Video:

The previous reviewers say VCD and TV-rip quality, but I completly disagree. It is probably a TV rip, but such a good one that I find myself forgetting so. The colors are very bright and vivid, but they don't bleed or rainbow, and the lines are clear and solid. There was no imprinting on the video like some AV TVrips, and most the time it looked like perfect DVD quality. There is very very minor pixelation in the fast moving scenes, but even then it's hardly enough to deserve anything less then 4.5 stars. The video was very good, and completly acceptable. There is a very small watermark on the top right corner that is always there. It's about 50% transparent, and it's white letters saying "BS". It's not distracting at all, because its so small but it is there.

Audio:

It has Japanese only, which was still really clear and solid. There's not much else to comment on over here.

Subtitle:

Not nearly as bad as its otherwise credited. It's main problem is names, they get them wrong. But you have ears, right? It is easy enough to hear the names rather then relying on subtitles to know them. Yokou, Sugimoto, Asano, Keiki... they're all said clearly so that shouldn't be a big problem. The timing is generally very good, and it does get some genders wrong occaisionally. I thought they were suitable enough for watching, so I'm not going to whine over how terrible they were, because in my opinion, they were good enough. They are that Times New Roman bold font, yellow with a black border.

Comment:

Packaging: A very nice collage of most all the characters. Youko is on the front, with her tan skin and red hair REALLY standing out on the cover. The back has lots of anime pictures, mostly what looks like it came from character profiles, but really nice. The spine is a dark red, with the cover image on the spine, except cropped. It looks very good, especially next to the over volume's spines. Pretty good. Menus: All still, and all plain, but the main menu has some really cool action music playing to it. The subtitle menu has no music, and the scene select music is the same as the main. All the openings and endings are intact, but there is only one chapter point per episode, so if you stopped part way, get ready to fast forward. The show itself was GREAT. Much more realistic and serious then Fushigi Yuugi and Escaflowne, and really epic and interesting. It is a long show to take up, but I think its definantly worth it to try out one volume. The animation is really really good, especially for such a long series. I've heard comments on it before, but now that I've actually seen it, I can definantly say it makes it to the top 10 of my favorite anime.

Video:

VCD quality. some blotching is pretty noticable

Audio:

I was very pleased here. The audio spreads nicely over a surround sound system - birds chirp as if it were in 5.1

Subtitle:

Although they are not completely terrible, I must stress that my fear before purchase is true. This show deals a greatly with describing a different social structure and deals with political struggles - watching my friends watch these "first" rather than fansubs left them confused. Keiki is now named Ganchi or something close to it... the worst is when they start calling everyone Asano!!! Asano = Asano, Yuka = Asano(and Sugimoto = Asano), Yoko = Asano twice. Most of what the episodes revolve around in describing the lands and social structure of this society are lost.

Comment:

I cannot recommend this series unless you like a challenge. right down to the very first 15 seconds of "every" episode where they zoom-in on the present location - they do not subtitle it, so you are left wondering exactly which kingdom are they zooming in on? When Keiki was sealed in the second episode - it was not subtitled - i mean what; are we supposed to guess?!?! Complex descriptions and concepts are just not translated well, or not at all.

Comment:

Video - 4/5 Tv rip. All OP and ED intact and subbed. Audio - 4/5 Sounds fine Subs - 4/5 Very well translated HK Originals. Everything is very understandable and the only problem is the wrong character names. In fact the only names that are correct or anywhere near being correct are the three main characters. The wrong names weren't chinese names though. Asano = Asano Yuuka = Yuka Sugimoto = Sugimoto Nakajima = Michiyo There were no extras on this DVD This DVD includes episodes 1-8 Chapter breaks - OP to OP to OP etc.