- Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
- Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
- Resolution: 1080p/24 (23.976Hz)
- Audio Codec: Japanese & English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz/24-bit)
- Subtitles: English
- Region: A (Region-Locked)
- Rating: TV-14 (V)
- Discs: 2 (2 x Blu-ray)
- Run time: 300 Mins.
- Studio: Sentai Filmworks
- Blu-ray Release Date: February 21, 2012
- List Price: $69.98
[amazon-product]B0066O104Y[/amazon-product]
BestBuy.com:
Purchase Broken Blade: The Complete Film Series on Blu-ray at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:4/5]
The Series
[Rating:4/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:0/5]
Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures
(All TheaterByte screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG at 100% quality setting and are meant as a general representation of the content. They do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)
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The Series
[Rating:4/5]
Broken Blade is a series of six roughly 50-minute films based on the manga from Yunosuke Yoshinaga and Flex Comix. A rather strict mecha sci-fi action series, the story is set in a world where the people have evolved an ability to manipulate quartz, and this has become known as “magic”. Thus everything in their society from kettles to motorcycles, even weaponry is reliant on this innate ability. Therefore, we enter the story amidst a war between three nations, Orlando, Athens, and, and Krisna, over the depletion of quartz supplies.
The crucial character, Rygart, a commoner born with the defect of being an “un-wizard,” meaning, the inability to control quartz, is thrust into the middle when he is summoned to the capital of Krisna by King Hodr. He has the unusual position of being a friend of King Hodr and Queen Sigyn of Krisna as well as Zess, a top soldier from Athens, due to his time spent with them at military school. The three friends are now at odds in a war none of them wants, but neither can prevent, due to circumstances beyond their control. But Krisna, underpowered militarily, has a secret weapon – a discovery from the ancients. It is an unusually powerful golem (humanoid-like battle robots) that for some reason only Rygart can operate. He uses his ability to save his friends Sigyn and Hodr, but what about Zess? Does he really want this war?
As far as mecha go, Broken Blade is rather straightforward in its style and animation, although it does attempt a reasonable amount of political intrigue in its plot and back story with its character development, helping to make it rise to the top of this category.
Video Quality
[Rating:5/5]
Sentai Filmworks has released another stunning Blu-ray release with the anime series Broken Blade. The 1080p/24 AVC/MPEG-4 encodement has no faults that I can find and it presents line art that is sharp as a tack, with brilliant colors and no motion or compression artifacts to be seen.
Audio Quality
[Rating:5/5]
The original Japanese and English dub, both in lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz/24-bit) live up to the high quality of the video transfer in every way. Big, hefty lows support the numerous explosions and gunfire while high frequencies are natural and reserved enough to not become fatiguing. From the very beginning the mix is quite aggressive, using every channel to surround listeners in a total soundfield filled with gunfire, mecha stomping, voices and lush ambience. There is a wide dynamic range and voices are never lost beneath the sound effects.
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:0/5]
There’s nothing compelling here on offer, unless you consider the usual clean opening animation and promotional trailers from Sentai compelling.
The supplements:
- Clean Opening Animation
- Also Available from Sentai Filmworks
- Disc Credits
The Definitive Word
Overall:
[Rating:4/5]
Spectacular action and political intrigue marry with brilliant high definition graphics and a masterful soundtrack to make Broken Blade one of the better mecha series to come along in a while. Recommended.
Additional Screen Captures
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[amazon-product]B0066O104Y[/amazon-product]
BestBuy.com:
Purchase Broken Blade: The Complete Film Series on Blu-ray at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:4/5]
The Series
[Rating:4/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:0/5]
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