An old-school style work that simply doesn’t hold up to the test of time.
What They Say
One lone warrior must seek out and destroy his former comrade in arms. But how does one slay the dead? Woven from strands of nightmarish battles in blood-soaked clay where demons await the fallen and seaside clashes with flesh-eating stallions, Blood Reign: Curse of the Yoma tells the story of two young ninja whose friendship is sundered by the chasm that separates the living from the dead.
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release brings us the original Japanese language track that’s in stereo and encoded at 192ksp but it also includes the then upgraded English mix, which got a 5.1 boost over the stereo one that we had previously. That mix comes across pretty similar to the other shows released under this imprint with the effects tracking providing a bit more clarity and the music score making out the best with a richer sounding recording. The dialogue itself is still very much forward soundstage based but overall the new mix is good and adds some nice touches. The dialogue was clean and clear throughout and we had no problems with dropouts or distortions during regular playback.
Video:
Originally released in 1989, the transfer for this release is presented in its original full-frame aspect ratio. Animated by JC Staff, this re-release looks like the most that managed to get changed in the video department is some more solid colors and a touch less aliasing overall. The number of nicks and scratches on the print may have gone down but those are harder to really tell. The first of the two episodes has considerably more scratches, but the second episode isn’t free of them. One of the other problems in the original release was the amount of grain, which looks like it’s dropped off fairly well here but is still present. In a sequence with Hikage on a mountainside with the blue sky behind him, you’ll see the earth beneath him jitter. Hikage jitters himself here and other characters do at times throughout. The second episode settles down somewhat as well, but the issues are still there.
Packaging:
The front cover retains the shot of Hikage, Maoru, and some of the Yoma with the dark reddish feel along the top that makes it feel somewhat oppressive. It’s not as oppressive as the original release since part of the top is blocked off by the Essential Anime purple stripe and the remastered stripe along the bottom. The original release just felt so red-heavy compared to this one. The back has a few animation shots as well as a couple of the menus and a good listing of the features and the technical information. They also corrected an issue with the original release that omitted the running time for the show.
Extras:
There are a few extras on the disc, but the one I like the most is actually on the insert. On the disc itself, we get the original ADV trailer for the show as well as the original Japanese trailer for the show. The character information page is also included. What I really liked is the reverse side of the insert, which has the children’s Ninja Counting Song and why it’s used. The song is written in both English and romaji.
Blood Reign, also known as Curse of the Yoma, was originally released in Japan way back in 1989, subtitled by ADV in 1995 and then dubbed in 1998 and finally onto DVD in 2001 and re-released with some tweaks again in 2004 where it got this 5.1 upgrade, better encoding for the time, and a nice ten-dollar price drop. If I had seen this show back when it first came out, or maybe even when it was first subtitled here, I may have found it more interesting than I did watching it back in the early 2000s, never mind re-watching it again now. The two-episode OVA series is based n the single-volume shojo manga known just as Yoma which was produced by Kei Kusumoki. They had a number of works since starting out in 1982 and their current series, Yaoyorozu Toushinden Kami-gakari, began in 2009 and is ongoing still. Blood Reign ran in Ribon Original from 1985 for about a year and eventually found its way to this form, directed by Takashi Anno and a then-young Sho Aikawa handling the scripting for it.
The show focuses on two young men, Maoru and Hikage, both ninjas. At the conclusion of what appears to have been a particularly brutal battle, Maoru seems uneasy about what’s happened. Hikage convinces him to return to their place, but things twist oddly after that. Maoru soon flees from their now dead lord and Hikage is ordered to kill him before he can tell of their lords’ death. Hikage, hating to kill his childhood friend, heads off in the same direction. After all, Maoru did throw a poisoned shuriken into his eye when he left the village. You can’t just let something like that go unsaid and unaccounted for.
The path that Hikage ends up on leads him to some pretty interesting places. The first episode delves into a village that’s enthralled by a spider Yoma that feeds upon the people there. The villagers, who spend their days drinking and simply enjoying life, are in an escape mode and this is the best that they can hope for. Maoru came through this way though, and Hikage can sense that he has indeed been there.
The resulting battle with the Yoma leads to revelations about who Maoru is and some very little bits about the Yoma themselves, which leads to the second episode that introduces several more Yoma, some slightly more interesting fights, and possibly the most incompetent female ninja out there. I mean, how many traveling ninja don’t seem to carry any hidden knives or sharp objects? At least she’s only in one episode, so it’s not a constant running gag.
Blood Reign is definitely a serious style show, but it’s been repeated many times since this originally came out there and that makes it feels like a retread. Adding in the problems with the print, I just couldn’t get enthused about it at all.
One of the biggest problems with the show is that it feels rushed. It doesn’t answer all that many questions that it does raise with the Yoma. The relationship between Maoru and Hikage is reflected via flashbacks, but always the same set of flashbacks of them racing through the tall fields. And the relationship in the second episode between Hikage and Aya is heavily forced. There’s no real connection between the two and things just don’t click between them. When crunch time comes and the relationship becomes central, it rings very hollow.
The animation for the show isn’t bad, though the somewhat flat coloring of it may turn off newer fans. There are precious few really fluid sequences, but the action moments are fairly well done and pretty much in the traditional style of ninja anime. This show reminded me a lot of the Wrath of the Ninja show. While I’m not a big fan of the genre, Blood Reign seems like a competent entry that fans of feudal Japan and the bloody violent monsters that face ninja and samurai will enjoy.
In Summary:
This release makes out fairly well in that we get the upgrades we need from the initial flawed release that ADV Films put out as the audio is nicely tweaked and it looks like some of the video issues were cleared up just by having a more experienced team on the encoding side of things. Add in a ten-dollar price drop and this isn’t a bad way to fill in a gap in your collection if you’ve wanted this, but there’s not much here to get people to try hunting this up in the present to add to their collection unless this genre is totally your thing.
Features
Japanese 2.0 Language, English 5.1 Language, English Subtitles, Cast of Characters, Original Japanese Video Trailer
Content Grade: C+
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: B-
Packaging Grade: B
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: B-
Released By: ADV Films
Release Date: March 16th, 2004
MSRP: $19.99
Running Time: 80 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.
