What They Say:
Thirty years has passed since the appearance of the Burnish, a race of flame-wielding mutant beings, who destroyed half of the world with fire. When a new group of aggressive mutants calling themselves Mad Burnish appears, the epic battle between Galo Thymos, a new member of the anti-Burnish rescue team Burning Rescue, and Lio Fotia, the leader of Mad Burnish begins.
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release brings us the original Japanese language track and the English language dub with both of them in 5.1 using the DTS-HD MA lossless codec. The film definitely knows how to use the surround channels well when the action picks up as it’s all over the place in a very engaging and creative way, making for a lot of happy fans who have setups that take advantage of it. But it also handles the quieter dialogue scenes well with echoes where needed and a sense of space while also still dealing with normal conversation well when it comes to placement and depth. The big action will certainly get most of the attention but it’s an engaging mix across the board with a fantastic score that elevates it all.
Video:
Originally in theaters in 2019, the transfer for this film is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.78:1 in 1080p using the AVC codec. The project had Trigger working with XLFAG and Sanzigen to strong effect as this is a really richly animated project. The color design is intense and the blending of animation with the 3DCG is pretty incredible throughout. There are a lot of moments throughout it where it does feel like it’s just too much thrown at the viewer at once but you really get the sense that the team put everything they possibly could have into this project so that no animated stone was left unturned. It’s got the Trigger style that doesn’t always work for me with character designs and some other elements but the project as a whole is just so visually striking. Thankfully, the encoding is fully up to the task of capturing it with a beautiful look where the color design is rich and vibrant throughout and it maintains a solid feeling through and through. It’ll leave the majority of fans extremely pleased, I suspect, with how it looks here.
Packaging:
The packaging for this release is pretty nice as it uses the familiar key visual image with the 50/50 split of light and dark associated with it for both the main cover and the o-card. The o-card is brighter and more striking because it’s also embossed with the character artwork and logo so it really stands out more and looks great as it catches the eye with its layout and color design. The back covers are the same as well but even with the o-card a bit more flat in color it still looks better than the case itself. We get a good larger shot from the film along the top and a trio of shots just below it while the summary covers the basics in a clear enough way. We do get some selling on the production side of it as well. The extras are clearly listed but I do get frustrated with the lack of a good clean technical grid along the bottom to denote language options and how the set is put together. We do get that on the case proper but most people won’t slide off an o-card to find out. There are no show related inserts included in the set but we do get a good two-panel spread piece from one of the darker fights on the reverse side.
Menu:
The menu design is one that plays the clip angle to good effect with some particularly strong and vibrant pieces playing out that, while not all action, really catch the eye with the quality of what went into it all. The layout along the bottom is fairly standard as we get a thin strip with the navigation but it leads to some problems in itself and within. First, it’s definitely slow in general in moving and recognizing commands from the remote. The language selection is good but using a purple highlight on black text means that from just a few feet away it becomes hard to tell what’s actually selected, especially with some older eyes. The extras section is nicely laid out with everything along the left and I do like that it brings up an image from the extra along the right – but it comes at a cost of slowness which adds to the clunky factor of it all. It’s not quite as bad during regular playback in moving around but it’s still largely there when moving between menus and trying to access things.
Extras:
Like a lot of releases from GKIDS, this one has a good set of extras for fans to enjoy. The two short films are included – dubbed – with the Side: Galo and Side: Lio pieces that add to the fun and we get some good behind the scenes material with the English dub cast showing off that side of the production. The Japanese side has a great interview with the director, Imaishi, as well as an engaging roundtable discussion with the folks at studio Trigger. There’s a good balance of sub/dub kind of bonus materials here that makes it pretty accessible to nearly everyone in getting something with a little meat to it.
