With the original series completed, what else can you do but resurrect it?
What They Say:
From the radioactive emptiness of space is born the Demon Beast! A grotesque, slavering monster that hungers for warm flesh and human blood, the Beast has landed on Earth to find its next meal. Meanwhile, Miki is flying high as the leader of a violent biker gang, unaware that fate will soon throw her into the path of the Beast. But deep within Miki sleeps a Beast-slaying power; a power that awakens as the Beast’s victims cry out in agony!
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release retains the original audio tracks found on the Anime 18 release a decade earlier, which is a pair of bilingual tracks in stereo, encoded at 192kbps. Demon Beast Resurrection is a fairly straightforward stereo show in that it’s entirely center channel-based to give it a full feeling. That serves the material well with a clean sound and nothing to note with directionality but it lets the dialogue flow well and there aren’t any noticeable problems with dropouts, hiss or distortions.
Video:
Originally released in 1995, the transfer for the two OVA episodes here is presented in their original full-frame aspect ratio. The transfer is identical to the Anime 18 release from 2003, so there isn’t any improvements to be found from more recent compression technologies or potentially better source materials. Not that Demon Beast Resurrection was ever going to be a great-looking title as it has a slight budget approach to it with its animation, but the rendering here is decent all things considered, outside of the noise and some of the blocking to be found in the darker blues of the nighttime sequences. In general, it makes out better than some releases from this time period as there isn’t any seriously noticeable cross coloration and line noise is pretty minimal as well. Colors generally hold up well and there aren’t any serious flaws to be found with it.
Packaging:
Unlike the original releases, which changed things up a bit with the Resurrection series, this one keeps to the shots from the show, though it comes across cleaner and with nowhere near as much grain and softness. The darkness still abounds here as we get Ash in her skimpy uniform being bent over and taken advantage of by the Demon of this particular storyline, who himself is kept off to the side and is mostly shadowed. There’s a fair bit of detail here, and it does make the content pretty blatant, but overall it’s much stronger than most of the previous covers. The back cover keeps it simple with the black background used there, though the stars only show along the bottom. The top half has some associated credits and a decent summary of the premise before it shows off a few shots from the show and of a shot of Ash in her uniform with her helmet on. The technical grid is soli,d and the production credits cover the basics. No show-related inserts are included, nor is there a reversible cover.
Menu:
The menu is a cute little piece, something of a break from the traditional menus Anime 18 used at the time, where you have the Beast image from the original front cover and an animated piece of one of the IMO group swooping in and shooting at it. Some animation plays along it as well as some music. The languages menu in particular is amusing as there is a tentacle that slithers through and breaks up the navigation selections. The menu selections are nicely laid out and quick to access with no transitional animations slowing it down.. Like other Anime 18 releases from this early release period of DVD history, the disc did not read our players’ language presets.
Extras:
The extras are pretty minimal here, with the usual anime artform piece and a brief artwork gallery. There is one extra called the “Loves and Lives” of the Demon Beast, but it turns out to be little more than a small music video really as opposed to a history or retrospective on the past series, something that would have been useful.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
When it comes to tentacle anime in the US, the Demon Beast series always seems like it’s been the less popular younger sibling when compared to La Blue Girl, which always seems like it gets the press and notoriety. Demon Beast keeps trying, though, and really wants to be popular.
Demon Beast Resurrection brings us back to the same group of characters we knew during the original six-episode run. Muneto looks a bit older now, though, a bit more mature and world-weary. Kayo has a similar feel, though she’s still very much dependent on Muneto for everything. We’re brought back into their lives in the midst of a ten day long rainstorm, something that’s got Muneto feeling uneasy about the state of the world.
To back up his feelings of unease, we take a spin out to the nearby moon where the Interplanetary Mutual Observation Agency has their massive satellite structure watching for the rebirth of any Beast on the Earth. The worldwide climatic changes of the past ten days have kept them busy as well, and as their Captain O is informed, it seems like the situation is ripe for the birth of a new Beast indeed, as conditions have been met exactly like before. So she prepares a team to head down to deal with this.
Her plan involves something creative, however. Having recovered the Spermia from their greatest warrior Ash after getting her body out of the carcass of the last Beast, she informs Ash’s close friends that if they use this to merge it with a woman on Earth who has a similar Spermia, they’ll effectively be able to revive Ash to help fight again. It’s also fairly convenient that Muneto has already found such a person, mistaking a blue-haired woman on a motorcycle for Ash just that same day.
So, with their objects, the team heads down to try to revive their fallen comrade and set up for the arrival of a new Beast that just wants to be loved. With this volume being the first half of the series with its two episodes, it’s mostly setup and the arrival of the creature. There’s a surprising amount of flashback early on to the previous series and a heavy focus on Ash herself. From a plot perspective, this one is right up there with Alien 4 in how I see it with a real stretch in plot in trying to bring back a character that was killed.
In Summary:
Demon Beast Resurrection is about what you’d expect from the show as it tries once again to capitalize on a franchise that should be pretty dead. And I mean dead as in when it first came out in 1995. The animation is a touch better and more vibrant, but it’s still more of the same overall, with weak designs and less than interesting tentacle scenes. While tentacle hentai has never bothered me, the Demon Beast series has always seemed weak in comparison, especially with the Beast always calling out for his mommy. It just felt weird, and that hang-up has carried through here. Basically, if you weren’t satisfied with the first six overly long episodes, you’ll be happy to have more of the same here. If you were hoping for something new and possibly creative with a sequel, well, just keep in mind that it is a sequel, and you should know better.
Features:
Japanese Language, English Language, English Subtitles, Art Gallery, Anime Artform, Demon Beast Resurrection Trailer, Previews
Content Grade: C
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: B-
Packaging Grade: B-
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: C+
Released By: Critical Mass Video
Release Date: March 2nd, 2010
MSRP: $24.99
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.
