Chobits-Volume 4: Love Defined (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Anime	Main Menu Audio Main Menu Introduction Credits-Japanese Ending (1:34) Trailer-Madman Propaganda (4) Gallery-Art (15) DVD Credits
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	98:10 (Case: 125)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (73:35)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Morio Asaka
Studio Distributor	Geneon Madman Entertainment	Starring	Rie Tanaka Tomokazu Sugita Tomokazu Seki Motoko Kumai Houko Kuwashima Fumiko Orikasa Kikuko Inoue Megumi Toyoguchi Ryôka Yuzuki
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$34.95	Music	Keitaro Takanami

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	Yes
Subtitles	English Titling English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, next episode teaser

    The fourth volume, and we've passed the half-way mark of a series which is increasingly mysterious, but lovely to watch. If you are new to the series, I strongly urge you to start with my review of the first volume, called Persocom — it provides some background material that I won't repeat. You might follow that by reading my review of the second volume, called The Empty City, and the third volume, Darkness Descends.

    After the last volume, when there wasn't a lot happening in the way of the longer story arc, there's a whole heap happening here. I want to be very careful what I say though, because you'll want a lot of what happens to come as a surprise.

    The episodes on this disc are:

    Hideki has plenty to react to in these episodes, and he does so with the passion and verve we are coming to expect. There are so many different stimuli that can send him off: love (or rather lust), happiness, embarrassment (probably the most common), despair (generally only when he gets his grades)...

    This volume has an even prettier cover than the others, with Chi in pink and white, with cherries. This is the first cover to have the new logo, for Geneon, in addition to the Pioneer logo that was on the previous covers. If you haven't heard, what's happening is that the Pioneer division that makes DVDs is changing its name to Geneon after being acquired by Dentsu (effective 1st October 2003) — I guess both logos are on this disc as part of a transitional thing.

    The closing theme changes with the first episode on this disc. I like both themes, but I'm not sure of the significance of the new theme, other than it being somewhat more melancholy, or yearning, than the first. Like the first one, this theme is sung by the Japanese dialogue voice actress for Chi, Rie Tanaka. She has a nice singing voice.

    There's some mention in these episodes of people effectively getting addicted to their persocoms. There are jokes in our world about people becoming addicted to their PCs, and our PCs don't look like beautiful young women who are totally compliant, so it is easy to understand how this could be a serious problem in their world.

    The last episode on this disc is more interesting than I expected. You'll see why. And no, it's not because they are beating the dust out of the tatami mats.

    After watching this volume I can say that I know even less about where this show is going. However, I'm even more keen to find out. I'm very keen for the next two discs. Having to wait until February for the next one is distinctly cruel!

Video

    This DVD transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. It is 16x9 enhanced. I am getting very fond of widescreen anime, and this is an excellent example of it.

    The image is clear and sharp. There's no film grain and no low-level noise.

    Colour is rendered very well; this series uses a beautiful palette of colours that make it quite distinctive. There are fewer of the scenes that look overblown, with a result that the colours look a touch richer than they have on previous discs.

    There are no film artefacts. Aliasing is slightly less than on previous discs, so this one looks really good. There are no MPEG artefacts. All up, this is an impressively clean transfer.

    The usual two subtitle tracks appear, both in English, with the first being a "signs only" track, while the second is the full subtitles. The subtitles are at least a little abbreviated, because I noticed some occasions when a character's name was mentioned in the Japanese soundtrack, but didn't appear in the subtitles (OK, so that's about all the Japanese I understand).

    The disc is single-sided and dual layered, formatted RSDL. The layer change is at 73:35, between the third and fourth episodes on a black frame, and is invisible.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The soundtrack is provided in English and Japanese. Both soundtracks are Dolby Digital 2.0, not surround encoded, at 224kbps. I watched all the episodes in English, and then again in Japanese.

    The English dialogue is easy to understand, and synced well between the animation and dialogue. The Japanese dialogue sounds clear enough, but is a little less well synchronised.

    The score is an excellent example of the music fitting the action so well as to be inconspicuous. Keitaro Takanami has done a really good job.

    This disc makes no use of the surrounds or subwoofer.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There's even less in the way of extras on this disc.

Menu

    The menus are animated with music. They are themed to look something like Mac menus, but they don't work that way — you don't click on the menu bar, but rather on the more standard menu in the middle of the screen. The transitions between menus are nice, and it is carried through to the eye-catcher that comes halfway through each episode. OK, so it's the other way around — you get the idea!

Japanese Ending (1:34)

    The ending, but with Japanese credits on it, rather than English. This has the earlier theme (Raison d'Être) rather than the current one (Mermaid).

Gallery — Art

    Another fifteen images from the series, these ones drawn from the episodes on this disc.

Madman Propaganda (5:52)

    Four trailers that run one after another (not the usual Madman Propaganda format):

• FLCL
• Fruits Basket
• Jubei-Chan Ninja Girl
• Excel Saga

DVD Credits

    A single page that shows credits for the folks at Madman who worked on this disc.

    The Region 1 version of this disc is similar, but it seems I misunderstood which episodes they had on the previous disc. Their fourth disc starts with the beach episode that was the last one on our previous disc — apparently they only had four episodes on the previous disc, unlike the five we received. So their equivalent of this disc, which sports the same gorgeous cover shot, has four episodes, too, but starts one episode earlier than ours. Putting it more clearly: they get episodes 13 to 16, while we get 14 to 17. Ours makes more sense, because episode 13 is the last one with the previous closing theme, and marks some kind of boundary in the series, so it makes sense to have it on the previous disc. Their transfer sounds about as good as ours (which is very good indeed). Interestingly, our gallery has 15 images, while theirs has only 6, and they don't get the Madman Propaganda.

    Looks to me like it's a tie, but you'll want to buy from the same region as you bought volume 3 — otherwise you'll end up with either two copies of episode 13, or none. I'm buying the R4.

    Chobits is a beautiful and intriguing anime series that I am really enjoying. It is presented well on DVD.

    The video quality is superb — they have controlled the aliasing this time.

    The audio quality is very good for a stereo soundtrack.

    The extras are fairly minimal.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall