This Ugly Yet Beautiful World Volume 1 DVD Review

By sothis Published: June 15, 2006

PACKAGING AND MENU

0 / 10

This is a screener copy, so I can't comment on the packaging or official menu.

FEATURES

6 / 10

Assuming the features included with this screener are the ones that will come with the full release, I have to say I’m a little disappointed. A clean opening and closing are included, and the usual previews and credits, but not much else of good use. The Japanese CD and DVD spots (aka TV commercials) are great and all, but don’t really make people want to buy a DVD. The only useful thing in the features is the translation notes, which are useful especially for people who aren’t familiar with the Japanese language.

Besides that though, no interviews, no artwork, no outtakes, or anything else that I think makes a DVD stand out.

VIDEO

9 / 10

On my huge LCD TV, there were surprisingly few defects. Occasionally in close up face shots, there was some reddish artifacting on the face, but these were few and far between. Some slight fuzziness could sometimes be seen too if you looked closely. In general though, the colors came across well and the video quality in general was top notch.

AUDIO

8 / 10

It appears that both the Japanese and English tracks will be 5.1. That being said, both performed nicely. The rear channels were mostly used for nature noise (including rain) or special effect sounds.

The dub is quite good, sounding mostly non-scripted (including use of swear words). Though, I do think Takeru’s voice actor doesn’t quite fit how his character looks, in addition to how the Japanese character sounds. The English actor sounds a little too young and feminine; I’d expect a more gruff voice with how Takeru looks.

CONTENT

7 / 10

I knew nothing about this series ahead of time, except that it’s notoriously ecchi. That being said, I was happy to see that there seems to be an element of plot as well… though we’ll see if it lasts. Takeru and Mari are two friends who are out for a bike ride, when they see two beams of light crash down from the sky. Following one of the trails, they find a naked girl in a tree (uh oh!) and thus the ecchi begins. Later on, another girl enters the picture (the other beam of light). Essentially, so far this series is a somewhat typical “girl discovers the world and hangs all over a guy” series, but with a Gainax flair. You can tell something odd is going on with the girls (since they arrived AS A BEAM OF LIGHT), but we don’t find out anything about that yet. Mood-wise, people were right: this series is ECCHI. Two words: shower scene. Hilariously enough, the series occasionally has parodies of other anime, such as Urusei Yatsura and Onegai Teacher.

The character designs and overall animation is quite pretty. Admittedly I could have done without the ecchi, but it’s still nice to look at. Decent music as well.

The characters seem interesting and probably have secrets we’ll discover later. I look forward to finding out why the girls arrived from the sky. Knowing Gainax, it’ll be something really messed up and involve the world being destroyed or something. I suspect the girls might be rivals, who knows?

Seems like an interesting series so far.

OVERALL

8 / 10

With a great set of audio tracks, good dub, great visuals and interesting story, this seems like it will be a solid release from ADV.