A side story that takes a look at what goes on when the two races meet on the battlefield.
What They Say
The war between the tribes of Light and Shadow has heated up as bloody battles become more and more common. Redheaded Persia and blonde, tanned Sabrina are the only survivors from their unit, and a lovely catch for lurking Shadow Tribe soldiers. But their predators’ are being followed as well, by elven beauties.
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release brings us the original Japanese language track in stereo along with the English language dub, both of which are encoded at 192kbps. The series doesn’t really get too deep into directionality but it has a fair bit more than most adult series due to the various action sequences. Both mixes are pretty solid overall as they’re the standard forward soundstage mixes that you find in most adult series. Dialogue is clean and clear throughout on both tracks and we had no problems with dropouts or distortions during regular playback.
Video:
Originally released in 1999, the transfer for this OVA series is presented in its original full frame aspect ratio. Originally released on two discs by NuTech Entertainment, this release brings all of Words Worth Outer Story onto one disc. Though it isn’t as flashy or brightly colored like most of today’s releases, this traditionally animated OVA series holds up well with only a few issues that are from the time. The most noticeable is some aliasing throughout the various panning sequences. It’s typically when it pans over a cityscape that it’s the most noticeable but it creeps into a few other areas as well. The show retains a solid bit rate for the time that it runs and overall is pretty clean outside of a few speckles.
Packaging:
Similar to the first cover but with a more apparent swords and fantasy approach to it, the cover here is really quite good with one of the human characters looking young, sweet and innocent as she’s set against a rock outcropping with lots of green around her and a touch of blue sky to make it all feel very earthy. The back cover has even more of the fantasy approach with some of the shots from the show, which also highlights the sexual nature of it and the creepy creatures, with some weapon and a bit of magic visible. The summary covers the show with a decent enough summary to give you the overall idea without spoiling anything while the rest is given over to basic production credits for the series. The technical grid covers everything in good detail though I do wish they pushed the actual episode count a bit more. No show related inserts are included nor is there a reversible cover.
Menu:
Utilizing the character artwork from the front, the main menu is a decent piece that’s vibrant and appealing as it sets the mood with the music that plays along. .The layout is decent and entirely useable with quick access to the show and setup is nice and easy. Access times are nice and fast and the layout is easy to navigate. The disc did correctly read our players’ language presets and played accordingly.
Extras:
None.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While the Words Worth series has always had a large following of fans during its original run, the main piece of it didn’t live up to its reputation to me though it was an enjoyable little fantasy romp. The Outer Story series takes the theme of the original and takes us outside to where the Light and Shadow races are fighting against each other and gets rid of all the elements that make up a plot, letting the show simple be a simple chase and screw piece.
After one battle, when seemingly everyone is dead on the field, April is helping her lover Norman tend to his wounds. As both have survived, he promises her his heart and to marry her when they get back. As she’s getting some fresh water for him, one of the Shadow warriors gets pissed off at their public display of affection and promptly shots a cannon at April, causing her to fall into the river and disappear downstream. For April, things get worse once she recovers later on having found that she’s being fondled and nearly raped by a talking humanoid frog that can grow to great heights. Oh, and he ate Norman too.
On the other side of things, we see what’s happened to two other young female warriors of the Light, the pretty redheaded Persia and her Amazonian like blonde companion Sabrina. During the battle, Persia ended up being defeated pretty easily by the horse guy who makes a return appearance here. Since he can sniff out that she’s a virgin, he’s all excited to have captured her and has big plans for her. Sabrina’s attempts to rescue her friend from this fate go awry and both of them end up in the cell below, where Sabrina gets to ride a different kind of horse in a very uncomfortable way (no, not in the back seat of a Volkswagen).
Watching all of this is a warrior from the Shadow race who finds himself getting involved with both sides of the storyline as well as some nice nubile elfin like ladies at one point. He’s the glue that holds the story here together until you really realize that there isn’t a story. It really isn’t much more than the women running around trying to get away from the humanoid creatures that want to rape them repeatedly. So there’s isn’t exactly much for the viewer to latch on to unless you were just looking for a show that will be pleasing to the hand.
In Summary:
If you liked the original Words Worth, you may like to revisit that story with these side episodes to it. If you felt the original was weak, you’re not going to be impressed by this at all. I don’t mind the cash grabs when a series proves popular, but at least put some effort into it. Words Worth: Outer Story is a story that should have been left out. Having enjoyed the first show well enough and liking its approach, this one left me feeling much more disappointed overall and perhaps even a bit more so after revisiting it several years later. While the original is having a hard enough time holding up overall, this one is fairing even worse.
Features
Japanese 2.0 Language, English 2.0 Language, English Subtitles
Content Grade: D
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: B-
Packaging Grade: B+
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: N/A
Released By: Kitty Media
Release Date: April 13th, 2010
MSRP: $19.99
Running Time: 60 Minutes
Video Encoding: 480i/p MPEG-2
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
