Fighting Spirit 11 –
The Japan Featherweight Title Match
(Animé TV)
Picture: C+ Sound: B- Extras: C Episodes: C+
The last
time we looked at the Animé TV series Fighting Spirit way back with the
third volume and had not seen the further adventures of Ippo Makunouchi for a
while. Now, with the 11th
volume, has the show held up? Well, not
as much as I had hoped. The show
started off with the right mix of great fights, fun storylines, timing and
humor, but the grid of teleplays caught up with the show.
The
episodes this time around are:
51) The Group Date
52) The Challenger
53) So That I Can Be Myself
54) Fists Of The Champ
55) The Japan Featherweight Title Match
The show
has not dropped into the simple formula of so many of its competitors and being
about boxing, but a soap opera angle has developed for the characters that is
undercutting how clever the show was when it began. Since we did not get to see volumes four through ten, who knows
where the drop-off occurred, but if you start with the beginning (as we covered
the first three DVDs) releases, you can work your way through until you think
the series became sidetracked.
The full
frame, color image continues to offer the intentional bit of softness, but is
still one of the better 1.33 X 1 Animé titles we’ve seen from any company to
date, but I continue to wish it were a tad sharper. This is based on a comic book and is done in the good spirit of
such. The sound continues to be
available in Dolby Digital 2.0 English, Japanese, and Spanish language with
some Pro Logic surrounds. Credit should
go to Tsuneo Imahori for an exceptional music score. I should note that the English subtitles are more bluntly written
than the spoken English. Extras include
Spanish staff credits, Victorious Boxers 2: Fighting Spirit
videogame preview and three new trailers for three other Geneon DVDs.
- Nicholas Sheffo
