Product Details

• Actors: Jessica Boone, Luci Christian, Kaytha Coker, Jason Douglas, Tiffany Grant
• Format: Animated, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: English, Japanese
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Section 23
• DVD Release Date: January 27, 2004
• Run Time: 75 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00013F2J0
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #190,951 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, Vol. 2" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Sasshi and Arumi continue to ricochet from one alternate version of a derelict Osaka shopping center to another. "Night Fog" takes them to a Roaring Twenties-style gangland, where speakeasies serve forbidden snails to diners during a skewed Prohibition. Sasshi, incongruously clad in a trench coat and snap-brim fedora, is mistaken for "Rugolgo," a send-up of the assassin in Golgo 13. "Extinction" spoofs time-travel anime: 12-year-old geek Sasshi gets to display his encyclopedic knowledge of dinosaurs to the mysterious Eutus. The story pauses in episode #7 for an explanation of how the Arcade was built and anchored against harmful magic with the Chinese gods of the cardinal directions. The filmmakers keep everything fast and funny, noting that many of the heroes' difficulties come from relying on the magic of "goblins who lose to ordinary grade school kids." (Rated 17 and older: gross and risqué humor, brief nudity, violence, minor profanity, alcohol and tobacco use) --Charles Solomon

Product Description

MAGICAL SHOPPING ARCADE ABENOBASHI: VOL.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Order from chaos, June 29, 2005

By 

Zack Davisson "japanreviewed" (Seattle, WA, USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (2008 HOLIDAY TEAM)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, Vol. 2 (DVD)

Things take a more serious turn in volume two of "Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi," and the wild chaos of the first volume starts to take shape. Like the previous episodes,Sasshi and Arumi fling from world to world, meeting the bouncy and enthusiastic Mune Mune ("Chesty chesty" in Japanese) who adapts to each world and spurs along the craziness. This time, a new character is revealed in a mysterious blue-haired man to whom Mune Mune is inexplicably drawn.

The first episode has the kids in a dinosaur world, with Mune Mune as the jungle princess in the appropriate leopard-skin bikini. Running from danger, they meet the blue-haired man who says that their fates are linked, but he is still unsure and clouded. Wild and funny, it maintains the tone of previous episodes.

Next, a Film Noir world sees Sasshi and Arumi in grown up bodies, on opposite sides of a dangerous games of gangsters and copper. Arumi joins the short-skirted Abeno Angels police squad, while Sasshi masquerades as professional sniper Rugolgo (a parody of "Golgo 13"). Some great gags here, but the tone changes when Mune Mune comes face-to-face with the blue-haired man, and flashes with anger and rage. The blue-haired man reveals a deep secret of Sasshi's to Arumi, and things begin to become clear.

Finally, the comedy and slapstick ceases entirely, and the Studio Gainax brilliance begins to shine through in the third episode. A flashback, focusing on the founding of the Abenobashi Shopping arcade, and the Love Triangle that develops between Sasshi's grandfather, the blue-haired man and a beautiful 18-year old girl named Mune. A bittersweet episode on fate and love, it is a nice break from the wackiness and non-sequitor nature of the series.

A great DVD all in all, with three excellent episodes and the series really moving along. As with other DVDs in this series, there are actually some good special features included hilarious voice actor outtakes.

As usual, the only problem with "Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi" is the Osaka dialect, which the producers have dealt with in a few ways. The English dub is atrocious, featuring faux Southern accents in an approximation attempt. This is ridiculous, as the Osaka dialect is an urban dialect, not rural, and a thick Brooklyn accent would be more appropriate. The subtitle takes a more direct approach, but still loses the flavor of the language, and for US audiences it is difficult to so firmly set this series in Osaka as the creators intended.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An effort to salvage this reviewspace..., April 20, 2004

By 

Joshua Thompson (Raleigh, NC, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, Vol. 2 (DVD)

For those not informed in the ways of anime, a thirteen-episode show, like Abenobashi or Serial Experiments: Lain is distributed on four discs. This is just the way it is, and you pay more for a better picture (for comparison, check out the Fox DVDs. Picture quality is still good, but artifacting tends to show up more often due to the lower bitrates.)

As for this particular disc, the second episode, featuring a 20s-era crime world, and the third episode, detailing the past of the older generations are the gems. I would actually rate this about 4.25, but I fear that this disc would be damaged by the review below. Again, I do love this series. Truly a delicious viewing experience.

4.0 out of 5 stars The zaniness of this series continues on the second volume, October 19, 2010

By 

Lesley Aeschliman (Enumclaw, WA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, Vol. 2 (DVD)

Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi Volume 2 is a DVD that contains three episodes of the series. The episodes included on this disc are: "Extinction! Abenobashi Ancient Dinosaur Shopping Arcade," "In the Night Fog! Abenobashi Hard Boiled Shopping Arcade," and "Flashback! Magical Shopping Arcade Birth." A booklet is included with this DVD, and the booklet is designed in such a way so it looks and reads like a tabloid newspaper. While I normally find DVD booklets to be dry reading, the booklet included with this DVD was actually very enjoyable.

There are four extras included on this release. The first extra on the disc is "AD Vid-Notes." This feature allows you to turn on or off pop-ups that appear during the episodes to explain cultural references. The second extra is labeled as "Outtakes." This feature, which runs for nearly four minutes, contains three to four scenes of the English dub. After each correct take, there is a corresponding "outtake" to go along with it. Each "outtake" contains something that isn't appropriate for the scene; however, the changed lines tend to be funny. However, it should be mentioned that most of the changed lines in the "outtakes" contain adult humor.

Next in the extras menu is "Clean Opening." This is a version of the opening credits that is truly textless; not only is there no credit text, but no subtitles for the song appear, either. There is also a "Clean Closing," which is also a truly textless version of the ending credits.

The next feature is "ADV Previews." This link takes you to a menu with previews for Happy Lesson, Slayers: Gorgeous, Saiyuki, Super Gals!, Pretear, and Orphen 2: Revenge. The final extra is the DVD credits, which is just a single screen providing credit for the people involved with putting together this DVD release.

While this DVD may not have much in the way of "interesting" special features, it's still a release I would be willing to recommend to anime viewers who are seventeen years of age or older. However, this DVD is now out of print, due in large part to ADV Films going out of business. If you can locate a used copy of this DVD, then I would recommend picking it up if you enjoy comedies that poke fun at anime and otaku references.