Review for Dusk Maiden Of Amnesia Collection

Introduction

For the last six to eight months now, I’ve been willing MVM to announce a certain license. It’s perfect for them, a Sentai Filmworks release which has been PAL regionalised by Hanabee Entertainment, source of a fair fraction of MVM’s release schedule. It’s a show that is spooky, quirky, and funny, and not a little sexy too. I’ve been waiting for that particular title to be announced with painful anticipation, and with each new tranche of announcements, it’s always conspicuously absent. Then almost under the radar, in February’s batch of review discs, MVM send out the screeners for Dusk Maiden of Amnesia, a show that embodies those very same qualities in that other title that I would like, but shock of shocks, Dusk Maiden might actually be better! I watched the first episode, and had the sort of delighted reaction to it, that I haven’t had with a new anime in a long time. If the rest of the series is just as good, we’ll be onto a winner here.


With all the school set anime that has come and gone, the concept of the extra-curricular club is hardly a new one, but the Paranormal Investigation Club at Seikyou Academy is a little different. The most eager and vociferous member is Momoe Okonogi, enthusiastic about all things supernatural, but utterly dense in spiritual terms. She’s never seen a ghost, and most likely never will. Fellow member Kirie Kanoe on the other hand has seen a ghost or two and has definite ideas about how the supernatural world and the world of the living should remain separate entities. Not so much for our hero Teiichi Niiya, who was a key figure in getting the club started after he encountered a ghost when he got lost in the school, and found the ghost to be more sexy than spooky. As for the Club President, Yuuko Kanoe... she is that ghost. She died more than sixty years previously, it’s her skeleton under the club room, but she has no memory of who she was or how she died. She’s convinced Teiichi to start the Paranormal Investigation Club to learn more about her past, but given how Teiichi can see and touch her, she’s in no particular hurry to further that quest.


Twelve episodes plus the OVA are presented across two discs from MVM.

Disc 1
1. Ghost Maiden
2. Maiden of a Chance Meeting
3. Maiden of Dusk
4. Maiden of Dawn
5. Maiden of Longing
6. Maiden of Vengeance
7. Maiden of Oblivion

Disc 2
8. Maiden of Recollection
9. Maiden of Hatred
10. Maiden of Loss
11. Maiden of Bitter Tears
12. The Dusk Maiden
OVA. Ghost Girl
12. The Dusk Maiden Extended Version

Picture

Dusk Maiden of Amnesia gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer on these two DVD discs, native PAL courtesy of Hanabee Entertainment. If you’ve seen this show on Crunchyroll, I’m sure your first instinct is to wonder why there is no Blu-ray release, and your second instinct will be to go looking for a Region B compatible Blu-ray release, and to be honest I wouldn’t blame you. Dusk Maiden of Amnesia is a gorgeous anime, rich in detail and in colour and wonderfully animated, and you would want to see it at its best.


Having said that, this DVD release is excellent, the image comes across with clarity, with the richness of detail indicative of an HD source for the PAL transfer rather than simply converting the NTSC masters, and challenging the limits of the DVD medium when it comes to expressing that gorgeous, vivid and evocative colour palette. You will very quickly forget that you’re watching a DVD and simply become lost in the animation. This transfer also avoids one of the rare criticisms I have for Hanabee’s usually impressive DVDs, there’s no edge enhancement at all. The only niggle comes at the limits at the DVD format, a smidge of compression artefacting around fast motion. So when I say that this is one of the best looking anime DVDs I have seen in a long time, it’s then a testament to the quality of the animation itself that still has me thinking about the Blu-ray.


Dusk Maiden of Amnesia is a show that hits you with its colour palette first and foremost. It uses rich and vivid colour schemes to tell its story, reds, oranges, blues and greens, effortlessly used to establish mood and convey emotion. It also uses light and dark effectively to tell its spooky tale, and unsettle the audience. The character animation is strong, and consistent, with a fair amount of fan service to appreciate. The direction is stylish and effective, using the kind of touches that Studio SHAFT use to hoodwink, inveigle and enchant, but studio Silver Link aren’t quite as blatant with it. This is a high quality anime that gets the best visual presentation possible on DVD.

Sound

The same can’t be said for the audio, although it is acceptable for this DVD presentation. You get the choice of DD 2.0 English and Japanese, with optional subtitles and a signs only track (as well as the subtitles for the commentaries). I have been spoilt by Blu-ray. Before HD I never noticed the effects of PAL speed-up on audio, but now, pitch correction stands out like a sore thumb, while in this case, just the pitch alteration from PAL speed-up is noticeable, especially when it comes to background music. Piano notes and the like don’t quite sound as smooth and even as they ought to. And Dusk Maiden of Amnesia has some awesome music to it; the US release from Sentai actually comes with the show’s soundtrack on 2 CDs.


The dialogue is clear throughout, and the subtitles are timed accurately and free of typographical error, and the show is most certainly watchable, and indeed enjoyable on this DVD. A couple of issues include the dialogue sync drifting ever so slightly towards the end of episode 3 and the OVA, a solitary instance of overlapping subtitles in episode 8, and an annoyance for people with Sony players that retain disc positions and settings in memory. The audio and subtitle options don’t stick correctly on disc 2 if you go chopping and changing between the show audio and the commentary as I did. I tried and failed with the English dub. Such a fantastic show, but Sentai just production lined it with another set of voice actor performances so flat, that they’ve been steam ironed into mediocrity. The original Japanese cast are so perfect for the roles, so memorable, that I can’t think of any other way to experience this show.

