Witchblade: Volume 3 (UK) (DVD)

Introduction

Coming from Gonzo Studios, masters of lowbrow action, I wasn't expecting much more from Witchblade than jiggles of female flesh and very big bangs. The first two volumes came as a pleasant surprise, and I find myself in the odd, but enjoyable position of eagerly anticipating the next volume. Witchblade is a comic book creation from Top Cow studios in the US, a slightly more mature title in the Dark Knight vein, which saw homicide detective Sara Pezzini come into possession of the Witchblade, a mystical gauntlet that bonds with its female owner, gifting her with tremendous powers and abilities. It's selective in who it chooses, a main priority being that the wielder has to look good naked, for when its powers are called upon, clothing vanishes to be replaced by a judiciously placed set of armour, grown organically from the gauntlet. Experts in action anime Gonzo have taken the Top Cow comic book and given it a Tokyo makeover, and for this new incarnation of the story, gone is Sara Pezzini, and in comes Masane Amaha, with an even scantier costume that would make sailors blush. Cleavage of all sorts abounds, jiggle is judiciously applied, and all in the name of the great goddess Fan Service, while beneath it all is a decent story, with interesting and well-written characters.

Set in the near future, the Witchblade has passed to a new owner, Masane Amaha. Six years previously, after the great earthquake had decimated Tokyo, Masane and her daughter Rihoko were found at the epicentre of the quake. Masane lost her memory, and all she had left was her daughter. When they return to the ruins of Tokyo to rebuild their home and start afresh, they find that the world is a far different place, as they have to avoid the attentions of the NSWF who are after the Witchblade, and its subsidiary Child Welfare Agency who have an interest in Rihoko. However, soon after Masane's abilities manifest, she's discovered by Douji Industries. Douji and NSWF were partners in researching the Witchblade six years ago, and Douji still think of the Witchblade as their property. They also feel obligated to clear up the mess that resulted from that catastrophe, including the release of dangerous killer X-Cons into the city, biomachines that the Witchblade is ideally suited to deal with. Douji winds up employing Masane, using her abilities, and keeping her away from the NSWF. It's just that the NSWF have made strides in replicating Witchblade technology for themselves…

The next four episodes of Witchblade are presented on this MVM disc. As we concluded volume two, Masane had reluctantly just gotten herself a partner of sorts, the investigative reporter Tozawa.



9. Sadness
Another X-Con is on the loose, attacking young girls with a worrying regularity. But rather than just seek and destroy as Masane has been doing so far, she gets drawn into the investigative side of things as she works with Tozawa. There was a witness to one of the attacks, and the description is useful. Masane wasn't expecting the clue to lead to the police department, and a detective named Muraki. Only Muraki died in the line of duty a year before the big earthquake. Pressing further, Tozawa and Masane learn that the police covered up the truth of the matter, and the death wasn't as simple as first thought. Apparently the police aren't the only ones covering things up. Just what are the X-Cons? Meanwhile Rihoko has made a new friend, a kindly old man who she meets for lunch in the park.

10. Interaction
Masane has a bone to pick with her employers, and she heads straight to Douji Industries to confront Takayama about the X-Cons. Takayama has other plans though. There have been the usual shenanigans in the boardroom and there are others eyeing his position. In typical corporate doublespeak, he has to stay one step ahead just to keep pace. There is an exec level party in the evening where his rivals will be schmoozing some serious political clout, and he'll have to gatecrash to keep his finger on the pulse, only it will be easier with some serious eye candy on his arm. That's where Masane comes in. He has just a day to make Masane presentable, but he should have known that while you can make Eliza Doolittle look elegant, you can't do anything about the inner philistine.



11. Danger
Things are getting dangerously domestic for Masane. First she has to pay host to Takayama when he gets stricken with a hangover, much to the approval of matchmaking Rihoko, then she has to worry about her daughter when she falls victim to a passing cold. Fortunately there is a Good Samaritan passing by to help her out when she faints. Still, sinister events are unfolding elsewhere. Takayama's position becomes all the more precarious, as moves are afoot to unseat him from the Witchblade project. Meanwhile, the NSWF is working on an upgraded Cloneblade project, and have found the perfect recruit to wear it, a soft toy tormentor named Maria who's sparring partners barely have time to make out a will. The NSWF need to get their hands on the original Witchblade to complete their upgrade project, so when another Cloneblade wielding Neo-Gene attacks Masane, it's part of an elaborate trap.

12. Prisoner
Tozawa has just infiltrated the NSWF to get a good look at the secret research laboratories. He's surprised to witness a captive Masane being wheeled into a lab, into the waiting hands of some eager scientists. With corporate rivals breathing down Takayama's back, it becomes imperative for him to retrieve the Witchblade, especially when it looks like someone in Douji is working with the NSWF. He's ready to send a platoon or two of X-Cons in to do the job, but fortunately they have a salacious reporter on the inside that may be persuaded to risk his neck for Masane. If Masane can get out of this pinch, even worse is waiting for her at home.

Picture

If you are a hardcore Witchblade fan of old, you may be disappointed by this adaptation, as while the Witchblade itself is recognisable, the art and character design is very much Gonzo's own, with just a couple of concessions made to the original property. If you've seen a Gonzo action show of late, like Burst Angel or Trinity Blood, you'll be familiar with the look of the characters, the bright hazy feel to the animation, and the emphasis on eye candy and action. It's a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer, and the image is clear and sharp for the most part, with just the usual digital banding and minor compression artefacts common with anime to note.

