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Directed by
Produced by Daiei
Dark
Myth is an
OAV series produced in 1990, it has recently been re-released on DVD as part of
Manga Entertainment’s “Collection” series and so it’s up for review on
DVD format. Rarely an anime
discourages someone from watching it because of it’s story it is usually quite
the opposite as anime storylines are usually quite engaging however Dark Myth
simply confuses the viewer [not in a good way a la Perfect Blue] in a
very bad way in fact instead of a translation that helps the viewer to
understand all the historical details one is left to guess what is going on as
the movie unfolds and the barrage of ancient Japanese gods begins to slow down.
This format does not make for easy watching.
This is not helped by the movies strange pacing the first episode is
quite subtle in tone and acts as the “calm” before the “storm” if you
will.
The animation is solid to say the least and stays at a reasonable standard throughout this shows a] the integrity of the team and b] how to use a budget to good effect when making an OAV [DEZ [Twin Angels and La Blue Girl] take note!]. The character designs complement the series’ complexities been themselves quite complex often in OAV’s it is the opposite character development is put on the shelf in order to make the story more fast paced. The inner turmoil within Takashi is interesting to behold and the fact that the true hero of the story is a feeble old man adds some dynamic to the series as a whole.
The sudden change from subtle to violent can be quite harrowing the movie does contain some explicit violence and this can come as quite a shock considering the slow nature of the first episode in the series. The first episode does contain some brief nudity but it is nothing to fret over and is done in a tasteful and meaningful fashion instead of simply needing to add some skin for fan service. However the violence and nudity or brief and infrequent and should in no way not make this suitable for a teenage audience.
As
with many of Mangas’ dubs the quality is poor although the lop sync matches up
with the characters generally the actors’ performances simply lack any
emotion. This is a low point of the
package and of “The Collection” series in general for you see none of the
re-issued DVDs feature the original Japanese language track the quality of the
picture and sound is not greatly improved either [although the picture and sound
FX are a little clearer than the VHS] this is not acceptable for the DVD format
but to Manga’s credit the abandoning of an extra track allows the DVDs to be
sold for a cheaper price. Perhaps
the DVD issues will be sorted out by the next “Collection” series [scheduled
for November\December 2003] if Manga abandoned the English language track and
just included the original Japanese perhaps.
Dark
Myth is worth
picking up if you are willing to take the story for granted and simply watch the
movie as if it had a simple story [in essence it does however it is made
unnecessarily complicated]. The
fact that the movie is “cheap as
chips” is another reason but in terms of “The Collection” as a whole
you’d be better off buying New Gall Force!
Five out of Ten
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