Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040-Volume 4: Buried Secrets (2000)

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General		Extras
Category	Anime	Main Menu Audio & Animation Trailer-Gasaraki; Spriggan DVD Credits Biographies-Character
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	97:41
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Hiroki Hayashi
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	None Given
Case	DV-4
RPI	$29.95	Music	Kouichi Korenaga

    I'd suggest that this is not for kids anymore, if it ever was. One of the secrets unearthed concerns what a dedicated (crazed obsessive) scientist does to his daughter, and I don't think it's suitable for children.

    The names of the episodes on this disc are:

• Atom Heart Mother
• Shock Treatment
• Minute by Minute
• I Surrender

    I won't give a brief description of each episode, because even a brief description would give away too much - everything that happens is important. You will definitely want to see each of these episodes without ANY warning of what happens - I suggest you don't even read the back cover (not that it's too accurate, anyway). Just throw the disc in, and hang on.

    I will say, though, that I can hardly wait for the next volume!

Video

    The video quality on this volume is better than Volume 3, but not by a huge margin.

    These episodes are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and are not 16x9 enhanced, as you'd expect for a TV series.

    The image is mostly sharp, but there are a number of flashback sequences which have a coloured wash of light across them. This diminishes the sharpness of image, and that's disappointing. The only visible low level noise comes during the credits, where it is deliberate, as part of a simulation of TV.

    Colour is strong, but perhaps one notch off fully-saturated. Even the hard suits look a touch muted. Given the dark tone this series is taking on, that's not necessarily a bad thing. There are a number of places where objects take on a glow. This looks like colour bleed, but is intentional - there are reasons why the objects are glowing.

    The worst artefact on this transfer is aliasing, particularly during vertical pans. Diagonal lines break up into stair-step jaggies. This is always a problem with animation, but I'd say this disc has more than its fair share of this artefact - it is annoying, but not to the point of rendering the disc unwatchable. The aliasing vanishes the moment the pan ceases. There are very few other artefacts, fortunately.

    The English subtitles are not good enough, in my opinion. I strongly urge you to watch this with the English dialogue, rather than the Japanese (unless, of course, you understand Japanese). There are a couple of critical plot points which are not covered by the subtitles, and numerous subtleties that are glossed over, or ignored. If you doubt what I'm saying, then watch an episode with both the subtitles and the English dialogue - you'll easily see what I mean.

    The disc is single-sided, single-layer. No layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    I listened to both the English and Japanese soundtracks, both of which are Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo. There are no other soundtracks.

    Dialogue is almost always clear on both soundtracks, and the English is readily understood. Interestingly, I saw no audio sync problems on the English soundtrack, but I saw lots of issues with the Japanese - the animated mouths would be moving when there was no dialogue, or not moving when there was dialogue. It looks quite clear that the English dialogue track was made very carefully so that the pacing of the actor's voices matched the animation. I was surprised to see the Japanese dialogue flawed in this way.

    The score is contemporary music, and well suited to the story.

    The surrounds and subwoofer are not used. The soundtrack is mostly front and centre, but on a couple of occasions it broke out into a wide stereo image.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    The extras are very much like each other volume, but there have been additions.

Menu

    The main menu is animated, with music. It is identical to Volume 3, and suffers the same aliasing.

Trailers

    These are the same trailers as on Volume 3 - Gasaraki and Spriggan, both of which look like interesting anime. Neither is very long.

Character Profiles and Hardsuit Descriptions

    The profiles that we've seen on Volume 3 are unchanged, but they have added a number of new profiles, including "character profiles" for two motorbikes and a truck. The hardsuit descriptions are unchanged. 

    The Region 1 disc has less in the way of profiles, but is otherwise identical (it may have a Spanish dub, but I can't get definitive information on this). I'd suggest getting the Region 4 disc, if only because it is cheaper!

    Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040AD is becoming very compelling viewing, but you must start at the beginning - only get this disc once you have the first three. And once you have this one you are likely to be as eager as I am for the next one.

    The video quality is good, but there are annoying aliasing issues.

    The audio quality is good.

    The extras are consistent.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall