Disc Information:
Rated: 15 English 5.1
Feature Length: 50 minutes Japanese 2.0
Distributed by: MVM English Subtitles
Produced by: Urban Vision Entertainment PAL
DVD Extra Features:
Exclusive Footage of the Animation Director/ Character Designer at Work
Original Artwork Gallery
Remastered in 5.1

This is of the genre and style of anime that I would not normally watch but looked intriguing enough from my first impressions of the packaging that I would then choose to watch Twilight of the Dark Master. The menus were simple but effective and easy to navigate around, although there were very few items to be able to navigate around.

Audio:
The audio quality is of a good to average quality. The music at first was good and seemed to suit the general tone of the feature. It didn’t however stay at the same good quality of music, although the English dub quality was of a good quality, especially considering the age of the anime this one is originally from 1997, when it was released in Japan.

Visuals:
The animation quality is good and I was pleasantly surprised by the style of art used, which seemed as good as you would expect most anime series to be, although some of the visual effects are now slightly out-dated. The animation style is one that allows you to empathise with the characters as they portray emotion well. Perhaps this is due to the extraordinary skill of the animation director/ character designer who creates characters and storylines.

Main Feature:
The introduction is fairly emotive and also briefly introduces the viewer to several characters. However, this soon changes as the mood changes completely when the feature seems to forget about the plot development to concentrate more on the fan-service. The plot becomes difficult to follow and the story leaps between, what seems like several different, if not slightly interlinked stories featuring the main characters. This would be alright if the stories allowed the viewer to follow the plot line.

This is a typical good versus evil plotline where “man” tries to save the world from demons. Like most anime series there is quite a strong presence of mecha and the armed forces against an enemy of unknown strengths. So, without giving away any of the story, as I know that some reviews contain spoilers that completely defeat the main point of actually watching the show. What I will say is that there is a plot of sorts but it is quite vague and would not qualify for me as being in any way a good story. The clearest explanation of what is happening for some of the time is to be had by reading the run-down on the back of the DVD box.

When watching this I felt no link towards any of the characters and the story although a good versus evil plot line, doesn’t actually resolve itself either way. The demon continues to rampage and wreak havoc everywhere it goes. The guardians seem to be constantly battling but to no avail. The DVD on the box describes itself as being an “elaborate story will transport you to a world full of ornate imagery and exotic characters.” The imagery is at first ornate and detailed throughout but is not of the ornate calibre that it claims. The characters may be exotic, as the female nudity shown by the fan-service shows all too well. But the story itself does not match in its exoticness.

Extras:
The extras were limited and the main extra feature was a perhaps overly long, which was exclusive footage of the animation director/ character designer at work. This is interesting as it shows the line art pictured on the front come from a simple line drawing to the line art shown on the DVD’s cover. The footage is time-lapsed and only slows down for the name Hisashi Abe to flash across the screen as he asks “Was that ok?” which doesn’t seem like much when it took almost 15 minutes to get to this point. I very much enjoyed the rare chance of seeing the artist at work and the line drawing being transformed as each layer is added, which shows just how important each layer of drawing (usually as in this case drawn on a few pieces of paper) is put together. The other extra feature was an original artwork gallery, which showed about 6 of the characters in black and white, some colour and then in full colour (each doing the same pose).

Verdict:
I really wanted to enjoy this feature and went into it with a completely open mind, despite it not being my normal choice of anime. This is not really a disc that I feel I can recommend as I felt by the end that I had given up the will to watch it, and was not wanting to “explore extras” as the menu after the credits said. There was no real plot or character development and what little plot existed was didn’t draw me into it at all.

I feel that there are many other things that would be a wiser investment of £20. I’m somewhat sad to say that this was undoubtedly the worst anime series or OVA that I have ever watched.
Overall Score: 2/10

Review by Rebecca Fry