Shingu – Secret Of The Stellar Wars (Animé TV)

Volume Three: Deadly Limitations

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C     Episodes: C+

 

 

Shingu – Secret Of The Stellar Wars continues the simple events at a middle school that leads to aliens and psychic powers.  Volume Three of this Animé series is as silly and distracted as the first two, continuing the puberty-related Animé cycle we identified before as “the middle school blues” cycle.

 

Shingu is still one of the better shows ion this sense, with the fantasy elements better integrated into a narrative that takes itself seriously enough, which makes the show work better than most of its ilk.  This became a bit more serious in parts, but not enough.  The humor is still contextual and never gets off track, while 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 the same nicely illustrated introductory booklets about the world of the show in the DVD cases of each previous volume, while both have original production notes, bios of the characters, a line art gallery and six more trailers for other Right Stuf titles.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo