Product Details

• Actors: Shiro Ishimoda, Fumiko Orikasa, Shinichirô Miki, Miki Itô, Dave Arendash
• Directors: Mitsuko Kase
• Format: Animated, Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: English, Japanese
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rating: Unrated
• Studio: Viz Video
• DVD Release Date: November 15, 2005
• Run Time: 350 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000ALM4K8
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #41,900 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Shuji and Chise are high school seniors in a small town who have just started dating when Shuji discovers that Chise has been engineered by the SDF so that she can transform herself into a powerful weapon. While Shuji and Chise keep trying to nurture their relationship, Chise continues to grow even more powerful as the Ultimate Weapon, and becomes increasingly torn between being a destructive fighting force and remaining an ordinary teenager. What do you do when the girl you love becomes a weapon of mass destruction?

Bilingual Japanese & English, with optional English subtitle,scene access menu, line-art gallery, Interviews with the creator, director, voice actors, Making of featurette, Special Footage, Production art and more!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's a deep-meaning/romantic theme, not a action sci-fi people..., April 21, 2007

By	Sera (Georgia) - See all my reviews

This anime is one of my all-time favorites. People who are picking this up for action have clearly mis-assumed the plot. The story is meant to be meaningful, deep, emotional, and "romantic". It explores life and what love realistically is. It's meant to make you question things.

I highly recommend this for mature audiences. It's dramatic, so if you don't like drama, then this isn't for you. But, like I said, if you like love stories and meaningful plots, then by all means, get this! It's beautiful!

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I wept like a baby., May 23, 2006

By	Joshua Irwin "lord_nyquil" (Dover, DE USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If your looking for an action series look elsewhere.

This series started off slow for me. I was expecting a mech action anime. I was not expecting a deep and moving multiangled love story. This anime by Gonzo is one of those must haves that will have you feeling sorrowful days after completing it. The line in the last episode "you have this much love for me in your heart" got me crying and I couldn't stop. No one was around so I went with it. This is one of only three movies/shows that have ever made me cry. My Dog Skip, Radio Flyer and now Saikano. If you do not have this in your collection buy it now.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A sad and beautiful anime., June 6, 2008

By	Matthew H. Davis (Buckhead, GA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As with some of the other reviewers, I would like to start with that if you're looking for a mecha anime, Saikano probably isn't for you. The mecha aspects nearly made me stop the series around the second or third episode (as I'm not a fan of the genre) but I'm very glad I finished it (I think I watched the rest non-stop).

Visually, Saikano is a mixed bag. Colors are bright and mood inducing, but character design is a bit lackluster (although they couldn't have made Chise anymore cute). The music was good, the Japanese voice acting decent.

What really made me like Saikano was the love story. I'm a sucker for romance, and this one made me tear up several times, especially when Akemi... well, you'll see. This single scene is probably one of the saddest I've ever seen in an anime.

I could have done without some of the science-fiction elements, but by the end I realized that the whole series rides on the unusual circumstances places upon the heroin. I also thought the series brought up a lot of interesting ideas concerning ethics in war (something that we all should be aware of with current world events).

In the end, I really enjoyed Saikano. Sure, it has it's cons, but what anime doesn't?

I want to lastly mention that I do not own the DVD set (yet), so I cannot comment on the DVD packaging, extras, or subs.