With Studio Trigger partnering with several different production companies to come up with different projects in the last couple of years, Promare saw them working with XFLAG and Sanziagen. The film saw a release just about a year ago as of its home video release this month and it wowed fans big time. It nailed a solid overseas release as well with GKIDS picking it up for several event showings and offering it up in a couple of versions. For a while, it felt like you could blink without seeing something about Promare in theaters adding more coin to its totals overall. The film was directed by Hiroyuki Imaishi with a screenplay by Kazuki Nakashima, both of which are amazing talents. Nakashima still wins me over with Gurren Lagann while Imaishi’s work goes back decades but is more well known since Gurren Lagann and Panty & Stocking.
And in a weird way, Promare feels like a blending of those two properties taken to a further extreme. I’ve long been in a position where Trigger’s original works aren’t exactly hit or miss with me but rather in a state where they’re not quite hit for me but not quite miss. They tend to leave me more rfustrated than anything else as it feels like it’s just an example of “too much, man” and the substance gets subsumed by the style. There’s definitely substance to the works and I’m not denying that, but it’s simply unable to really gain a strong enough foothold when there’s simply so much going on at any given moment. But that adrenalin rush ride is what energizes so many of their fans and it’s definitely a thrill. Even as my interest in the story that the film wants to tell flatlines pretty much after the first thirty minutes, I couldn’t stop watching just to appreciate the technical brilliance and to see just how much further they would push it.
The premise for this sets up in an interesting way as we get a flashback to thirty years prior to where the film takes place during an event called The Great World Blaze. This is when half the human population ended up going up in spontaneous human combustion and a small segment managed to gain pyrokinetic abilities. Those folks, naturally, mostly went off in a cult-like direction to become a terrorist group known as Burnish. Over time, a specialized group of firefighters were created known as Burning Rescue that deal with the sect and anyone else that goes up in flames. They’re like the ultimate rescue group in a way and it feels like every 70s big rescue group set of toys being given to these folks in a crazy modern-futuristic city where they essentially run supreme. Not in any sort of political sense or anything but just in being able to go after the Burnish without any hesitancy about anything.
What sets the stage is that the opening sequence involves a big fight/rescue operation where our lead in Galo deals with a Mad Burnish attack and captures its leader, Lio, who is then dealt with by the specialized police force known as Freeze Force. Lio’s actual goal is easy to ascertain early on with how they’re captured as it’s about creating a breakout from within for those that are part of Mad Burnish. This puts Galo and Lio against each other even more but Lio’s able to seed just enough doubt into Galo over events by suggesting that the governor of the city, Kray, is involved in things that they shouldn’t be. And from there it delves into the larger worldwide issue of what’s going on and the way that Galo and Lio end up on sort of the same side but not quite while the big picture problem expands into something that overshadows all the fights of the past thirty years.
In Summary:
The film plays to familiar story elements with some interesting ideas mixed in but, quite honestly, the interesting ideas are just overshadowed by the action, and color design of it all. It’s a huge project that has its quiet moments to be sure but is probably 85 % go go go go! And that’s definitely a lot of fun, I’ve had a few of those films over the years that play well and are definitely enjoyable. Galo and Lio try to hang some bigger ideas on all of this but the vehicle is simply moving too fast for it to stick. The end result is that we get a project that looks absolutely gorgeous while not looking like every other anime property out there. It’s style with substance but the substance really struggles. Thankfully, GKIDS put together a gorgeous release here with it delivers all the craziness at a high speed with a clean and strong looking encode, a really fun dub, and some very enjoyable extras. It’s exactly what you want out of the project so that you can revisit it regularly and enjoy each experience.
Features:
Japanese DTS-HD MA 5.1 Language, English DTS-HD MA 5.1 Language, English Subtitles, Spanish Subtitles, French Subtitles, Interviews, Roundtable, Short Films, Behind the Scenes
Content Grade: B+
Audio Grade: A
Video Grade: A
Packaging Grade: B+
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: A-
Released By: GKIDS
Release Date: May 19th, 2020
MSRP: $26.99
Running Time: 111 Minutes
Video Encoding: 1080p AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen
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.