Gilgamesh Volume 1 DVD Review

By sothis Published: July 17, 2005

PACKAGING AND MENU

9 / 10

Maybe it's just because this is my sort of style, but whatever the case, I was immediately drawn to the artwork of the Gilgamesh V1 cover. Like the series itself, the artwork is dark and neutral, consisting only of black, grays and light tan colors. A stunning cutout of one of the characters is on the front, against a desolate and broken down background (very fitting for the series). The back is equally as dark and definitely more colorful with a good amount of dark green. The side of the back cover features a variety of small screenshots placed together to form a collage of sorts. This, actually, is my only small complaint about the artwork. All of the tiny photos are of faces, for the most part. Since all of the characters tend to look the same, this makes for a very generic panel of pictures that should be showing off the series. Admittedly, the focus of the story is character-based, but it might have been nice to have a scenery shot or better picture of one of the monsters instead of yet-another-face-that-looks-the-same-as-the-others. It might also have been nice to have the pictures spaced out a bit with the text so it wasn't as blocky.

The inside of the case has a small insert with terms (highly appreciated), and the disc itself which is dark and has the symbol of the Gilgamesh on it. In general, very well done packaging that fits the tone of the series perfectly. Given my dark tastes, I'd be immediately drawn to this if I saw it in a store.

FEATURES

7 / 10

The features for Gilgamesh are few and far between, but still interesting. A clean opening and closing are fairly normal for DVDs nowadays, and Gilgamesh is no different. The only other features it contains are character and concept artwork. Admittedly, there are a LOT of sketches and images shown... way more than a normal DVD.

VIDEO

8 / 10

For the most part the video quality was fairly good, except for some very noticeable dancing line issues. This problem showed up the most during panning shots. In addition, some scenes seemed much granier than others. Though this might have been intentional, it still was distracting when watching. There was no major artifacting, and the contrast of colors to neutral tones was very well done.

AUDIO

7 / 10

The Japanese audio is fairly standard. It’s only stereo so there’s not a lot of play across the sound stage. One plus about it is that the sound levels are mixed very well; the background noises and music don't outweight the dialogue. The 5.1 English audio, on the other hand, had a much more full sound and the use of the sound stage was better, but the volume levels in the mix varied greatly from scene to scene. Normally this type of dynamic is acceptable, but in this case I found myself turning the volume up and down from scene to scene so I could either hear the vocals, or turn down the loud music when an action scene sprung into view.

CONTENT

9 / 10

This will be an interesting section to rate, due to the differing opinions of the two reviewers. As with the other DVD reviews, these are written by two people: myself (sothis), and Dave (theBurningCrow). If you read the video/audio sections, you are reading words from Dave's mouth. The rest of the sections are usually written by me, with input from Dave as well. In this case, we both feel differently about the content, so I'll try to list his opinion too briefly.

The first five episodes of Gilgamesh show us very little of what surely is to come. All we know is that an event happened in the past that changed the face of the world as we know it. Cities are in shambles and everything is fairly chaotic, and for two young orphans, things are about to get a lot more complicated. Enter Gilgamesh, a strange group of young people who have extraordinary psychic abilities. Enter The Countess, a woman who has an agenda of her own to fight Gilgamesh, and wants the duo to fight on her side. There's plenty of mystery and strangeness abounding, which made me want to watch more, right away! Then again, the pacing is a little slow and in general the tone is quite heavy and dark. I personally love that sort of thng, but some people don't. Dave, on the other hand, though it was fairly boring and didn't capture his interest. I guess that shows we have differing tastes!

The animation is absolutely stunning, and perfect for the kind of things I like. There is almost no color save for a few splashes on various items. A gray and white coat has a red cross. One of the monsters was bright purple. This unique contrast was stunning at the very least. The character designs are also a bit unusual and gothic looking, which is mostly good but sometimes looked a bit odd. Detail ranges from very high to very primitive, which was also a little strange.

I was enchanted by the music, which reminded me of something I can't for the life of me remember (and it's really, really bugging me!). Some of the music reminded me of Myst or Zork Nemesis. The opening song is a techno-style beat that was very catchy. I enjoyed the music all the way around.

I'd rate this a solid 8.5 for content. I really enjoyed everything about the series, and look forward to waching the next batch of episodes. I'd probably even rate it a 9 but am going to knock off .5 because Dave didn't find it nearly as interesting as I did. I guess it's something you'll have to see for yourself and make your own decision!