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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.
Neon Genesis Evangelion-Collection 0:6 (Episodes 18-20) (1997)

Neon Genesis Evangelion-Collection 0:6 (Episodes 18-20) (1997)

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Released 11-Jul-2001

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Anime Main Menu Audio & Animation
Biographies-Character
Trailer-Bubblegum Crisis 2040; Sin-The Movie
Trailer-Martian Successor Nadesico; Spriggan; Gasaraki
DVD Credits
Rating Rated M
Year Of Production 1997
Running Time 76:03 (Case: 75)
RSDL / Flipper No/No Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 2,4 Directed By Hideaki Anno
Studio
Distributor

Madman Entertainment
Starring None Given
Case Click
RPI $29.95 Music Shiroh Sagisu


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame Full Frame English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio None
16x9 Enhancement No
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.33:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English Smoking No
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

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

Plot Synopsis

    As we progress further into the Neon Genesis Evangelion series, we start to get a little weirder in the content of the episodes, especially as we start to explore the existential plains. As such, there is less mindless entertainment on offer here, and more in the way of puzzles. And so Neon Genesis Evangelion Collection 0:6 comprises:

Episode 18 - The Judgment Of Life

    Well, the Fourth Child remains a mystery to Shinji, but his time as a pilot might be very short. Evangelion unit 03 is on its way from the United States, when it is infested by an Angel. Of course, this only comes to be known during the testing of the unit, when it promptly creates a massive explosion that destroys the test facility. And so EVA Unit 03 becomes the Thirteenth Angel, with Toji stuck inside. The other three EVAs are despatched to deal with the Angel, resulting in major damage to two EVAs and EVA 01 breaking the binds that control it. Also, Gendo Ikari proves how big a hard-nosed b****** he really is.

Episode 19 - A Man's Fight

    Suffering from the effects of the destruction of EVA 03, and the possible death of Toji therein, Shinji pulls his petulant child act again and refuses to leave EVA 01. Eventually forced out, he promptly walks away from the job of piloting EVA 01. However, as he is at the train station to catch the train home, Tokyo-3 is attacked by the Fourteenth Angel, Zeruel, perhaps the most dangerous yet, as it attacks to the very core of Central Dogma. With EVA 02 and Asuka out of action real quick, and with EVA 00 not even repaired after the damage inflicted upon it by the Thirteenth Angel, all that NERV has left is Rei and EVA 01. Big problem - EVA 01 will not accept anyone nor anything in the pilot's chair apart from Shinji. So Rei does her best with an armless EVA 00 until Shinji decides to get back in the pilot's seat and lead EVA 01 into the fray. But at what cost?

Episode 20 - Form Of The Mind, Form Of The Man

    After EVA 01 destroys the Fourteenth Angel, along with a fair chunk of NERV headquarters to boot, NERV tries to get back on track as SEELE starts questioning what went wrong. The other little problem is that Shinji has departed this existence for something far more profound, and Misato is desperate to get him back. No easy task when all he is is some atoms floating around the primordial soup that his LCL fluid has turned into. But this is NERV and so they perform miracles, right? Well maybe. Meantime Shinji gets to ponder the meaning of life from an existential plain of existence for now. And Misato gets laid by Kaji. Hey, these are important details - even if you don't get to see the action. Oh, and we start to ponder exactly what an Evangelion is.

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Transfer Quality

Video

    The transfer is presented in a Full Frame format and it is not 16x9 enhanced.

    Sharpness is good and it shows the improved solidity that we seen over the past three releases in the series. There are just a few instances where the black line detail could perhaps have been a bit more solid, but nothing too disappointing at all. Detail remains about as good as you can expect from this sort of source material. Shadow detail is obviously a non-issue in this sort of animation. There was nothing in the way of serious grain in the transfer and this results in a generally very clear looking transfer. There did not appear to be any low level noise issues at all.

    The quality of the colours remains high here with some nice, steady, well saturated and rather vibrant colours. There was nothing in the way of over saturation here at all, and colour bleed was barely an issue at all. The colour looks good and true to the original content.

