Video:

Episode 1-8: Awseome TV rip, no vertical line anywhere, the main menu on both DVD are a little blurry. A little grainy and pixellated whenever the ghoul release a energy wave and when his body flashes but the rest is fine. The rip was taken from the AT-X broadcast system in Japan Episode 9-13: R2 DVD rip, pixellated and grainy whenever the ghoul appears The graphic are so-so, I liked the ghoul design in this one. It looks like a half-alien/half-predator creature, way cool to see. Some of the CG reminds me of some cutscene in Final Fantasy 7 from the Playstation 1 so they look like old graphic from the 1997. Could have been better than that All the girl's boobs looks like those from Ryo in the burn-Up series (except Kotoko), they look bigger than F cups, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy (Drool, drool). All the boobs you see are all alike.

Audio:

No problem detected, I love the opening with the electric guitar solo, the ending "Pump UP" is also good, the music is eerie in some episode, nice atmosphere in it.

Subtitle:

Definatly HK subs quality, some character's name are wrong or mispelled (left-wrong/right-wright) Ruxendra = Luxendra Susanna = Suzanna Banado = Barnado Lymr = Lyar (the lieutanant of Seraphim) Some mispelled words like Specular=Speculer but nothing out of the ordinary The biggest problem with Divergence Eve subs is the translation from Japanese to English was very weak In episode 1, Lyar is called Lieutanant, captain, chief and Major. She's a lieutanant for god's sake In episode 11, she's now called a major, she didn't have a promotion since the beginning Same thing with Misaki, she's called a lieutanant and a captain but she's nothing more than a trainee/rookie When you hear the character speaking, you notice right away that the subline is not near of what they said like in Episode 4, Kiri tells to Misaki "Idoi" a.k.a "You're mean" but in the subline, it's written " you didn't have to go that far", you can see that it's poorly translated in many place in Divergence Eve. Some words were translated properly, like Quantom Shield was translated to Quantom Barrier The phrase were Engrishy also, some had word missing, one prase in Episode 11 didn't make any sense to me, but understandable nondeless On a good side, no subline missing and the ponctuation/syntax is okay The subs reminds me of those from Anime Studio, it's exactly like that Overall, average subs because of poor translating

Comment:

Divergence Eve was okay but it could have been way better than this The main problem with Divergence Eve is the storyline. It was messed up and it was a plot after plot after plot so in the end, there weren't any main storyline in it. The main storyline was to destroy the ghoul that materialize in the Watcher's nest, but in the end, it more to capture it and understand this creature. Then it focus on Misaki. She transform into a devillady ghould whenever she on the brink of death so in the end, they never mention on how she end up with it. What I mean is that I know that she was genetically use when she was a baby but why did her parents agreed to that ??? The main purpose on doing that to her was understanding the creature with the ghould gene in her body. The appearance of Necromancer in the core of the Watcher's nest is confusing to me, they didn't mention on their purpose and how they still survive after all these years. The timeline also was confusing at point, you got near 12 date/year to remember on how the ghoul appeared or how the Watcher's nest was born. If you watch it, you'll know what I mean. Then, everybody is interested in Misaki's body especially Jean-Claude the scientist from France. His real purpose is to have the knowledge of the ghoul (from the other world). The phrase he says is confusing, they look more like riddle than actual answer. It's too long and hard to tell about him As you can see, the plot is divised to near 5 mid-plot, and with only 13 episodes to explain it, they went a little to fast to my taste There are almost no fighting scene in it. It would have been great seeing Misaki and all the other girl's of Seraphim against many ghoul but there is only one ghoul appearing at time and the only one who can beat it is Misaki. It's more like a one-on-one situation. That's a no-no in my book, more enemies would have been better but it's not the case Misaki transforming was awseome to see. When near death, her eyes change shape and she transform to fight the ghoul A devil Lady ghoul (in my books), that rocks, but the batlle does't last to long do Some character were a wasted in it, especially Suzanna. After episode 6, she disappears from the picture (she not death). There are little character's developpement in it. With 8 girls for 13 episodes, there not much time to add stuff for them. Lyar is by far the best character in Divergence Eve, she bossy, intelligent, and the savior of Misaki (sort of). She fight no matter the outcoming of it. Being the lieutanant of Seraphim, she's one tough cookie The ending was disappointing in my mind, Seraphim goal was to destroyed the ghould now it's to understand them. Misaki and the ghoul goes one-on-one but the outcome wasn't what I had hope for in the end Overall, it was disappointing at the end, I had high expectation from it, but the messed up storyline and weak subs sucks the fun of this title. If you really want to see it, wait for the R1 version and RENT IT but be warned, the story is messed up. NOT RECOMMANDED I saw some preview of the 2nd one, it looks good, hope it stays that way Extras: None Packaging: nice cover with every girl in Divergence Eve, (Clockwise starting from the upper right) Luxendra, Suzanna Prim, Misaki, Kotoko, Kiri and Lyar (With grey hair). Episode per DVD: 1rst DVD: Episode 1-4 DVD5 encoded 2nd DVD: Episode 5-13 DVD9 encoded

Video:

First 10 episodes are TV-rips captured from satelite TV. This is obvious because the AT-X (Tokyo satelite anime channel) logo shows up at the beginning and at the middle of every episode which proved to be quite annoying. As for TV-rips go the quality isn't too bad, there was no noticeable ghosting or vertical shadows in the video. The picture was a bit blurry and a little dark and the colours were a bit muddle and bland especially for a show made in 2003. The first 10 episodes were presented in letterbox (non-anamorphic) widescreen. The last 3 episode are DVD rips, in anamorphic widescreen. Picture is alot sharper, colours much more rich and vibrant. The entire series does suffer from some pixelation during high motion scenes or when one scene will fade into another one. Using DVD Bitrate Viewer I found that the DVD is encoded in CBR. Average bitrate for the 1st DVD was 5.42 mb/s Average bitrate for the 2nd DVD was 4.36 mb/s, both the TV rips and the DVD rips have the same bitrate.

Audio:

The entire DVD 2.0 Stereo audio. Nothing wrong with the audio from the DVD-rips, clear with no interference or background noise. The audio for the TV-rips were pretty good also, they even used both left and right channels seperately for directionality which was nifty. There was a touch of background noise though, I only noticed it when I was using my headphones and when audio was silent.

Subtitle:

Looks like HK originals. Spelling is spot-on and grammar usually quite good. Sometimes the subtitles would use the wrong tense for verbs. Sentence structure could have been alot better, there is a lack of flow and some sentences seem to be kept on the simple side. It feels like they translated it one sentence at a time without any regard to the conversation that took place before and after it. Ending song was translated (intro song was an instrumental) and so was background conversations. Names are correct. Here are some excerpts from the script Excerpt 1 Is this the town?. Let us report to you the traffic conditions in the residential area and F area Currently in between E and F This is really beautiful I thought it's a mess here Now I found it's not true Don't think too much Just relax yourself Right.. You are right Excerpt 2 Is that Ghoul? When is the time for substantiation?. They are calculating Quick Don't lift your alertness Ready to activate quantum shield Issue an order to make all the members stand by What about Lieutenant Ertiana She's on a level-D stand by so now she's in the residential area Elevate it to C Contact her.. so we can ask her to come Yes..

Comment:

1 chapter per episode. 4 episodes on the 1st DVD (DVD-5), 9 on the 2nd DVD (DVD-9). The episodes that were DVD-rips were in a seperate video title set cause they were in anamorphic widescreen unlike the TV-rip episodes. Not a big deal except for example if I am at episode 10 and want to go back to the previous chapter in episode 9 without going through the menus my DVD player will go back all the way to the 1st episode of the DVD. The show was set in space, lots of CG in it which I found not very impressive. Some creatures called Ghouls are threatening humans in space, a group of bust-heavy female pilots are out to fight them, main character was a ditzy and clumsy girl with a heart of gold. Reminds me of Vandread but not as good.