*This release includes English subtitles

Packaing: That USB is so useless. I really hope they lose that thing when they release the next BD. Everything else looks fantastic though. Art box has a classy feel to it and I just love the rough finish. Cover art for the digipak looks good and I love the thick booklets.

Video Quality: Hmm... that's a LOT of grain. I'm still not sure if this is digital or film print telecine. For a digital grain, it looks too dirty and real but for a real film grain, it looks very consistent and the amount seems a bit too much. (It's digital grain) I don't know, either way, it's too much. Details are all there though as you can see from the screenshots. Grain does give the film a retro cyber dystopia feel to it and seems to make glowing parts of the screen (ex. Eufcoque) look quite natural.

Screenshots (スクリーンキャプチャ): shot1, shot2, shot3, shot4, shot5, shot6, shot7 
(C)Mardock Scramble Production Committee/Starchild Records/Aniplex

Audio Quality: Surround mix is fantastic. It's quite directional and quality is superb. Great soundtrack to boot. During the action scenes, it really gives you the extra edge.

Special Features: On the disc, there are trailers and a long interview with Tow Ubukata. It was missing the making movie, which was listed in the official website product detail. No subtitles on the special features.

I KNEW I was going to get this movie one way or another when I saw the first trailer. It was just mind blowingly good (especially so because I was longing for a good sci-fi movie back then). Of course, then I had to wait one year and 5 months to actually watch the movie... (sigh...) Anyways, I finally got to watch it. To be honest, my first reaction was "CLIIIIFHANGERRRRRR!!!!!" :p I actually read the first volume in Korean long time ago, so I really hoped this movie would go a little further. Then again, with 69min running time, that's really pushing it. Speaking of which, while the movie is fast paced and compact, I wasn't confused or lost. It could be due to my previous knowledge from the novel but I think new comers should be fine. Despite my original concerns, the staff did a wonderful job with the given running time. The movie starts off slowly developing the relationship between Balot and Eufcoque, and giving viewers the background information of Balot. Emotion plays an important role in the movie and thankfully they spend time describing them in detail. It's only because I understand Balot's state of mind that the ending sequence becomes very powerful and I am able to sympathize with Balot and her actions. Production quality is probably appropriate for a movie. Action sequences were definitely top notch stuff and I was impressed with Eufcoque animation. Soundtrack was amazing as well, matching perfectly with each scene. Regarding the theater version vs. complete version, I believe it's mostly the sexual content. I haven't fully watched the theater version so I can't point out all the differences but rape sequences are removed in the theater version and slight changes in sex scenes. Personally, I felt that there was a tad too much sexual content (unnecessarily). Overall, I'm very satisfied with the movie. It was worth the wait. I guess my only problem is, like I mentioned, cliffhanger. Waiting for the second movie will be PAINFUL.

*p.s.: My package was opened during the customs clearance. Grrr...

 

Video Quality: For whatever the reason, there's windowbox (overscan black bars around the screen). I'm not happy about this but it's pretty thin and didn't really annoy me during the playback. Partially, because animation looked so friggin' awesome and dynamic that I didn't really have a chance to look elsewhere. That said, it shouldn't have been done. Period. Other than that though, I don't really have complaints. Black level is great. Color looks saturated and details are sharp. Not Disney/Ghibli sharp but typical HD anime sharp. Some details such as water sparks and textures seem to be in higher resolution than character drawings, perhaps higher than 720p (check shot 7). I noticed very slight aliasing once but nothing major. There are moments where even AVC codec with BD bitrate cannot keep up because there's SO MUCH detail present. Shot 8 is one of them but it's not noticeable when they are moving (All those people and papers are moving by the way). I know I should be objective but when you have this much detail, picture quality just looks better than it actually is. To sum it up, not the best PQ I've seen but it's satisfactory.

Screenshots (スクリーンキャプチャ): shot1, shot2, shot3, shot4, shot5, shot6, shot7, shot8
(C) TFC/MADHOUSE/REDLINE Committee

Audio Quality: DTS-HD MA 5.1ch. Quality is very good. I usually leave my volume on -23 but for this movie, I left it on -18. I couldn't hear any fault.

