Shingu – Secret Of The Stellar Wars (Animé
TV)
Volume One: Altered Perceptions +
Volume Two: Tense Confrontations
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C Episodes: C+
Azumanga Daioh was an odd Animé series, so it
is no surprise that its producer would offer us Shingu – Secret Of The
Stellar Wars, which starts at a middle school and lands up spawning aliens
and psychic powers. This always seems
to happen on at Japanese middle schools, which might have some kind of
curse. Maybe an Animé series can come
up with a reason this happens in other such series, but it is also obviously
related to puberty.
In this sense, we could identify an Animé cycle we could
call the “middle school blues” cycle and in that respect, Shingu is one
of the better shows. The fantasy
elements are better integrated into a narrative that takes itself seriously
enough, which makes the show work better than most of its ilk. The humor is contextual and never gets off
track, the characters have some more time to develop, but the show still runs
into clichés of this kind of thing being done too many times. The two volumes here have ten episodes in
all, so we can safely state our position.
At least it is ambitious in telling the same story as well as it can.
The full frame 1.33 X 1 image is nicely transferred, but
is clear without any of the artificial softening we get in too many such
animated shows. Color is consistent and
detail is not bad. The Dolby Digital
2.0 Stereo in both English and Japanese offers no surrounds of any kind, but is
as clean and clear, as Dolby’s compression will allow. Extras include a nicely illustrated
introductory booklets about the world of the show in the DVD cases of each
volume, while both have original production notes, bios of the characters, a
line art gallery and six trailers for other Right Stuf titles.
- Nicholas Sheffo
