Review for Rage of Bahamut Season 1 - Collector's Edition Collection

Introduction

I am seriously tempted to cut and paste here. After all, All the Anime are releasing two fantasy action shows in the same week, Lord Marksman and Vanadis, and this Rage of Bahamut: Genesis. I could once again state my antipathy to this particular genre, how swords and sorcery doesn’t really appeal to me, and I can once again state the pleasant surprise I got when I watched the first episode, as just like Lord Marksman and Vanadis, the opening episode of Rage of Bahamut blew me away, presenting a world and a story that I really wanted to watch more of. I only hope that Rage of Bahamut doesn’t unfold in the same way as Lord Marksman and Vanadis.


Favaro Leone is a scoundrel and a rogue by temperament, bounty hunter by vocation, although it’s not his flamboyant arrogance that has made an enemy of fellow bounty hunter, and fallen knight Kaisar Lidford; as they were once childhood friends. After getting one over on Kaisar, and reaping the reward of an unfortunate bandit, Favaro’s doing what he does best, getting drunk and boasting in the local tavern. This time he’s proudly proclaiming that he’ll head north next, to Helheim, where the bounty pickings will be richer still. A passing girl named Amiro who is looking for a guide to Helheim overhears his bragging, and she decides to make a pact with Favaro. Favaro isn’t the first guy to have his head turned by a combination of drink and a pretty girl, and he won’t be the last, but he’s probably the first to wake up with a demon’s tail. Amiro is no simple girl; she’s actually a fallen demon, carrying a dangerous secret. It appears the only way that Favaro will get rid of the tail is to actually take Amiro north. Meanwhile, Kaisar has witnessed Favaro’s ‘true’ demonic nature, merely confirming his opinion, and he’ll follow him to the end of the Earth to do away with the vile creature. Only he isn’t expecting to pick up a little zombie girl along the way. And all the while, gods and demons play dice with the lives of mortals...


12 episodes of Rage of Bahamut: Genesis are presented across two discs from All the Anime.

Disc 1
1. Encounters in Wytearp
2. Escape From Livian
3. Fog of Nebelville
4. Reunion at Ysmenport
5. Rescue in Sword Valley
6. Anatae Part 1: Legendary Saint
7. Anatae Part 2: The Storm Rages
8. Anatae Part 3: Beyond the Storm
9. Decision in the Wailing Woods

Disc 2
10. Helheim, Land of Lies
11. All Roads Lead to Abos
12. Rage of Bahamut

Picture

Rage of Bahamut gets the usual Funimation treatment for its Blu-ray release, decent enough, with a clear and sharp image, consistent colours, and an absence of compression artefacts and the like. Even the usual complaint about digital banding is less applicable to this release; certainly at no point did I overly notice it. Rage of Bahamut deserves a good transfer as this show gets a fantastic animation, theatrical quality throughout, and verging on the Disney when it comes to detailed character animation and facial expressions. It’s mentioned in the commentaries that this is one show where it was harder to dub, as they were actually matching lip movements, not just the usual anime lip flaps. The show gets rich, energetic and fluid animation, varied and memorable character designs, and a wonderfully realised world design, while the various bits of magic and fantasy allow the animators’ imaginations to run riot. It really does look like a top quality, Disney animation, with only the odd digital moment not blending quite as well. This might just be the best looking TV anime show I have seen so far!

The images in this review were kindly supplied by All the Anime.

Sound

It sounds pretty awesome as well, not least because of the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround English and Japanese. We so rarely get native language surround tracks that it really is worth checking out here. This is an action packed show, and the results really do tell in the sound design, with full use of the sound stage made to immerse you in the story, subtle and strident audio placement, with decent LFE output as well. This also tells in the show’s music, again driving the action and emotion of the story, opening each episode with some raucous metal, while tailing off with a gentle ballad. The original language track is very much the way to go here, with actors really suited to their roles. I gave the dub a try, and found it passable, with some decent performances, but some very much less so. One issue for me was that Kaisar’s voice actor was wholly unsuited to the role, making the character stand out for the wrong reasons, and given how prominent the character is, that makes the dub a no go option for me. The subtitles are timed accurately and free of typos, and it’s worth noting that they are locked on this release.

Extras

The discs present their content with animated menus, and Rage of Bahamut’s menus are particularly eye catching, offering an idea of the quality of animation that lies within.

Disc 1 autoplays with a trailer for Garo: The Animation, but the sole extra on this disc is the Episode 1 audio commentary. Sonny Strait (ADR Director) is joined by Ian Sinclair (Favaro Leone), Tia Ballard (Amira) and Chris Rager (Kaisar Lidford). When Funimation cast and crew get a show to dub that they are really enthusiastic about, it tells in the commentaries, where they actually talk sensibly about the shows, rather than just goof around giggling. This is a good commentary and well worth listening to.

Disc 2 autoplays with a trailer for Lord Marksman and Vanadis.

On disc 2, you’ll also find the bulk of the extras, including Episode 6.5 Roundup, which lasts 23:15 and as the title suggests, is a recap episode summarising the first half of the series. It’s pretty well done as these things go, but in the grand scheme of a complete series boxset is pretty unnecessary. You also get the preview for this episode.


The episode 12 commentary features Sonny Strait, Chris Rager, Ian Sinclair, and Tia Ballard again, but unfortunately defaults to the usual setting of Funimation commentaries, 20 minutes of useless noise.

You get the textless credits, the opening, the closing, and the end of episode 12, this time in full screen; although once again, player locked subtitles render them less than textless.

You get the preview for episode 1, and the US trailer for the show. There are also further trailers for Tokyo Ghoul √A, Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie, Assassination Classroom, Tokyo ESP, Terror in Resonance, Black Butler: Book of Murder, Psycho Pass 2, and the Funimation Collector’s Edition of Eden of the East.

