Jiburiru draws to an explosive close but knows that it has to be a softer, gentler, and loving bang.
What They Say:
Rika is a sweet, innocent girl just beginning a romantic relationship with her childhood friend Naoto. They are interrupted by a terrifying demon named Asumo, who tries to kidnap Rika, and then by the angel Loveriel, who comes to her defense. Rika is wanted by the forces of both good and evil because, unbeknownst to her, she has the ability to transform herself into a powerful “demon angel” named Jiburiru. But of course, in order to access all of her powers, she must first experience many, many different sexual positions…
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release brings us the original Japanese language track in stereo which is encoded at 192kbps. The show isn’t a surprise when it comes to the audio as it features a decent mix overall across the forward soundstage with some moments of directionality here and there. In general, however, it’s a rather standard mix for an action adult show as it’s all about the screaming and the booming effects or the shredding of clothes. The release comes across well on both tracks and we didn’t have any problems with dropouts or distortions during regular playback.
Video:
Originally released in 2003, the transfer for this OVA is presented in its original full-frame aspect ratio. As with some of the better-produced series out there, the source material here looks good with lots of bright vivid colors and some decent animation that doesn’t show too many shortcuts. There is a small level of fuzziness to it however which is noticeable around the edges of the characters and particularly their hair. It doesn’t come across as cross coloration though and it may not be as noticeable depending on your viewing distance. The colors generally look good and solid though there are some areas where you can see the color gradients, especially during the first minute or two of the show with the flashing red light. What I may have missed on the first volume or wasn’t quite as visible, but this transfer has branding throughout the entire program with the ‘JapanAnime’ logo in the very extreme bottom right corner. Due to this, I consider the video edited all the way through, hence the grading. This is completely unacceptable in this day and age.
Packaging:
Using the original Japanese artwork, the last cover is a solid piece often used in the genre that lets Loveriel take the whole cover as she’s shackled at both her hands and her feet. She’s laying on the concrete floor while fully dressed but giving just enough of a hint of a look to really look innocent and scared. The back cover is a big improvement over the initial releases as well with much easier-to-see clips from the show, an easier-to-read summary over one of the larger pictures, and a clean and simple technical grid with the basics, though it doesn’t list the audio features at all which could lead some to assume it has English when it doesn’t.
Extras:
The only included extra here is an image gallery done in slideshow format.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the fourth and final volume of the first series, Jiburiru comes to a close as the one who commands Asmodeous finally appears and takes an active role in bringing down Rika. The episode has a fairly odd feel to it since a lot of it seems to take place outside of reality in a sense and some of the way the scenes play out almost feels somewhat surreal but in the end, it’s a decent finale to the show and wraps up some of the minor plot material that’s here.
Rika and Naoto are doing what they do best and that’s just constantly going at it. This is youth to the extreme… either that or I misspent my own youth in a vastly different way. Rika’s still got her problems in not wanting to do this constantly but they’re less pronounced now while Naoto is continuing to just work her over while hiding the fact that he made out with Reina. As their session moves along it’s suddenly interrupted as Meimi shows up in her Mistymei outfit and issues a challenge on behalf of her leader, Reirouge. The deal is to meet that evening and to have it out once and for all to settle things. Amusingly, Rika and Naoto don’t stop at all during this and continue to screw which only pisses off Meimi even more since she’s still got it bad for him.
When they arrive for the challenge they’re surprised to find Reina there in the throes of passion with another man (which makes Naoto say some almost incriminating phrases) but as she finishes up it’s revealed that she’s actually Reirouge, the General of Hell that’s come to eliminate Jiburiru and make it safe for all of demonkind to flood the planet. She lashes out with the tentacles and Rika finds herself entangled in them and being abused while Naoto is moved into a position where Reirouge can now have her way with him which only taunts Rika even more. Getting her to transform so they can do proper battle is the goal and this will certainly goad her into it.
The final battle as each side goes at it and some cheap shots along the way from Loveriel and Asmo as well as poor Mistymei being shunted to the side essentially leaves us with something that tries to be a bit more epic than it is as we get the whole goal of Reirouge with her needs in Jiburiru but it’s all pretty pointless because you know how things will end up as Jiburiru unleashes a new undiscovered power. Can you guess it? Aww, that’s right, it’s love! Jiburiru’s been down for the count before and taken a beating and she does it all again here but there’s always a way to save the day. It’s a cute balance to things and it works well within the context of the show but they don’t linger on it long before moving on to the next sex scene which is much more enjoyable.
A lot of how this feels in terms of the storyline is that they really weren’t sure how they were going to end it and then as the fourth episode was going into pre-production they were told it was going to be the last one. It doesn’t feel rushed per se but it feels like things were moved up and some areas plucked out of thin air in order to bring it to a resolution. The way half the cast seemingly is tossed to the side in order to bring Reirouge in seemed weird as well as the way a lot of this just had a near surreal feel to it in that the settings weren’t based anywhere but just bland colored or rainbow colored backgrounds. But at least the sex was good.
In Summary:
The Jiburiru series has been pretty fun overall with good character designs, an interesting and fun twist on a standard story, and overall good-looking sex scenes with very little in terms of repeated animation for them. The final volume feels weaker in general but it does bring things to a resolution for the characters and the storyline itself. While this isn’t one of the best shows I’ve seen, it definitely caught my interest early on with the neat twist in the reason why the leads had to have sex and the attractive character designs. There is definitely room left open for more and I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing more.
Features:
Japanese 2.0 Language, English Subtitles, Gallery
Content Grade: B
Audio Grade: B
Video Grade: C+
Packaging Grade: B
Extras Grade: C
Released By: JapanAnime
Release Date: September 24th, 2005
MSRP: $24.95
Running Time: 30 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.
