second half of Needless. The first half of the series was so over the top goofy that it was easy to dismiss its readily apparent flaws. But this second half is simply too static for its own good, spending way too much time on just a couple of main battles, while cutting and pasting various back stories into the proceedings without much thought to overall dramatic flow. The series as a whole has a lot to recommend it, but my advice is to check out the first half first (as most people probably will), and then assume that you'll discount your reaction a notch or two for the second half, which should allow you a good yardstick as to whether you want to invest in it.