Hanaukyo
Maid Team: La Verite - Complete Collection (2004/Sentai DVD
Set)/Rozen Maiden: Zuruckspulen - Complete Collection
(2013/Sentai Blu-ray set)
Picture:
B-/C+ Sound: C/B Extras: C/D Episodes: A-/B-
These
latest Anime reviews have us revisiting previous releases...
Hanaukyo
Maid Team: La Verite - Complete Collection
Taro
just found out he is the heir to the Hanaukyo fortune and now lives
in the Hanaukyo Mansion, a paradise with hundreds of maids ...all
ready to serve him anything he needs. Now Taro lives daily with
maids learning how to handle the various eccentric departments,
personnel and department heads. And that not to mention his crush on
the Head Maid Mariel. Does Taro have what it takes to be the Master
of the Hanaukyo Maids?
Taro
was just an ordinary middle school student until he found out his
grandfather left a fortune and mansion to him with a whole army of
maids for his own personal use. Hundreds of maids in each department
all wanting to service their master (and wanting his personal
affections). Taro has hundreds of maids he will never need, but he
could never let go or fire them because they have no else to go.
This
is your typical harem anime, a boy's wet dream to be surrounded by
hundreds of pretty girls in maid outfits. All the maids serving
their 'master' with body and soul. Sound and image are about the
same as the separate DVD volume-ized versions we covered years ago...
V.
2
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2074/Hanaukyo+Maid+Team+La+Verite+(V.2/Anim%C3%
V.
3
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2362/Hanaukyo+Maid+Team+La+Verite+(V.3/Anim%C3%
Needless
to say I like the content of the show more than our other writer.
Extras include clean opening and closing animations and trailers.
Episodes are...
How
Do You Do, Master? - Taro meets the Hanaukyo Maids.
A
10-Game Match - Ryuka a rival family competes with Mariel for the
right to marry Taro.
Cynthia
and Grace - Taro learns of Grace and Cynthia who has a double
personality.
Konoe
Rises - Taro goes shopping with Konoe.
Ryuka
Again - The Hanaukyo Maids attend a comic convention. Ryuka
returns and joins the Maid teams.
Budget
Contest - The Maid departments have a baseball contest for the
annual Hanaukyo budget.
Unidentified
Living Creature - Taro and the maids explore the secret
underground dungeons beneath the Hanaukyo Mansion.
Woman
in a Sports Car - Taro leaves the Mansion for a day and the maids
get a day off. But who is the mysterious woman that Taro meets?
The
First Date - Taro goes out on a date with Mariel.
Blue
Silent Bell - Mariel falls in coma, but what is her secret? She
was genetically created to be the perfect maid for Taro and gets
taken for reconditioning.
Forced
Entry - Taro and the Hanaukyo Maids vow to rescue and bring back
their Mariel at any cost.
True
Smile - Mariel returns and peace returns to the Hanaukyo Mansion.
Taro doesn't care what what Mariel's origins are, only he and the
Hanaukyo Maids are not complete without her.
Rosen
Maiden: Zuruckspulen: Complete Collection
Now
upgraded to Blu-ray, Jun one day receives a mysterious letter and
suddenly receives Shinku, an antique doll which turns out to be
alive. It is then he learns Shinku is part of the Rosen Maidens, 7
life-like dolls created to compete with each other in the 'Alice
Games' for their Rosa Mysticas. But the wheels of fate are already
in motion and have created another parallel world. In one possible
future he choose to accept Shinku and enter the Alice Games. And in
another world, he didn't choose to wind Shinku's key and they never
met. Now, the future Jun (the one that didn't choose Shinku) start
receiving messages from the past from his younger self asking him to
help the Rozen Maidens and help himself return to the future that was
meant to be.
Jun
Sakurada is a total social recluse, rejecting the world for it's
ugliness and refusing to be part of it. But when he suddenly receives
text messages across time and parallel worlds. The younger version
of himself (the one that choose to accept Shinku and the Rozen
Maidens) needs the future version of himself to help to save the
Rozen Maidens. The younger version of himself and the other Rozen
Maidens were trapped in the N-zone. His future counterpart starts
receiving parts of dolls to help recreate Shinku in the future to
help battle the Alice Games. Shinku is then reborn his dimension, he
discovers through her and her relationships with the other Rozen
Maidens the Jun of the future starts believing in a single choice
maybe can change a person's life.
This
anime series is about a boy and his relationships with his dolls, it
does a weird time travel with parallel world story. The dolls are
symbolic of the main character's feminine side/feelings of caring
(and the source of his angst) and conflict. The theme seems to be
"it is better to love and lost than to never of loved at all"
(or in this case, a for boy to be interested in playing with dolls).
I explain more about the show as a franchise in my DVD review pf this
set here...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/13167/Rozen+Maiden:+Zuruckspulen+-+Complete+Collec
The
1080p 1.78 X 1 image is enough of an improvement over the DVD to
recommend the upgrade, while the Japanese, lossless DTS-HD MA (Master
Audio) 2.0 Stereo (more so than the English version also included)
just outdoes the DVD's sound, but only so much as the original
recording was apparently sonically limited. Extras include clean
opening and closing animations and trailers like the DVD, so no new
extras here.
-
Ricky Chiang
