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  • English: Dolby Digital Stereo
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Urotsukidoji - Legend of the Overfiend/Legend of the Demon Womb

Madman Entertainment/AV Channel . R4 . COLOR . 195 mins . R . PAL

  Feature
Contract

This disc has been languishing in my ‘Inbox’ like a form that just cannot be processed. It is a hard thing to review a disc, nay one of your favourite titles, and be gravely disappointed.

Urotsukidoji – Legend of the Overfiend is a classic title for Anime fans; I would say ‘hardcore’ Anime fans in cheek. This is the first title that has been routinely lambasted by critics and ‘interest groups’ as the landmark of vile, violent and sexually explicit Japanese animation titles. In a field that is marked by ‘tentacle sex’ and girls in sailor suits, that is quite an achievement.

Everything they say is true, there are situations in Overfiend that would be out of place in hardcore pornography – simply because pornography does not depict the level of violence and sexual ‘supernatural’ situations that exist in Anime.

How can one describe Overfiend without describing individual situations that defy logical description?

Overfiend is in two parts: Legend of the Overfiend, as the title suggests, and the second part, Legend of the Demon Womb.

I have a good idea of the American R1 version and it is different given the different run times; some things that happen in the US version obviously do not occur here so I will only give a rough overview.

Legend has it there are three physical worlds; our world, the world of the demons and the world of the man-beasts. There is a challenge every three millenia; the Chosen-One will appear to unite these three worlds. The man-beasts have united to fight these forces when they realise the Chosen-One is an unassuming teenage boy called Nagumo. He has the usual hangups teenage boys have. Nagumo has his cousin and friends involved as well. The man-beasts up to the task are Amano and his sister Megumi. The demon world provides the cast of misshapen tentacles and monsters.

The second part involves the relationship between Nagumo and his cousin and how the Chosen-One has met his match. The whole premise revolves around a Faustian bent with characters accepting graces from the devil (demons in this case) for their soul. There are even remnants of World War II ‘mythology’.

The main characters are surprisingly charismatic and the situations are funny. An example is Amano’s pet who is a little green goblin (!). This goblin does not wear pants AND has a visible penis unlike Humphrey B. Bear. More importantly he provides a whole bunch of slick one liners to the main cast.

The director and writer have a sense of what is funny with also an eye for low camera angles, which helps in the more salacious situations. And situations there are aplenty. I could list the various sexual situations, natural and supernatural, but that would take up the rest of this review...

  Video
Contract

Video quality ranges between mediocre and poor. This is the same cut as the VHS version and it looks it; colours are inconsistent, sometimes washed out. Clarity and general sharpness is poor. There are no true blacks. There is some isolated artefacting. The blood never reaches that fire engine red consistency one would like and that is a shame in a title with the requisite ‘rivers of blood’.

  Audio
Contract

There is a single track, a 192k/s Dolby Stereo English track. Now that is going to alienate 99% of Anime fans as the original Japanese language is missing. This is going to mean that most Anime fans will not even contemplate purchasing this title.

That being said, the English track is undistinguished. It has very good intelligibility mixed with reasonable music accompaniment. The English cast seems OK, with a reasonable grasp of the film’s intent and nuances with no actors seeming to ‘go against character’. I would note that a lot of the dialogue would not be out of place in a hardcore pornographic film. The music is unremarkable and sometimes fidelity is poor. There are no subtitles.

  Extras
Contract

There’s a single trailer for Manga Video releases which consists of several trailers strung togther. There’s DVD-ROM content for the artists that provide the menu music. The box advertsises an image gallery, however in fact there is none. This is idiotic.

  Overall  
Contract

Put simply, I cannot recommend this disc at all; it simply has too many omissions to make it worthwhile for any amount of money.

Besides the rather spotty presentation and the lack of the original Japanese soundtrack, the biggest sin is that this is the R2 version which has been mercilessly destroyed by the BBFC.

How badly is it cut? The R1 version is called the ‘Perfect Collection’ and has the two volumes as well. This runs 250 minutes. The R2/R4 version runs 192 minutes. Given the difference between NTSC and PAL, just say that there’s roughly 38-40 minutes of cuts and call it even?

Even the person with only a passing interest in Anime cannot feel comfortable with the savage excisions, as the basic story loses a lot in continuity. I have seen the original version so it makes slightly more sense to me but to ‘virgin’ viewers it will seem wildly imcomprehensible.

Madman have an enviable reputation for providing quality Anime in what can only be called a niche market. It is disappointing that they would provide an out of character version of such a popular title.

Until we see a better version, the American ‘Perfect Collection’ is it with its uncut length and Japanese track.


  • LINK: http://www.dvd.net.au/review.cgi?review_id=1142
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      And I quote...
    "A landmark Anime title that has been horribly butchered by the BBFC AND which lacks the Japanese track..."
    - Tony Lai
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Rom:
          Pioneer 105(s)
    • MPEG Card:
          Geforce2 32MB AGP
    • Decoder:
          Sony TA-E9000ES
    • Amplifier:
          Parasound HCA-1206THX
    • Speakers:
          Mission 763
    • Centre Speaker:
          Mission 75c
    • Surrounds:
          Mission 760
    • Subwoofer:
          Mission 75as
    • Audio Cables:
          rca coaxial SPDIF
    • Video Cables:
          VGA connector
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