Astro Boy-Volume 3 (2004)

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General		Extras
Category	Animation	Trailer-Kermit's Swamp Years, Muppets From Space, Trailer-The Muppets Take Manhattan, Swan Princess Collection
Rating
Year Of Production	2004
Running Time	80:57
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Kazuya Konaka
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Candi Milo Wally Wingert Dorian Harewood Bill Farmer Faith Salie David Rasner
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	William Kevin Anderson

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.75:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Welcome aboard for our third foray into the realms of Astro Boy, and the further adventures of the popular animated robot from Japan, now in its third television incarnation. I am assuming that you have already perused one of my earlier Astro reviews. If not, please pop off now and do so ... la de da ... rhubarb rhubarb ... OK, are we all on the same page now? Good. Having enjoyed the earlier volumes I was looking forward to seeing further development of the supporting characters in the show, and was also wondering if the 'robots on a rampage' theme would start to wear a bit thin in this third volume.

    Well, the first episode on the disc, Franken (running time just over 20:00 as with all of the episodes here), again has a giant robot on a rampage, but with a slight twist (and more than a passing nod to Frankenstein - lightning and all, subtle this show is not). We have more robots on a rampage in The Venus Robots but at least this time the nefarious Dr Tenma is behind their uprising. This is an enjoyable episode, with Dr. O'Shay's assistant Yuko moving up to play a key role.

    The third episode on the disc, Robot Circus, provides some relief from rampaging robots and is a more relaxed character-driven story. In it Dr. O'Shay and Astro take a much-needed vacation and a robot circus comes to town - but is one of the performing robots actually a human boy in disguise? The final episode is Reviving Jumbo in which the villainous Skunk (who we last saw in Volume 1) returns to plague the police (oh, and send a giant killer robot on a rampage). It seems that Skunk may well become a recurring villain in the show.

    Let's face it, whatever the reason, the robots in this show are a real menace - they really should be shut down, but then I guess we wouldn't have much of a show on our hands. The development of Astro's character and the increased use of the supporting cast (Astro's teacher features a lot on this disc) continue to keep the stories fresh. The animation is also very good, with a mix of styles including heavy cel shading at times, computer generated images and a mix of styles in flashback sequences - it doesn't always work but it makes for some enjoyable visuals.

    The vocal performances in the show are also very good. I can't comment on the Japanese performers but the English voice cast sound just like you might imagine based on the characters on the screen. There is the odd jarring moment in translation, as when a character is called Jack in the dialogue but the name on his on-screen id card is very Japanese, but these are few and far between. My family continue to clamour for more, and they are keen to see who some of the characters shown in the opening credits are (especially that cute little girl who looks a bit like Astro), so we will be back soon to take a look at Volume 4.

Video

    The video transfer on the disc is good, as befits such a recent production.

    The aspect ratio is 1.75:1, 16x9 enhanced, which is acceptably close to the likely original ratio of 1.78:1. The animators make great use of the wide screen, and the show looks suitably sweeping on a large screen.

    The focus this time around is a little on the soft side, but not exceptionally so. The image is bright, with good shadow detail (as at 2:03 in the first episode) and no low level noise.

    The colours are vivid, though the animators use a lot of pastel shades at times (take a look at the group of kids at 3:24 in episode one) but this makes the use of vivid colours (as in explosions and fireworks) even more notable when they occur.

    The picture is in good shape. There is some slight grain and the odd minor positive artefact (and one or two moments of minor aliasing) but they are infrequent.

    The subtitles are good, both the English and the English for the Hearing Impaired. The latter miss the odd effects cue, and are in a very annoying style (white text in a black box) but do the job.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio transfer is good for a television show (and even puts a few motion pictures to shame).

    The sole audio track is an English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded track, which packs a lot of information into its 192 Kb/s. I suggest switching your amp into ProLogic mode when watching this disc. There is some variation in volume levels between episodes, so you may need to adjust the volume dial at times if you are playing all the episodes in succession. Again there is no Japanese original audio track.

    The dialogue is nice and clear, without the occasional variation in volume which was a minor annoyance on the previous two discs. The sync is generally fine, but you will notice the odd moment when someone is talking but no lips are moving. This is most probably due to production rather than encoding issues.

    The music in the show continues to do a great job of supporting the action, and is nicely balanced with the dialogue and the audio effects.

    Surround presence is quite good, with reasonable forward projection of the sound field from the front of the screen into the middle of the room, particularly with the music. Effects are a little subdued, and the bass is disappointing, with the subwoofer hardly used even if directed to play low frequency effects.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There are no extras worthy of discussion, just a series of trailers unrelated to the show.

Menu

    The menu is static with no audio. From the menu you can choose: Play All Episodes, Episode Selection, Subtitles, Trailers. There are no individual scene selections within episodes.

Trailers

    Trailers for Kermit's Swamp Years, Muppets From Space, The Muppets Take Manhattan and the Swan Princess Collection (yes, the same ones from Volumes 1 and 2).

    The Region 1 boxed set features a Pan & Scan transfer which makes the Region 4 the version of choice.

    Robots on the Rampage, oh, sorry, Astro Boy continues to be an entertaining diversion, and my family audience is keen for more. While buying a series of single discs can be an expensive pastime, this makes a great rental while we wait for a boxed set (with fingers crossed).

    The video transfer is good.

    The audio is fine considering the source.

    Extras, grrrrrr.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall