Video:

Almost SPOTLESS. A few (very few) examples of blockiness, but they're not even during fast action scenes (which are perfectly clear). This is amazing. I might have given it a 4.5 for that, but this is one of the BEST boot digital transfers I've ever seen! Glorious!

Audio:

Three channels (English 2.0, English 5.1, and Japanese 2.0). All are crisp and clear. The dub sux, but sounds good. The Japanese is digital perfection. I noticed no dropout or any kind of disturbance at all.

Subtitle:

Perfect translation. It's a perfect rip of the R1 release, what'd you expect. One thing I noticed, which other may not, is that some of the subs pop up a fraction of a second later that when the speaker starts speaking. It's not bad, and the text isn't rushed or anything, they just appear a little after they should (like 1/2 a second after the character begins talking).

Comment:

I love this series! It's fun, fast and pretty deep. The first 7-8 eps seem like random missions that Eclair and Lumiere must go on, but everything ties up perfectly in the end. And WHAT an end! Wow! This whole show turns out to be huge! It's gets to be dramatic in the last half, way more than what you'd expect from its bubble-gummy, panty-shot filled beginning. I can't recommend this show enough. Buy it now.

Video:

All 24 eps on 3 DVDs, so the most sound split would be 8/8/8... and it is! And, having viewed this set up close, I must say that the video looks really good! FX must've learnt from their past mistakes, the recent batch is shaping up well. Colours are vibrant and the detail is sharp- the only pixellation I could see was some graininess on really fast/sudden movement. And then you have to strain to see it. I expect this video is really close to R1 quality.

Audio:

3 tracks here- Japanese, English stereo and English 5.1. As far as I could tell, they all sounded fine (I haven't got a 5.1 setup, so I can't comment on that. I liked how that theme songs had been "converted" into English... yet I was saddened that some of the phrasing of the English had been corrected. Still, there's the Jap channel with the original songs.

Subtitle:

There are two sets of subtitles in English. One of them subtitles the English dub script, and the other subtitles a more direct translation of the original Japanese script. Thus more fans are pleased!

Comment:

Extras: Disc 1- Clean OP sequence, Disc 2- Clean ED sequence, Disc 3- some kind of promo for Kiddy Grade (so that you can be persuaded to buy the series... but you've got it, otherwise how are you watching it... oh, forget it!) Okay, after watching this I now adore Eclair (my previous fancies have been unceremoniously ditched), and I LIKE Lumiere (as anything else might be too creepy, right?!) I really like this show, and so will you. There's something for everyone- Eclair for me and... you can have the rest. I'm off to the Bahamas with Eclair - BYE!!