Main movie subtitles: English subtitles looks decent (though you have to understand that I'm not a grammar expert nor picky about it. Also, since I understand decent amount of Japanese dialogues, I tend to skim through subtitles). I did notice some discrepancy between subtitles and the actual dialogue but overall nothing major. I do think that some jokes would work better if they just translate it directly but that's just my opinion. Subtitles is white and size looks right to me.

Special features:
- Previews & CMs (BD): HD and without windowboxing but PQ isn't as good as the main movie.
- Making of REDLINE (DVD): 67min long clip with cast interviews, recording footage, premiere footage, rough conti with temporary voice over, etc, all with English subtitles. Only thing is that you'll need an all-region DVD player because special features disc is region locked. I could not play it on my PS3.
- UTAO REDLINE DAY (DVD): music video with live-action footage.
- Demo Movie (3 clips - DVD): 2 pilot movies with footages never used in the actual movie. One old trailer that still says "coming 2009".
- Booklet, stickers, and a figure raffle ticket (you can win one of the figures used in the production of the movie).

So now that all the technical stuff are done with... how was the movie? It was... AWESOME! Awesome animation, awesome soundtrack, and awesome script! AWESOME! Seriously, this movie will be cosidered as anime classics along with Ghost in the Shell and AKIRA for western anime fans for years to come. I've heard complaints like only thing worth watching is Yellow Line or later parts of the movie are so scattered that it ruins the pace. In my opinion, that's not really true. There was a long break during REDLINE but I think it was necessary for both story development and to give viewers a little break from non-stop action. After all, REDLINE race was very long. Plot is rather a simiple underdog/romance story but it does its job, and I think it's decent enough not to ruin the enjoyment. Besides, for REDLINE, story feels like an excuse to insert various types of animation sequence. Visual-wise, this is one of the most exciting animation I've seen on screen. Same can be said for the music. Also, it is perfect to test out your equipment. Just leave it louder than usual and enjoy the ride. Voice acting and script seemed very good to me. Oh, and I must say, director Takeshi Koike has a great sense of humor. Perhaps a little too un-Japanese-like and maybe that's one of the reason why this movie didn't do well in Japan (It bombed in Japan if you didn't know already). I felt like both the character design and directing sense were targeted at western audience and while that's good for us, it must have been a financial disaster for MADHOUSE. To be frank, one of the reason why I bought this release instead of waiting for a cheaper North American release was to support MADHOUSE because I know they took the risk of doing something different. In the movie, JP's supplier says "If you keep insisting spirit of fair play you will be left behind". Perhaps this movie was director Koike's answer and I would like to support that spirit. Highly, HIGHLY recommended.

(Review equipment: 55" Sony HX701, PS3, Denon AVR-789, Energy Take 5.1)

* US release (Jan.17/2012): link

REDLINE Collector's Edition and Regular Edition amazon links:

Packaging: Unlike vol.1, there's no unnecessarily huge objects included. Which means, there's nothing wrong with the packaging. Which means I like it.

Video Quality: Overall, same as vol.1. Good detail but feels soft. Grain added. But this time around, I noticed some occasional banding. Interesting, because this title uses sony's anti-banding technology SBMV. Hmm... I wonder if vol.1 had it as well. I should check when I have time.

Here are some screenshots showing banding: shot1, shot2
(C)中村佑介/四畳半主義者の会/Fuji TV

Audio Quality: Same as vol.1

Special Features/Bonus Material: Now, this thing called "Iroha Karuta" puzzled me, so I looked it up to see what it's about. From my understanding, original Iroha Karuta used letters from Iroha Uta(Iroha Song) and expressed Buddhism with poem on each card(For example, first three letters of the Iroha Uta goes like い(i) ろ(ro) は(ha) so the first card has a poem starting with the character い(i)). Now, as for Yojouhan Bonus material, they are using the same Iroha Uta to start off but this time, instead of a poem, we have a dialogue. These dialogues were read by seiyuus and recorded into the CD included in the second volume(only 7 minutes total by the way). The actual Iroha Cards will be included as external bonus material for vol.3 and 4. In disc special features were very weak this time around. 2 Promotion videos and one BD/DVD CM, and nothing else.

Spoilers ahead(for those who have never watched the show). Click to read more...

Tatami Galaxy vol.2, 3 and 4 amazon links: