Revisions: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Revisions: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie Review

Revisions is a science-fiction mecha anime series. The production features original animation produced by Shirogumi Inc. (Antique Bakery, Night Head 2041). The series explores a futuristic battle between monster robots and humankind.

Daisuke Dojima (Bryce Papenbrook) was kidnapped as a young child. Then rescued from his kidnappers from the strange and mysterious Milo (Reba Buhr), Daisuke has a surprising future in store for him. As Daisuke now thinks about the woman who rescued him constantly, a once ordinary life is tossed in to something fantastical and epic as a swarm of giant mecha robot monsters take over the busy city of Shibuya.

Now determined to find his own destiny, Daisuke is joined by his rescuer Milo as the two battle against the robot monsters while new friends join the crew and pilot special robot suits known simply as String Puppets. Can Daisuke master the ropes of navigating his own mecha suit and defeat the evil monster robots before his own city becomes completely destroyed? The fate of Shibuya – at risk of total annihilation – is at stake. It’s time to suit up.

The characters on Revisions are decent enough but not as impressive as on some productions. The central protagonist, Daisuke Dojima, is a somewhat average lead fulfilling a role that is often seen throughout many anime productions. The supporting part for Milo is similarly not as well rounded. These characters are decent enough for the production but not enough-so to be as distinct as on the best anime productions.

The character designs by Sunao Chikaoka (Wake Up, Girls!, Kyo no Gononi) are decent enough and add some creative flair to the production. The designs certainly work well enough for the series even if the designs lack the same spark of creativity seen with more well-rounded productions. Chikaoka doesn’t showcase designs that are as inspired as the best anime series but for the base needs of the production, the results are proficient enough.

The art direction by Minoru Ōnishi (Brave Witches, Girls und Panzer) is one of the more effective elements of the series. Though this isn’t a perfect looking anime production, the art direction is nonetheless reasonably creative looking and the aesthetic enhances the action-anime tone. The production showcases a solid science-fiction landscape with the art director handling this arena.

The mecha designs by Yohei Arai are underwhelming, though. Revisions lacks the kind of impeccable creativity of mecha suits for the Gundam franchise and other battle-robot anime series with more inventive and detailed designs. By comparison, the designs for Revisions look simplistic and don’t manage to stand out as much. The designs simply feel cookie-cutter and lack the style that makes the greatest mecha series stand out from the crowd more.

The CG direction by Takamitsu Hirakawa (Etotama) is a decent aspect of the production but it is also an example of one of the misgivings of the series. The CG element sometimes overshadows the aesthetic and these attributes are underwhelming and choppy looking at times. Nonetheless, the CG element provides a slightly better and more proficient aspect than on some series that look to be produced at lower budgets.

The score composed by Azusa Kikuchi (Etotama ~Nyan-Kyaku Banrai~) doesn’t make much of an impression. The music simply services the series as simple background music. The score doesn’t highlight the production as well as it could. The score is average background music and there is something fundamentally disappointing about that. The score might be okay with working with action beats but the end result is still unremarkable sounding.

The cinematography by Kazuhiko Takahashi (Night Head 2041) is impressive looking and provides Revisions with a sleek and stylized visual appearance. The series has bold colors and use of lighting, providing a scenic backdrop to the apocalyptic scenario. The results are worthwhile with a solid enough job done by the cinematographer.

Written by Makoto Fukami (Blade of the Immortal, Black Rock Shooter: Dawn Fall) and Taichi Hashimoto (Speed Grapher, The Tower of Druaga: The Aegis of Uruk), Revisions certainly lacks a great script and is underwhelming in this regard. It is so similar to so many other anime series – and one can’t help but wonder why someone should watch it when they could instead watch Neon Genesis Evangelion for another time. The characterizations are underwhelming, too.

Directed by Goro Taniguchi (Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, Maria the Virgin Witch) and Takamitsu Hirakawa (Night Head 2041), Revisions is decently directed in some respects. Nonetheless, Revisions didn’t grab a hold of me as much. The directing highlights too much CG for my own tastes and the sometimes-clunky looking animation seems like a fault of the directors and their vision for the production.

The series would have been improved if it had simply focused on the more traditional anime aesthetic elements and used the CG components less often. This is an example of how there is sometimes too much focus on trying to be cutting-edge rather than on sticking to something that simply works. As the saying goes, if it isn’t broken – don’t fix it. This is something that can be applied to these animation techniques as well.

Revisions: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Arriving on Blu-ray from Sentai Filmworks, Revisions is presented in 1080p MPEG-4 AVC encoded high definition in the original television broadcast aspect ratio of 1.78:1 widescreen. The presentation is worthwhile. This is a solid looking high definition presentation with good clarity on the whole. The presentation capably showcases the aesthetic of the animation.

The encode handles the action set pieces. The action scenes certainly are fluid looking and the encoding manages to highlight these elements without compression woes. The Blu-ray release provides the series with solid encoding, highlighting the advantages of the format. Blu-ray offers much better and well-rounded encoding compared to streaming services (which offer presentations at a lower bit-rate and with a more inconsistent image).

Revisions: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The release includes a selection of lossless audio options: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround sound and Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo (with English subtitles). The lossless audio is an effective and engaging element of the release. Though it is a bit disappointing to see the Japanese language option relegated to 2.0 stereo while the English dub option is provided with a more robust and immersive surround sound option, viewers will be pleased to have some nice options to choose from on the release. Dialogue reproduction is excellent and sounds crisp and clear on the release. The score is well reproduced and integrated in to the soundstage. Blu-ray offers a crisper and more rewarding audio presentation than streaming options with lossless encoding (compared to streaming – which is often limited to lossy 320kbps on many television series).

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

The release is a bit underwhelming in the supplementals. The set doesn't provide any extensive supplemental features – such as audio commentaries, making-of features, or art work scans.

On-disc supplements are as follows:

Clean Opening Animation (HD, 1:32)

Clean Closing Animation (HD, 1:32)

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

Revisions isn't as ambitious or creative as it wants to be. The production is mixed and has some good qualities and some underwhelming attributes. The animation is certainly too reliant on sub-par CGI animation and this could only be fully remedied with a bigger production budget. This is something anime productions should consider more often as the traditional style is often more effective with showcasing a naturalistic aesthetic for the medium and too much overreliance here hinders the other elements of the artwork.

The Blu-ray release provides a solid high-definition presentation of the series. The encoding is excellent on the release. The lossless audio provides robust sound for either the original Japanese language audio (with English subtitles) or the English dub option. The set only lacks in the bonus features arena: the only extras provided are clean opening and closing animations. Revisions fans will certainly want the release but newcomers may wish to rent it first.