    There did not appear to be any significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer. Film-to-video artefacts are pretty much confined to some minor aliasing here and there, which is hardly any sort of distraction at all, and the obligatory minor telecine wobble that seems to plague the series. There are no really noticeable film artefacts in the transfer.

    Each episode on the DVD has the original Japanese credits with the English credits all being shown after the end of Episode 20.

    The English subtitles are the usual wayward efforts that we have come to expect with these releases. They might do a good job of translating the Japanese dialogue (even though I cannot vouch for this implicitly), but when compared to the more relaxed English dub, they are often not within a reasonable degree of accuracy. No big deal of course unless you are in the habit of listening to the English dub with subtitles on.

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

Audio

    There are two soundtracks on the DVD, being the original Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack and a dubbed English Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. I listened predominantly to the Japanese soundtrack, and sampled the English soundtrack. Say what, the Japanese soundtrack? Yep, I decided to go with the original language this time, for the sake of some variety.

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand throughout the episodes, whichever soundtrack you listen to. Naturally, since we are talking about animation, there are the usual sync issues on display. Naturally, the English dub has a slightly more noticeable sync problem than the original Japanese soundtrack.

    The original music for the series comes from Shiroh Sagisu, and continues in the fairly ordinary mode.

    Both soundtracks are perfectly acceptable efforts, free of any apparent distortions or problems. The sound is quite open and does not have any indication of congestion. The front surround channels are reasonably well used to give some decent presence to the sound but as usual there is nothing out of the rear channels at all. The bass channel does not get any work here at all. Really the soundtracks are now a model of consistency, apart from some variances in bit rate between DVDs, with the only noticeable blemish in this instance being the fact that the English soundtrack seems to be transferred at a higher volume for the first episode on the DVD compared to the other two episodes.



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

Extras

    Another consistent, albeit completely inadequate, extras package.

Menu

    Actually, these are starting to grow on me for some reason, but they really aren't that special. There is some audio and animation but that is the extent of the enhancement here.

Biographies - Characters

    Going by the title of MAGI Data Files, this is actually just five rather shortish pages of text on the characters Pen Pen (the penguin, a real major character), Makoto, EVA Unit 03, Angel #13 Bardiel and Angel #14 Zeruel.

Trailers (5)

    The obligatory collection of promotional trailers for other anime titles both available and coming soon. The package this time offers Bubblegum Crisis 2040, Sin - The Movie, Martian Successor Nadesico, Spriggan and Gasaraki. All are presented in a Full Frame format apart from Spriggan, which is in an approximate aspect ratio of 1.78:1. They uniformly come with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound and are not 16x9 enhanced. There is no time information encoded in the trailers, which is annoying, as is the fact that they are mastered in a looping manner. The technical quality is good enough although all suffer somewhat from grain and Gasaraki suffers somewhat from aliasing, especially in the closing titles. If this sounds familiar, it should - they have been virtually identical now for three straight DVDs.

Notes - DVD Credits

    A single page of text to let us know who was responsible for the DVD.

R4 vs R1

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

    As far as we can ascertain the only difference between the Region 1 and Region 4 releases is some additional soundtrack options on the Region 1 release.

Summary

    Neon Genesis Evangelion Collection 0:6 contains the big twist in the series and includes the first rather ethereal episode as Shinji starts his investigation of his new existential plain. As such, it could be considered either the strongest part of the series or the part where half the audience lost track of what was going on. The DVD has been given another good transfer across the board, with something of a marginal improvement in the telecine wobble issue that normally afflicts the series. I would suggest however that this would still prove to be a tad problematic on a very large screen.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris (Biological imperfection run amok)
Sunday, August 12, 2001
Review Equipment
DVDPioneer DV-515, using S-Video output
DisplaySony Trinitron Wega (80cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials.
AmplificationYamaha RXV-795
SpeakersEnergy Speakers: centre EXLC; left and right C-2; rears EXLR; and subwoofer ES-12XL

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