Review: Official Japanese R2 DVD's

[kyo28]

This thread is for posting reviews of official Japanese R2 DVD’s. Anyone is free to post his or her review and screenshots are always welcome too (although I would recommend putting a signature over it so that bootleggers don’t come here to steal the menus).
Hopefully this thread will be helpful to people who are considering buying a certain DVD being reviewed.
Anyone is free to post his or her comments and questions regarding the reviewed DVD’s.
Each reviewer is free to put his review in the format he or she wants, but it would be nice if we could keep the reviews a bit similar in appearance, which would make it easier for readers to compare DVD’s.

Review index:
Chouseishin Gransazer vol 01 (超星神グランセイザー　Vol　０１) - Kyo28
Ninpuu Sentai Hurricanger vs Gaoranger (忍風戦隊ハリケンジャーVSガオレンジャー) - Kyo28
Kamen Rider Ryuuki Vol 01 (仮面ライダー龍騎 Vol 01) - Kyo28

 

[kyo28]

Chouseishin Gransazer vol 01 (超星神グランセイザー　Vol　０１)


Technical info:
Released in 2003
1 disc
Single sided, double layer
5.040 Yen
Screen ratio 4:33
Audio: Dolby Digital Japanese
Subtitles: none

Contents:
Episodes 1-3:
第０１話　「目覚めよ！星の戦士」
第０２話　「発動！ドルクルス」
第０３話　「結成！炎のトライブ」

Picture quality:
Without offering anything exceptional (no widescreen for example), the picture quality is still great. I could discern no grains and the colors are vivid. Laser and explosion effects come over particularly well.
8/10

Menus:
Menus are pretty straight forward. No animation whatsoever. However, they are colorful and practical to use. Each episode is subdivided in opening, part 1, part 2, ending and preview for the next episode. While in the menu of one particular episode, you can use left and right arrows to cycle through the episodes without having to go back to the main menu.
7/10


Audio:
Standard Dolby Digital but it does the trick. Voices come over clean and crisp. The sound effects are of good quality, which is usually the case with TOHO discs.
7/10

Extra’s:
This DVD isn’t jam-packed with extras. In fact, it’s its weakest point. However, we do get the 3 intro’s that were shown on TV. This is a nice little feature as it helps you to roll into the Gransazer universe. Each tribe, character, vehicle and weapon is introduced. My personal recommendation would be to first watch these intros to get familiarized with the universe and settings for the story and then to start watching the episodes.
5/10


Overall:
I am generally pleased with the quality this DVD has to offer. It was great to see the bullet-time style punch from Tenma. It comes over much better on this DVD then it was on the TV encode (perhaps some touching up was done?). Picture and sound quality are flawless, but it’s a pity the fantastic action in this DVD isn’t supported by DD5.1 audio and widescreen, which would give it a very movie-like feel. The weakest point is that the menus are static and most of all the low number of episodes (only 3!!!) and few extra’s. Still worth it for fans of this series or for TOHO fans as a whole, as this is a classic tokusatsu series that deserves to be seen with DVD quality.

 

[Riser]

Awesome! Too bad Im too poor to afford R2s, let alone do I even have means to play them! :laugh:

 

[kyo28]

Awesome! Too bad Im too poor to afford R2s, let alone do I even have means to play them! :laugh:

yeah, that's true, the zones are different between US and JP. In that way I'm kinda lucky to have lived either in Japan or Europe, which both have zone 2.

Regarding the price, which is indeed higher than US DVD's, if you can buy them at used-DVD shops, you can get a serious price cut: for example, my latest acquisition cost me 4.500 Yen instead of the usual 10.500 Yen. I don't say it's cheap-cheap but it makes a serious difference.

 

[kyo28]

Ninpuu Sentai Hurricanger vs Gaoranger (忍風戦隊ハリケンジャーVSガオレンジャー)

Technical info:
Released in 2003
1 disc
Single sided, single layer
4.500 Yen
Screen ratio 4:33
Audio: Dolby Digital Stereo Japanese
Subtitles: none

Contents:
Movie

Picture quality:
The picture quality is great for 4:33 aspect. There are no noticeable flaws or grains. The colors are vivid and special effects and explosions are well rendered. It would have been nice, considering this is a ‘movie’, to have a widescreen or 16:9 aspect. But other than that, nothing bad to report
7/10

Menus:

The menu is the same as most of the other ‘VS sentai movies’. We are given the following:
· Play all
· Chapter list
· Trailer
· Message from the cast
· Data file
· Art gallery
Chapter list is well done and stills indicate where approximately a chapter is situated in the movie.

All in all a pretty straightforward kind of menu: easy to use but nothing spectacular and unfortunately no animations.
6/10

Audio:
The audio is in Dolby Digital Stereo, which comes over pretty well. No problem with background noises or any of the sorts. However, given this is a movie or special, it would have been nice to have included a DTS 5.1 soundtrack as well.
7/10

Extra’s:
A pretty decent amount of extras on this DVD:
· Teaser trailer for the movie
· Cast interview
· Data file: info on both sentai teams, the mechas as well as the original villain
· Art gallery: cover art for both the DVD and VHS release
The general quality of the extras is good and are easy enough to browse.

9/10

Overall:
I’m generally pleased with the ‘VS sentai movies’. The story fits in nicely with the running series. The only thing I would suggest for improvement would be the implementation of DTS 5.1 soundtrack as well as 16:9 screen ratio. The overall audio and video quality is good, at the same level of the TV series DVD’s. The extras are worth the effort and the price is adapted to the length of the movie (30 minutes for 4.500 Yen). An excellent investment for people who can’t get enough of either one of the teams and want something extra to enjoy.

 

[kyo28]

Kamen Rider Ryuuki Vol 01 (仮面ライダー龍騎 Vol 01)


Technical info:
Released in 2002
1 disc
Single sided, double layer
6.090 Yen
Screen ratio 16:9
Audio: Dolby Digital Stereo Japanese
Subtitles: none


Contents:
4 episodes:
第01話「誕生秘話」
第02話「巨大クモ逆襲」
第03話「学校の怪談」
第04話「学校の怪談2」

Picture quality:
Simply put, the picture quality is very good. I was very happy to get a 16:9 screen aspect ratio, which enhances the viewing pleasure. The film itself is of good quality and the images looks vivid, with no noticeable grains or pixels. This DVD is ideally viewed on a widescreen TV, to fully enjoy the aspect ratio and good quality film.
9/10

Menus:
The menus are static unfortunately, but they are easy to browse. The division in submenus is logical and one can easily get to the desired screen. Each DVD sports one of the 13 riders in the main menu and colors of the submenus are adapted to that character. In this case the central rider is Kamen Rider Ryuuki blank form, and as such the colors of the menus are in an overall dark tone. It’s a great idea to use a different rider per DVD as main theme for the menus.
The various menus are:
· Play all
· Chapter list
· Special features
7/10


Audio:
As it is often the case with Kamen Rider DVD’s, the soundtrack is in Dolby Digital Stereo. It does the job very well but DTS 5.1 could have boosted the audio experience to higher levels, especially with the many SFX sounds. But no noticeable flaws here.
7/10

Extra’s:
We get various extras on this discs, much in the same line as other Kamen Rider DVD’s:
· Battle Selection (to watch pure action scenes)
· Preview collection
· Data file: contains info on the riders, weapons, vehicles and monsters
· Advent card: info for all the advent cards used in the episodes on this DVD.
· Press conference
Both the data files and advent card collection are specifically tailored this DVD, meaning you’ll only get info on riders, weapons, monsters and cards that appear in these 4 episodes. This is a good thing for people who don’t want to get spoiled.
8/10


Overall:
Great DVD release that does justice to this series. It would have been nice to have a DTS 5.1 soundtrack, but then again maybe that’s asking a bit much for a TV series. The screen ratio definitely adds to your viewing comfort and it’s a joy to browse through the various menus. A very decent DVD to add to your collection!

 

[Shoichi]

I just stumbled upon this thread. Maybe I'll do one for the Memorial Box edition of the Mebius movie.

 

[Shoichi]

Awesome! Too bad Im too poor to afford R2s, let alone do I even have means to play them! :laugh:

I'm using a region-free DVD player :thumbs:

 

[Tenraisenpuujin]

And there are region hacks for most DVD players out there. I downloaded a firmware update that made my LG DVD player region-free; other players let you access hidden menus to change or remove region coding. The only thing that sort of hack can't do is allow you to play PAL discs.

 

[Shoichi]

Is there a region hack for Cyberlink Power DVD? I'm reluctant to play coded DVDs on my laptop in fear of setting it to a certain region. that would totally **** up my laptop since I own DVDs from R1, R2 and R3. and on most occasions I can't use my TV's player since my dad is using it very often.