7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
A clandestine organization known as the MBI has issued an edict that threatens to end the lives of Minato and his luscious companions once and for all! The cutthroat organization's Sekirei Plan will force all busty brawlers and their masters to engage in a flesh-baring fight to the finish. Only one amazing pair will be left standing when this curvaceous cavalcade of carnage has come to a conclusion. Does Minato have what it takes to survive the bombastic barrage of breast-jiggling blows coming his way?
Starring: Shinnosuke Tachibana, Saori Hayami, Marina Inoue, Kana Hanazawa, Aya EndōAnime | 100% |
Foreign | 92% |
Action | 36% |
Comedy | 31% |
Comic book | 30% |
Romance | 24% |
Erotic | 24% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: Dolby TrueHD 5.1
Japanese: Dolby TrueHD 2.0
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Five-disc set (2 BDs, 3 DVDs)
DVD copy
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Someone at FUNimation Entertainment must have had an enjoyable time squeezing every double entendre and pun they could think of into the press sheet accompanying this new release of Sekirei 2: Pure Engagement, The Complete Series on Blu-ray. The series is alternately referred to as “full figured,” “the breast action harem anime of all time,” “busty.” “curvaceous,” and “titillating.” And just for good measure, we’re told that “only one amazing pair will be left standing” by series’ end and that “the booby traps abound and the measurements are mesmerizing” in the second season of this show. So anyone who is out for thought provoking, incisive, complexly written fare will probably want to—ahem—cleave themselves from Sekirei, yet another adolescent masturbatory fantasy about a young man and the coterie of extraterrestrial superpowered (and super-bosomed) women who surround him. It might just be the effect of wading through so many similarly themed animes of late (Sekirei bears more than a passing resemblance to Heaven's Lost Property, which may in fact be more of a commentary on Sekirei’s popularity, since it predates the other property by at least a couple of years. But once again we have a kind of nerdy young male, in this case, Minato, who in the first season of Sekirei found himself the chosen “Ashikabi” for “Sekirei” Musubi. Musubi was just the first of several magically powered Sekirei who ended up partnering with Minato, and the second season of the series picks up with a sort of Three’s Company (actually more than three, but that’s beside the point) sort of setup where Minato is surrounded by various Sekirei in various stages of—er—development.
Sekirei: Pure Engagement, The Complete Series is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. While the transfer of this middling series is perfectly all right on its technical merits, the show itself from a visual standpoint is about as standard as the actual content. Character designs are a dime a dozen, the rampant use of chibi as the characters become emotionally distraught or overwrought is by the numbers, and even the show's palette is surprisingly bland, with very few really bright colors dotting the landscape. All of that said, this high definition presentation offers excellent line detail and overall generally very good sharpness and clarity, but there's such a feeling of "same old, same old" here that many probably won't care one way or the other. It kind of seems like the animators themselves didn't.
As has been standard operating practice with most if not all FUNimation Entertainment Blu-ray releases lately, two lossless audio options are offered, an English dub delivered via a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix, and the original Japanese language track delivered via a Dolby TrueHD 2.0 stereo mix. Both of these tracks sport similar mixes in terms of levels, but once again even purists may want to at least sample the English track, which features the usual assortment of FUNimation voice artists doing their typically good, if almost always hyperbolic, work. Sekirei: Pure Engagement, The Complete Series has a few less opportunities to really exploit the surround mix medium as it doesn't depend entirely on battles or effects laden sequences, and so what some listeners may notice most is the expanded spaciousness of the underscore and songs in the show on the 5.1 mix. That said, when effects sequences are happening, good directionality is often the order of the day, and several episodes also offer abundant if not overwhelming LFE. Fidelity on both of these tracks is excellent, though on the whole the soundtrack of Sekirei: Pure Engagement is actually kind of surprisingly reserved and restrained, considering the silliness of the overall enterprise.
Adolescent males are probably going to wonder what my problem is in not enjoying a series this full (to bursting, even—pun definitely intended) with breasts, breasts and even more breasts. I'm certainly not one to shirk from the allure of ample bosoms, but when there's nothing else in the mix (or at least next to nothing), even nonstop cleavage can only go so far. Sekirei: Pure Engagement tries fitfully to introduce a few non-bosomy elements into the mix in this second season, but it's kind of like padding an already overstuffed bra. What's the point? This is a series for oogling teenage boys for the most part (or those with arrested development), and for that demographic, I guess there are worse vices. The problem is there are so many really excellent animes—including, frankly, many with pulchritudinous babes in abundance—that Sekirei does indeed seem like simply a show for boobs.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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