I haven’t seen the packaging or the 300-page artbook (yes, 300 pages!) to comment.


[Update] I have now got my hands on a retail copy to examine. It is a chunky affair, making the most of the series art. The artbox is 5cm wide, and made of sturdy chipboard. The two discs get two thin Amaray cases, again offering twice the art than you might expect. The blurb sheet on the back is stuck on with glue dots, which you have to be careful peeling off.

Most of the (approximate) kilo weight comes from the three hundred page artbook, a densely bound paperback affair. My first impression wasn’t favourable, as I didn’t think much of a book full of pencil sketches with no explanatory text. But then I took a better look and realised that it’s a flickbook animation. One of the stages of animation is to create the scenes in pencil line art form, with key frames sketching out the animation, usually leaving the in-between work to outsourcing. The key frames, when flicked through in this book give an idea of the initial animation. This book is really a neat extra, far more than I thought at first.

Conclusion

All the Anime actually released two fantasy action anime in the same week, this and Lord Marskman and Vanadis. On paper, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s the latter that would be the more desirable show. After all, Lord Marksman and Vanadis is based on a series of light novels, tells a pretty complex story about nations at war, political manoeuvring and plotting. Rage of Bahamut: Genesis on the other hand is adapted from a card game of all things. That should be cut and dried. Only Lord Marksman and Vanadis turned out to be a mundane fan service show, whereas Rage of Bahamut: Genesis might just be the best fantasy action anime I have yet seen. It’s brilliant!


To put it in Hollywood terms, if you take a b-movie script, and throw an a-list cast and director at it, talent, money and time, you get films like Jaws, Alien, Star Wars, and Independence Day, some of the biggest box office smashes of all time. They’ve put some serious money, talent and time into getting Rage of Bahamut right, and that tells in every frame of this show. The production values are so high, that it could be released as a theatrical feature, indeed I’m surprised that it wasn’t made for the cinema, as I’d have loved to have seen it on the big screen.

As with the average b-movie, the story in Rage of Bahamut is exceedingly simple, a staple of the fantasy genre, in other words a quest. A character needs to get to a certain destination, and picks up a guide, and a party of travellers, and adventures ensue. It’s how the story is told that makes it interesting, and in this case, we have denizens of heaven and hell playing games with the lives of mortals.


The real joy in Rage of Bahamut, and the obvious place where a lot of effort has been invested, is in the writing. Far from the usual mediaeval setting such shows get, Rage of Bahamut offers a Latin style, in terms of music and visuals, verging on the Spaghetti Western at times, while it goes to great lengths to tell a story that is always refreshing, offering something new with each episode, never feeling the need to repeat itself. And when it comes to the characters, forget your clichés and anime tropes; these are unique, interesting, and above all entertaining characters. The show’s protagonist, Favaro Leone is a bounty hunter, and a rogue and scoundrel on top. He’s in it for the money and the good times, although it doesn’t hurt that he’s skilled. A hero needs a foil, a source of friction, and that’s where Kaisar Lidford comes in, also a bounty hunter, but a fallen knight, still possessed of chivalry, and nursing a grudge against Favaro, although the two were childhood friends. We’re introduced to them in a rooftop chase sequence, and that sets the fractious tone of their relationship.

Into their lives comes Amira, the girl looking for a guide to Helheim at the start of the show. It’s also made apparent that she is no mere mortal, appearing in a flash of light after escaping the heavenly realm of Abos, having stolen a key. She quickly deals with the first people that she encounters, who happen to be bandits, but it also becomes clear that she is naive and childlike in personality if not appearance. When she overhears a drunken Favaro boast that he’s heading to Helheim next, she decides that he will be her guide, and in his state of inebriation he agrees. Only the next morning, when he wakes up he has a demon’s tail as well as a hangover, and a sudden understanding of what making a pact with Amira means. His first inclination is to double cross her, be rid of her, and do whatever is expedient to get rid of the curse. When that isn’t simple to accomplish, he begins to warm to her, although their relationship certainly has a few bumps in the road.


Along the way, in one diversion, Kaisar winds up in an isolated village, guests of a family, and bound by chivalry to help the villagers against marauders. Only the village isn’t what it seems, and it turns out that the daughter in the family is a long-lived necromancer, the villagers all zombies. Rita winds up hoist on her own petard, but Kaisar stays his hand when it comes to finishing the job. Thereafter he has a wry zombie critic trailing his footsteps. These four are the main characters, but Rage of Bahamut: Genesis invests all of its characters with just as much thought and creativity. Towards the end of show it even offers its own version of the Joan of Arc legend, albeit reshaped to fit this story.

It’s a simple storyline, but it takes flight in inventive ways, with plenty of diversions and side-stories, offering much in the way of imagination and excitement. Favaro and Amira’s aim may be to simply get to Helheim, but as the story unfolds we learn more about the prophecy, who Amira actually is, and just what this journey entails. We realise just what a high stakes game is being played, and that invests the story with enough in the way of emotion and narrative weight for the climax to be just as heart-rending as it is triumphant. Rage of Bahamut: Genesis is the best action fantasy anime I have seen, it’s thrilling, exciting, fun, funny, and its story is built naturally around its characters instead of vice versa. The characters too avoid the usual clichés, the animation is some of the best I have ever seen in anime, and there’s a refreshing lack of fan service. They must have known before they even started production that they had a hit on their hands given the investment into it. It certainly has paid off, as a spin off series, Rage of Bahamut: Manaria Friends, as well as a sequel, Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul are in various stages of production. Personally I would love to see more of this universe!