What They Say
Silver Clan members Kuro and Neko are on a mission to find their king, Shiro, who went missing after the battle on the School Island involving four of the seven colored kings. During their search, the two discover that Red Clan member Anna Kushina has become the target of the mysterious Green Clan, which intends to use the girl’s special power to track down Shiro. Now the Silver Clan and Red Clan find themselves joining forces to protect Shiro and Anna from this new threat. But will this unexpected alliance be enough to counter the Green Clan’s top fighters, as well as its king?
The Review!
Audio:
I didn’t have a problem with any of the audio. Viz Media is one of the best when it comes to quality audio. Everything was crisp and clear. I never once felt like the sound effects overpowered the dialogue or visa versa. It actually felt weird not having to lower the volume every time the background music started playing, or a loud explosion happened.
Video:
The video quality for K Missing Kings is outstanding, probably some of the best I’ve ever seen, and not just because it’s 1080p. Watching the glory that is GoRa x GoHands most promising anime in Blu-ray is indescribable. I doubt regular 480i would have been able to capture half of the amazing artwork and animation to be found in this series.
Packaging:
K Missing Kings has a blue package and comes with a silver sleeve. The sleeve has Shiro, the main character from K Project, on the front. His arms are spread wide and his cloak is flapping behind him. Below him is the title. The package itself as four squares divided into four more squares, making for a total of 16 squares. In each of the four squares are one of the characters: Anna, The Blue King, Kurou, and Neko. In the two bottom squares is the symbol KK, and below that is the title Missing Kings. The back is the same for both sleeve and package. It features several more characters, Izumo, Saruhiko, Yata, and Seri. The blurb is added into with a green background, and there are four screenshots.
Menu:
The menu is fairly standard and gives you all the options you would expect. You can select to play the series from the beginning, or choose which episode you would like to watch. There’s also the special feature selection.
Extras:
There are quite a few goodies in the extras menu. Several animation trailers for a variety of shows that are being dubbed by Sentai, or have already been dubbed by Sentai, such as Coppelion and the trailer for K Project, the prequel series to Missing Kings. There is also the clean opening and closing for K Missing Kings. Aside from that and two different trailers for the movie, the Blu-ray disc has a series of character sheets.
Content: (Please note that this portion of the review may contain spoilers):
K Missing Kings is easily one of the most visually stunning animated movies I have ever seen in my life. The animation is absolutely beautiful. There are a lot of long panning shots of the Japanese cityscape, and every shot, regardless of the angle, uses amazing application of layers, blending, and various effects to create stunning scenes. Blended into the scenes are a number of three-dimensional images and models that enhance the overall animation. This anime is one of the best when it comes to the overall aesthetic.
As a sequel movie set in between two series—K Project and K Return of Kings—the story begins when the Green Clan, who was not introduced in the previous anime launches an attack on a building controlled by the Gold Clan. Their goal is a large stone tablet, which we later learn is called the Dresden Slate. The series then switches to showing Kuro and Neko, who were two of the main characters in the previous scene, as they have lunch with one of their friends, though that lunch is interrupted when they see Anna of the Red Clan being attacked by a Green Clan member. The Green Clan wants Anna to use her powers to find Shiro (the main protagonist of the first series), the Silver King, the biggest threat to their goal, whatever that is.
This series tends to change perspectives a lot, so sometimes we’ll get Kuro and Neko, while other times we’ll see from the perspectives of the Blue Clan or Red Clan members. I think one of the bigger issues that I have with the anime as a whole are the perspective changes. Since there are so many characters and we switch between them so often, I haven’t been able to grow really attached to anyone.
There are a few characters who are more endearing than the others, of course. Kuro and Neko were my favorites—Neko more than Kuro. Anna Kushina was also adorable. Outside of them there’s Yata and Saruhiko,and then Seri and Izumo. However, most of the others never really get enough screen time in this movie for people to really get a feel for them.
Kuro and Neko agree to protect Anna from the Green Clan. They’re soon attacked once more, but this time the Green Clan is joined by another former member of the Colorless Clan. Like Kuro, who joined the Silver Clan, Yukari has both the powers of the Colorless Clan and the Green Clan. His skills with a sword also surpass Kuro’s. While Kuro does his best to hold off Yukari, Anna is kidnapped by a Green Clan member wearing a ninja mask. Despite losing, Kuro and Neko go to rescue Anna, who has been taken to the building that the Green Clan stormed. They are joined by several faces from the previous anime as they fight their way to Anna’s side.
Like the visuals, the animation is a strong contender for some of the best around. Character movements are very fluid. While sometimes the frames seem a bit slow because there’s just so much detail, the animation never suffered from poor quality or continuity issues, such as a character being in one place and then ending up somewhere else for no explicable reason. The fight scenes not only had a great sense of pacing, but the animators also used unique angles to give more dynamic shots, camera blurring to create a sense of movement, and always made sure their characters animation worked in relation to each other.
If there was a problem with this anime, then I would have to say that it’s how a lot of things happen but nothing is explained. This is a movie, so we’re mostly just getting a small segment of time in between two series, but it would have been nice if they had taken the time to explain some of what this anime was about. What’s more, I sometimes wonder if this movie was even necessary. While there’s a lot going on, and I get that it’s trying to tie the first season to season two, it feels almost like a lot of the movie was just filler. As it stands, only a fan of the series will know what’s going on.
In Summary:
If you just want to watch something for the visual and animation appeal, you certainly won’t go wrong with K Missing Kings. That said, this movie has a lot of gaps that someone who hasn’t already seen season 1 will not understand. Many of the plot threads are also pulled over from season 1, so I would recommend going back to watch that before seeing this. I overall had a great time watching K Missing Kings. This is one of the few anime where I thought the dub was better than the sub, and I can’t wait to see how the dub of the second season turns out.
Content Grade: B
Audio Grade: A
Video Grade: A+
Packaging Grade: A
Menu Grade: B+
Extras Grade: B
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: March 14th 2017
MSRP: $29.98
Running Time: 75 Minutes
Video Encoding: 1080p AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen
Review Equipment:
55″ Class AQUOS HD Series LED TV LC-55LE643U, bluray player