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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Sailor Moon-Volume 12: The Wrath of Emerald (1992)

Sailor Moon-Volume 12: The Wrath of Emerald (1992)

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Released 15-May-2003

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Childrens Main Menu Audio & Animation
DVD Credits
Rating Rated G
Year Of Production 1992
Running Time 130:26 (Case: 135)
RSDL / Flipper RSDL (65:12) Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 4 Directed By Junichi Sato
Studio
Distributor
Toei Animation
Madman Entertainment
Starring None Given
Case Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI $24.95 Music Bob Summers
Angelo Oddi


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame Full Frame English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (224Kb/s)
English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio None
16x9 Enhancement No
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.33:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures Yes
Subtitles None Smoking No
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    The twelfth volume of Sailor Moon. If this is the first Sailor Moon review you've read, I suggest you go all the way back to the beginning, and start with my review of Sailor Moon Volume 1: a Heroine is Chosen.

    The episodes on this disc are:

  1. Rubeus Strikes Out - concluding the cliff-hanger that ended volume 11
  2. The Secret of the Luna Sphere - Rini's dreams have been invaded by The Grim Man
  3. Emerald Takes Over - Free cakes are tempting, even to the minions of the Dark Crystal
  4. Promises Fulfilled - Serena learns why Darian has been so distant
  5. No Thanks, Nurse Venus - is no nurse good nurse? Sick Sailor Scouts think so
  6. Dog Day for Artemis - Artemis is determined to prove that he's a hero

    This volume is The Wrath of Emerald, which kinda gives away who's going to be bossing the next series of attacks on Earth.

    Sailor Moon Volume 11 left us on a cliff-hanger: (SPOILER ALERT: highlight with mouse to read) all the Sailor Scouts, except for Sailor Moon, had been captured by Rubeus. He gave Sailor Moon a few hours to decide to hand over the Silver Moon Crystal, and Rini. Now read on...

    Serena is showing a bit more guts these days, and it's interesting to see her mulling that over as she's deciding what to do.

    The Secret of the Luna Sphere introduces us to another Sailor Scout: Sailor Pluto. We don't meet her in person yet, but we do see her transmitted image. She is definitely not as young as the Scouts we know (in fact, no one knows how old she is, and she's not telling). She's the first of the Outer Scouts (yeah, there will be others, later...).

    This volume seems to mark a change in some of the production of Sailor Moon. In particular, some of the sound effects have changed (and I don't like the changes).

    There are some nifty example of mixing up the transformations — we get to see five-way transformations more often. And there are some interesting combo attacks, too. It's also good to see that the Scouts haven't forgotten their old attacks in the excitement of getting their new attacks — there are some good examples of mixing old and new attacks.

    One thing stood out as something of an error: the Doom Tree theme (solo pan-flute version) appeared twice in episode 72 — that's completely inappropriate, particularly with so distinctive and memorable a theme.

    The morals continue to appear at the end of every episode, although I was confused at the end of episodes 67 and 71 — the moral wasn't apposite to the episode, and showed footage that was drawn from a completely different episode. It makes me wonder if someone has been chopping and changing the episodes? Still, the morals that appear are sensible, and not likely to offend anyone.

    Sailor Moon is good fun, and something parents can enjoy with their children. Recommended.

Don't wish to see plot synopses in the future? Change your configuration.

Transfer Quality

Video

    The DVD is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and is not 16x9 enhanced. That's the original aspect ratio, as is appropriate for a TV series that was made in Japan in 1992 (the 1995 copyright is for the English adaptation).

    This disc plays all the episodes in sequence, starting at whatever point you select — the main menu simply allows you to select a starting episode..

    The picture is a little soft, but clear enough — it's basically just a bit low resolution (as though it were a video-tape master). There's no significant low-level noise or film grain.

    Colour is quite good; it's just a touch removed from fully-saturated, but that probably makes it easier to watch — it could be tiring if it were fully-saturated. There are plenty of primary colours, but plenty of more subtle colours, too. There's no colour bleed or oversaturation.

    There are fewer noticeable film artefacts in this volume, but we still get things like the watermark at 54:44 on Rini's face. There is a bit of telecine jiggle, but never enough to be notable. There is quite a bit of light aliasing, but it's quite reasonably controlled. There's no real moiré, and no MPEG artefacts. There is interleaving, probably due to this master having been drawn from a PAL source that was converted from NTSC, but it is not noticeable when playing at normal speed.

    There are no subtitles, which is a shame, due to some of the dialogue being a little mangled.

    The disc is single sided and RSDL-formatted; the layer change is at 65:12, placed optimally in between episodes 69 and 70 — almost invisible.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is only one soundtrack, in English Dolby Digital 2.0, not surround encoded, mono. Strangely, it seems to be on the disc twice — there are two soundtracks, and as far as I can tell the two are identical (there's nothing in the menu offering a choice between the two).

    The dialogue is mostly clear and understandable, but a few words do get a bit mangled. Serena can get awfully shrill, and at such times not every word is clear. Emerald's ear-splitting laugh renders a word or two difficult to understand, too. There's never a mismatch between mouth flaps and dialogue. There's an occasional touch of distortion at the very top of the dialogue.

    The English title music, and additional music is credited to Bob Summers and Angelo Oddi. The original music is from Takanori Arisawa, Tetsuya Komoro, and Kazuo Sato.

    This mono soundtrack provides nothing for your surrounds or subwoofer.

Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

Menu

    The menu is animated (a moving background) with musical underscoring. All it offers is a choice of which episode to start at.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    The R1 and R4 versions of this disc offer the same features. Nothing to pick between them, really, except that ours is PAL, and theirs is NTSC. Even the package artwork is the same.

Summary

    Six more episodes, during which quite a bit happens — not too surprising, considering that this is the antepenultimate disc in the series. Not a fabulous DVD.

    The video quality is adequate, but it will never win awards.

    The audio quality is reasonable, but not quite as good as the previous discs.

    There are no extras on this disc (I don't count a single page of DVD credits as an extra).

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Tony Rogers (bio-degrading: making a fool of oneself in a bio...)
Saturday, May 17, 2003
Review Equipment
DVDPioneer DV-S733A, using Component output
DisplaySony VPH-G70 CRT Projector, QuadScan Elite scaler (Tripler), ScreenTechnics 110. Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials.
AmplificationDenon AVC-A1SE
SpeakersFront Left, Centre, Right: Krix Euphonix; Rears: Krix KDX-M; Subwoofer: Krix Seismix 5

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