Extras

Two discs present the content with static menus and jacket pictures as sourced from Australia’s Hanabee. Each episode gets a translated English language credit scroll after the episode ends. Most times my player timer went a little haywire during these credit scrolls.


If there has been one constant about Sentai Filmworks sourced releases, it’s their barebones, vanilla nature. Usually all that you’ll get are the episodes, the textless credits, and some trailers. Funimation usually try and add some value by recording dub commentaries, but my appreciation of those is limited. It comes down to what you can license from the Japanese studios, and they tend to keep the good stuff for their domestic releases. But it turns out that Sentai have the odd release where they can add extra value, and Dusk Maiden of Amnesia is one such title, even without the soundtrack CDs.


Every episode in this collection gets an audio commentary. They were recorded as live, when the shows were broadcast in Japan, and fans were invited to e-mail and Tweet while they were watching. They are presented by the voice of Yuuko, Yumi Hara, and tend to be a mixed bag, with a whole lot of triviality, a fair bit of scene specific appreciation, and the odd nugget of interest. In episode 4, she’s joined by the voice of Teiichi, Tsubasa Yonaga. Episode 8 sees Misato Fukuen (Momoe) join in and add some commentary, and episode 9 has Eri Kitamura (Kirie) in the booth with Yumi Hara. Incidentally, there is no commentary for the extended version of episode 12, while the OVA commentary was not recorded ‘as live’ like the rest of the series commentaries.


The video extras are all on disc 2, and simply amount to the usual of the clean credit sequences, and trailers for Bodacious Space Pirates, Another, Kids on the Slope, Hakuoki – Demon of the Fleeting Blossom, Hakuoki – Record of the Jade Blood, Mysterious Girlfriend X, and Inu X Boku SS. Incidentally, the menu promises closing credit sequences plural, but there is only one on the disc. I suppose you could count the OVA and the extended version of episode 12 as extras (it adds another minute to the runtime), but they’re listed with the rest of the episodes and not in the extras menu.

Conclusion

Other than a couple of shared themes, and a superficial irreverent style, particularly in the first few episodes, it turns out that Dusk Maiden is nothing like that other series I was thinking of. This is a good thing, as I can concentrate on collecting both, without comparing one to the other. And although 2014 is barely out of nappies and just starting to toddle, Dusk Maiden of Amnesia is already the best anime I have seen this year, and it sets a high benchmark for other shows to beat. It is spooky, it’s funny, and it’s sexy, while it also has a good sense of drama, isn’t afraid to get dark and ominous when required, and has at its heart one of the most effective love stories I have seen in anime. It also has one of the best final scenes in an anime series, which for a medium that is renowned for leaving things hanging, makes for a refreshing change. I really do want to give it full marks, but that insult of an English dub is disappointing, and I have to admit that while it’s a show that I will watch again and again, more so than other critically acclaimed anime, in ten years time, no one will look back and point out Dusk Maiden of Amnesia as a landmark anime that redefined the medium.


It is exceptionally good fun though, and it also manages to grab and charm its audience with just the first episode, establishing its playful take on the spooky horror genre with effortless grace. The Paranormal Investigation Club in this particular school is set-up to discover the ghostly Yuuko’s past, who also happens to be Club President. The first episode tells a tale of one of their investigations, but it tells it twice. The most eager and enthusiastic member of the club, Momoe, can’t see ghosts, but protagonist Teiichi can, and so can the other club member Kirie. We see the investigation into a spectral appearance first from Momoe’s point of view, which for her comprises all three members of the club, albeit with some rather strange behaviour from Kirie and Teiichi. We then see the same events again, with the fourth, spectral member of the club present, which goes some way to explaining Kirie’s short temper, and Teiichi’s constant blushes.


Dusk Maiden of Amnesia is a love story between a middle school boy, and the ghost of a girl that has been dead for sixty years and who has been haunting the school ever since, with no memory of who she was before she died, and how that death occurred. Although rumours and gossip about supernatural events in the school persist, Teiichi turns out to be the first who can not only see her, but touch her as well. And first contact happens in the typical anime method, although Yuuko is surprisingly unruffled by it. Instead she falls for the boy who she can finally interact with, and together they and the other members of the Paranormal Club search for clues to her past. The first couple of episodes relate how Momoe and Kirie came to join the investigation, but thereafter events move forward as they uncover more of Yuuko’s history, and in the process Yuuko and Teiichi grow closer together.


The early episodes do have that mix of spookiness, sexiness, and comic irreverence that I was thinking of, but the further along into the story we go, the darker and more serious it gets, as the truth behind Yuuko’s past is revealed, the reason why her spirit has no memory of that past, and the reason why she is so easygoing and unruffled by Teiichi’s occasional accidental boob grabs, why she rarely gets angry, or jealous, or sad. It turns out that there is more than one spirit haunting this school, and that plays into how the show develops. As we learn more, the story gets more and more dramatic, although the comic edge is never truly absent, while the final episode succeeds in tugging at the heartstrings and eliciting a few tears, before delivering that cracking ending. Then there is the OVA episode, which cranks up the comedy to the max, the perfect note to end the series on.


A couple of technical issues and that atrocious dub aside, Dusk Maiden of Amnesia gets a worthy presentation on DVD from MVM, and contrary to my expectations, the quality of the animation and world design, and the richness of the colour palette do come across. You shouldn’t hesitate in buying this series, as the quality of its storytelling, and the wonderfully written characters (this is one show that benefits from a small character pool) make it one of the better shows I’ve seen of late. I’ll let you into a little secret though, the Blu-ray’s going on my wishlist.