With Witchblade, you would expect fan service aplenty, and you wouldn't be disappointed. Masane has the sort of cleavage that keeps plastic surgeons in clover, and induces back problems in the real world, but in the animated world is shown off to generous advantage by the scanty nature of the Witchblade armour, as is her backside. What surprised me is how restrained it all was. This is no Battle Vixens, where the action slows down and even freeze frames to show off some enhanced female anatomy, Masane the character comes first, as does the story, and the Witchblade armour is treated as incidental to that. That isn't to say that the show doesn't cater to the teenage male demographic, but it's never gratuitous, and jiggle is left to a minimum. To quote Kenny Everett, "It's all done in the best possible taste!"

Sound

As usual for many an anime disc, you have DD 2.0 Japanese and DD 5.1 English to choose from, along with translated subtitles and signs. I chose the Japanese of course, the dialogue was clear, and there was sufficient stereo separation to render the action sequences with vibrancy. The surround is the soundtrack of choice in that respect, but the dub is unspectacular, if passable. What I sampled of it failed to impress me, with a rather workmanlike set of performances, and the perennial annoyance of a ten year old child sounding like a high pitched 30-year-old.

Extras

The usual anime suspects begin with the animated menus (this disc repeats the main menu screen from volume 2 in error) and jacket picture, along with the textless songs, and trailers for FLCL and Black Lagoon. There aren't any multi-angle credits for the show, which leaves the Internet as your course of action if you want to know who the English dub cast are.

There is a featurette and an interview to take in.

The Witchblade Forged: Part 1 lasts 17 minutes, and is a talking heads piece that looks at the start of Image Comics and Witchblade. It's interesting to see the search for creative freedom led to a mass defection from Marvel and DC, resulting in a whole new way of looking at comic book characters.

The interview is with the Japanese voice actor, Rikiya Koyama (Reiji Takayama). It lasts 8 minutes, and is a light, friendly affair as he talks about the character and the story.

Conclusion

Witchblade has turned out to be the surprise of the season. Following Black Cat and Trinity Blood, a couple of Gonzo series that have left me distinctly underwhelmed, I wasn't expecting much from a show whose obvious visual attributes would tempt even the most ardent of filmmakers to opt for the easy T&A with big explosions path. Yet Witchblade hasn't at all turned out that way, and this third volume cements what I had begun to suspect. Volumes 1 & 2 weren't just flukes. This is a damned fine series, a show which has the obvious eye-candy and action, a well thought out and competently conveyed conspiracy storyline, and all backed up with some excellent characterisations.

The relationships are what make this show work, and at the heart of it is a strong mother-daughter bond between Masane and Rihoko. It grounds the show in something real and tangible, for Masane to be working to support her child, and it's charming to see Rihoko act as the sensible one in the family. It grounds things and keeps them in perspective when almighty supernatural warriors are battling it out on the streets of Tokyo. There's also a touch of domesticity as well as comic relief that comes from the denizens of Marry's Gallery, but gradually the two worlds are coming together. In this volume, Rihoko befriends an old man in a park, with whom she can share her dreams of a better life. She never knows that the old man is actually an X-Con that her mother has to hunt down as Witchblade. The reporter Tozawa also becomes a keeper of Masane's secret in this volume, and while he's on the hunt for the next story, she can tag along looking for X-Cons. Also in this volume, Masane spends some quality time with her employer Takayama, and actually finds a decent human being under the corporate surface. He's actually nice enough to get Rihoko's seal of approval, which changes the way that Masane sees him. This conflicts with the revelations about what the X-Cons actually are, and Douji's criminal complicity in creating them.



Of course the story keeps on moving forward, with Furimizu's plans advancing to the stage where the NSWF can create a Cloneblade that is allegedly more powerful than the original Witchblade. It turns out that they need the Witchblade a.k.a. Masane to enact their plan, but they also need a wielder strong enough to bear the burden. Enter Maria, a complete and utter psychopath that regards Furimizu as her kindly grandfather. Without even bonding with a Cloneblade she's apt to create corpses, even when she is just training, the way she treats stuffed toys is worrying, and she's apt to throw a tantrum when she doesn't get her way, or is paid enough attention, or if she just feels like it. That sort of strength and bloodlust combined with a Cloneblade doesn't bode well for Masane, who has enough trouble when she's captured by NSWF.

Meanwhile, the previous prominent antagonist, and Furimizu's right hand Reina Sohou has taken an odd turn since her 'sister' died when her Cloneblade's flaws overwhelmed her. Reina has taken a step back from the NSWF and Furimizu, leaving her loyalties in question. Yet she's keeping an eye on Masane, and Rihoko in particular. Her role seems to be more passive and observant at the moment, but it will be interesting to see where she ends up. The disc ends on the obligatory cliffhanger, but this time it's more personal than explosive, with a wedge apparently being driven between Masane and Rihoko.



I'm rather enjoying Witchblade, and while it ticks the basic eye-candy and action boxes that are typical of a Gonzo anime, there's a fair bit more to it than that. The characters are well written, and the story has had some thought put into it, more so than the usual Gonzo eye-candy extravaganza. It's actually turning out to be a highlight in MVM's year so far, and if you can spare your blushes looking at the DVD covers, it's well worth a purchase.