Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Finally, a decent release of Tekkaman Blade., April 12, 2007
Let me preface this review with a brief statement that I have been a fan of Tekkaman Blade since I first saw Teknoman (The US version) back in the 90s. As such, I'd been hoping for a release of it in pretty much any format.
Tekkaman Blade: Collection 1 features the first 16 episodes of the series, introducing D-Boy (Blade or Slade in the English versions), and the team of Space Knights he allies himself with. In the midst of an alien invasion, D-Boy alone has the ability to fight the Radam (Venomoids in the English versions) by turning into Tekkaman Blade. But while Blade is not alone, he is the sole Tekkaman who fights for humanity--The Tekkamen are in service of the Radam. D-Boy himself is a man who claims no memory of his past, not even his name (D-Boy stands for Dangerous Boy, a name given to him by the distrustful Noal), but is the only one with knowledge of the Radam threat. He is considered a traitor to the Radam and a weapon by General Colbert. The Leader of the Space Knights, Heinrich von Freeman protects blade from the machinations of Colbert, while the other Space Knights reach out to them. D-Boy is cold, convinced none of them can help him in his mission against the Radam, but the Space Knights are persistant in their attempts to make him more than just a weapon--But a friend.
I own a prior release of this series which contains both the International Dub and Japanese versions (There are two dubs; one is a US dub in which D-Boy is called "Slade," and the International version with a few different voice actors, and D-Boy is instead named "Blade."), but the picture quality is pretty awful. The sound is similarly bad, and the subtitles are actually so inaccurate as to make parts of the dialogue totally worthless, impossible to understand.
Similarly, there was an official US release of Teknoman, which is also the International Dub. It sounds like it is exactly the same as the one released in Japan, which is of poor sound quality. Sadly, that may be the best we can get for Teknoman.
As for Tekkaman Blade, this release is significantly better. The graphics are dated, but the transfer is as close to flawless as I can imagine, and the audio is crisp and clear. The subtitles, while there are a few places in which the word choice is dodgy, are quite accurate and make sense. There should be no question about the actual quality of this version.
Collection One features bonus features, including: The intro and closing scenes without any text, a brief history of Tekkaman Blade (A featurette in Japanese which details some of the translation between the original series, Tekkaman the Space Knight and Tekkaman Blade), and one of three OVAs released between Tekkaman Blade and the Tekkaman Blade 2 OVA. This OVA, Twin Blood, features a different version of Blade's first encounter with Tekkaman Evil (Saber in the English versions). It has little to do with the actual series, as Blade and Evil are no longer strictly mecha, but biological mutants of some sort, but it's interesting to see, nontheless.
I am not an Anime fan; Tekkaman Blade and Tekkaman Blade 2 comprise half of my anime collection. However, I recommend this to both anime fans and non-fans. There are some differences from the US version, if that's the one you were first exposed to (As I was), but the story is better, not worse for this.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing version, March 5, 2007
This version of Tekkaman Blade is simply the best! The video and audio quality is far better than Tekkaman Blade Ebay's version. The subtitles are very good and the special features have also subtitles. So if you don't know which version should buy, I recommend getting this one, especially if you are a tekkaman blade fan.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
"Voltekka!!!!!!!!", March 26, 2008
The 80's is like some kind of bottomless treasure trove. Every time I think I've seen every great sci-fi movie and anime from my favorite decade, I find another awesome piece of entertainment. A while back I rented a piece of anime history known as Detonator Orgun. While I loved the character designs and basic storyline, I found the overall quality of the OAV somewhat lacking (in particular I wasn't crazy about the music). Fast-forward a few years and I found myself on a whim renting Tekkaman, just to see if it was any good. I LOVE getting surprises like THIS.
If you dig the whole "personal armor suit" genre of Bubblegum Crisis, Detonator Orgun, The Guyver, ect, you will LOVE this show. Basically it's everything a fan of 80's anime could ever want. You have a world in peril being attacked by giant bug aliens (known as the Radam), a brooding amnesiac anti-hero protagonist, the usual assortment of sidekicks to keep things from getting too serious, lots and lots and LOTS of bad guys for the hero to fight, sweet animation good enough to be a movie but instead a whole long TV show, great symphonic score soundtrack that adds so much to everything in every way, some really great story and characterization by way of an excellent script, and very good acting all around. But of course the real reason to see this show is the manic, over-the-top, explosive action sequences which feature martial-arts style fights between the hero and his many enemies, huge chain explosions of the aliens, and of FANTASTIC sound effects that sound like they came out of the remastered Gundam Trilogy. Awesome.
On the flip side you could say that this show is your typical monster-of-the-week fest that just has our protagonist fight battles over and over, but no one knows how to do a show like this the way the Japanese do. We have protection missions, destroy-the-superweapon-before-it-destroys-Earth missions, and of course the tension of Tekkaman having to change back into a human being before the suit takes over and turns him into a Radam too. The script just keeps things interesting the entire way, and there's always something new and unexpected coming. Two of my favorite episodes in this volume were protection missions, one with a mysterious transport pilot who sacrificed himself for the Earth only to be considered expendible by the military, and the other the very next episode where some European soldiers try to get high-speed craft from the alien-occupied orbital station, and the commander refuses to call of the mission because he secretly wants to visit the bodies of his dead comrades who died on the previous attempt (and he keeps breaking into song, singing Danny Boy). You could this show cheesy or silly, but I just love it.
We also get (late in this volume) to see Tekkaman's Radam twin brother, and the great psychological and physical battle between the two of them. And that leads to (spoiler alert) the fantastic episodes where Tekkaman finally exceeds his 30 minute limit. His body goes on a whirlwind journey of destruction while his mind is tortured by agonizing nightmares of a past he tried to forget and leave behind. Toss in the unresolved question of where exactly he came from and what happened to the rest of his family, and you have some really great drama in this volume at the end.
If you love action and love 80's anime you definitely owe it to yourself to check this one out. From the great music (one of the themes reminds me a piece from Holst's Planets!) to the explosive action (I love the Voltekka attack!), to the endearing characters (I think every one of them is interesting and there's surprising depth), to the classic story (saving the human race and planet Earth never gets old), this is about the most perfect anime show I've ever seen from the 80's. Rent it, watch it, buy it. You won't regret it.
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