Astro Boy-Volume 6 (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	80:59
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 Bill Farmer David Rasner Gregg Berger Lara Jill Miller
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

    Well, here we are at Astro Boy - Volume 6! If you are new to this series of reviews I suggest you check out my reviews of earlier volumes (Volume 1 and Volume 4 would be worth a look) to catch up on the story to date. If you only want the short version, then all you need to know is that this is a Japanese animated TV series following the adventures of the robot boy Astro as he struggles to find his place in a world experiencing some tension between humans and a new generation of thinking robots. In this volume we have episodes 21-24 of the series, which now has a well-established cast of supporting characters and villains.

    One of the surprising aspects of this volume is that it introduces yet another new, and interesting, character in The Blue Knight, a mysterious and very powerful robot. The episode opens with everyone asking "Who's this Blue Knight guy?". He (it) appears to be on a quest to save robots from human mis-treatment. Meanwhile the villainous Katari is back and he tricks Astro by making him seem to be a member of the Robot Liberation Army. A wormhole projector has gone missing (shades of Star Trek: The Motion Picture), a series of anti-robot demonstrations begins, and Astro is shut down, only to be rescued by the Knight; which side will Astro take - robot or human?

    The Blue Knight appears again in the next episode, Hydra Jacked in which an orbital power plant run entirely by robots is tampered with by human hackers intent on stealing its technological secrets. In a change of pace Geo Raider follows the adventures of Astro as he joins a team of explorers more than 3000m below the surface of the earth. The final episode on the disc is Secret of The Blue Knight in which we discover a link between the mysterious Shadow and the Knight, with Dr. Tenma again lurking in the background. This episode is set on Mars which has a humorous 'American Wild West' frontier feel to it, twanging guitar music and all (oh, and watch out for the space helmet Dr. O'Shay wears, complete with bubble projection to handle his enormous nose).

    As you can see three of the four episodes feature The Blue Knight, and he is a powerful focus for the human versus robot theme which has been developing since the start of the show. This adds a coherent and dramatic central focus to the adventures of Astro and his friends that adds more dramatic impetus than you sometimes find in a series like this. As for Astro; it comes as no surprise that, when asked to choose a side, he firmly states "I choose both!". How he handles this decision will no doubt be a focus for future episodes.

    This disc is one of the better ones in the series to date, with excellent stories and nice production values presented well on the DVD. My family audience continue to enjoy each entry in the series, and are looking forward to more. I will be reviewing future entries in the series in the near future once I confirm the release schedule. The local distributors have announced a "Series 2" boxed set which will apparently contain Volumes 7-12 of the show, following on from the disc under review here. The discs will also be available individually - I'm not sure if there will be a set of 12 discs covering the entire show.

Video

    The video transfer on this disc is very good, and is slightly better than most of the other discs in the series to date.

    The aspect ratio is 1.75:1, 16x9 enhanced, which is acceptably close to the likely original ratio of 1.78:1.

    The picture is nice and sharp with good shadow detail (as at 10:16 in the first episode), with no low level noise.

    Colours are vibrant (check out the shot of The Blue Knight at 2:32 in the first episode). The animators again make use of a wide palette of colours and effects, with the red on black at 5:29 one very effective example. The mix of computer and traditional animation also works very well on this disc with the force field around the Hydra space station at 8:20 in episode 2 looking quite spectacular.

    There are very few artefacts on view, with only an occasional hint of minor aliasing and edge enhancement. The small positive and negative artefacts seen on earlier volumes are absent here.

    The English subtitles are good, with only the occasional missed word. The English Captions (Hearing Impaired) titles are fair, but miss some audio cues and continue to be presented in an obtrusive black box on screen.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio transfer is good, with a reasonable surround presence.

    The only audio track on the disc is an English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded track, which is encoded at a bitrate of 192 Kb/s. I suggest switching to ProLogic mode on your amplifier to gain the advantage of the surround sound. Do I need to lament the missing Japanese original audio yet again?

    The dialogue is clear at all times, with reasonable audio sync (as much as can be expected for dubbed animation).

    The music in the show continues to impress. Once again it is an effective support to the action, and varies quite nicely between episodes. It is nicely balanced with the other audio elements. The opening theme is excellent. Although it does take up one minute of the running time it helps the viewer get into the right mood for the ensuing action.

    The surround activity is subtle, but has reasonable forward projection in both music and effects. The subwoofer will add minor bass support if configured to do so.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    Ho hum, the only Extras are the same four unrelated trailers found on all the other volumes of the show to date.

Menu

    The menu is static with no audio. Your menu choices: Play All Episodes, Episode Selections, Subtitles, Trailers. While there are chapter stops in the individual episodes they are not selectable from the menus.

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 1-5).

    The Region 1 version of this series is available as a boxed set with a few production features, but is at an incorrect aspect ratio, with some reviews commenting on notable clipping at the sides. While it would be nice to have the complete series in a box, this mutilation of the print makes the Region 4 the version of choice.

    This is a fine entry in an enjoyable series of discs. The story continues to develop in new and interesting ways and the widescreen picture adds some dramatic sweep to the action. This will provide a lot of enjoyment to younger family members (and the ancient ones in my household like it as well).

    The video transfer is good, with this disc being one of the best in the series so far.

    The audio transfer is fine, with quite a good surround presence.

    The Extras need a lot of work.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall