Review Syatem Broken

[Liete]

Yu Yu Hakusho EZ (complete series box set)

3.5/5
Box 1 is really great quality, what you would expect from a standard well done perfect collection. 4.5/5 - Box 2 is also of similar quality to the first, very well done. 4.5/5 - Box 3 is where things start plummeting down hill, some of the episodes resemble the previous two sets, others strongly resemble a VCD or a really bad MAC release. 3/5 - Box 4 is a double edged sword, the first 2 discs are fairly well done although they dont measure up to the first two sets. However the last 2 discs take a significant drop in quality and revert back to the poorly mastered pixelated mess that was seen in the previous box. This really made me mad... the distractions it caused for me in some of the greatest and most intence episodes of the series... it really... really spoiled this potentially great set 3.5/5 for box 4. If only they had done boxes 3 and 4 as well as they did 1 and 2 this would indeed be a "perfect" collection. I really think the previous reviewer posted his review before he watched all the boxes...

5/5
English 5.1 Japanese 2.0... be warned though the dub although it is well done often strays a great deal from the original Japanese script (also avaliable on this set as subtitle #2).

5/5
Track 1 is Dubtitles, Track 2 is the original Japanese script done fansub style.

Comment
Yu Yu Hakusho is by far one of my favorite series after watching it. Box 1 and 2 of this set are well done and really do the series justice. However box'es 3 and 4 are just so flawed that it completely soils an otherwise great set. I would have forgiven more on the video (at least given it a 4) if I hadn't had to watch the final episodes of the series as a pixelated macroblocking nightmare that would make MAC shake in there pants, as they are the kings of bad quality EZ has come very close to dethroning them in part of this set at least. Still, its a decent buy for those who can't afford the R1's, and as much as I hate to say it, its really the only Yu Yu Hakusho set worth buying as I heard the MAC set is bad quality throughtout and this one is only half rotten. I however hope the second part of this set gets a remaster sometime in the near future, it truely needs it.

Azumanga Daioh MAC Perfect

5/5
As much as ive been disappointed with the last several MAC sets ive bought this one comes out excessively well. While I never noticed any instances of pixelation the video has hints of the slightly washed out MAC look, although its not nearly as bad as many of there other sets. Overall I would say its slightly above average, almost hard to tell that all 3 discs are DVD-5. I actually didn't think they were at first given the video quality. Its suprising how well MAC managed to fit all 26 episodes on 3 DVD-5's with virtually no pixelation, I have older three disc DVD-9 perfect collections from FX that have worse video coding.

5/5
English and Japanese seem to be spot on, but because I only have a stereo tv I really didn't get to test the English 5.1 (The japanese is 2.0). So I give it two thumbs up.

5/5
Comes with the official English subs by ADV, which are of course great, and some apparently well done Spanish fansubs. The Spanish subs are just for the video though, they dont cover the beginning and ending songs as the English ones do.

Azumanga Daioh is a really enjoyable and funny series,well the first half of it anyway, then it gets kind of repetitive and mind numbing, still worth a buy though. This is a pretty decent perfect collection, especially coming from MAC. Although I dont own the EZ set my brother does and it has anti-aliasing and pixelation issues in high motion scenes. So for once in its life time I would say MAC has the superior set, despite it being D5.