The Great Yokai War comes to DVD in a very impressive two disc set and the extras are spread out across the set as follows:

Disc One:

Well, with a two hour feature and three audio options, there's not much room left on the first disc for supplements but we do get some keen animated menus, chapter selection, and audio setup options in addition to the theatrical trailer and some biographies for a few of the cast members. For the bulk of the 'real' extra features, pop in…

Disc Two:

First up is Another Story Of Kawataro, and it is a nice side story that revolves around the turtle like Yokai from the film. Basically, in this quickie, he heads on out to the first Yokai Poetry Club meeting only to run into trouble with the local police. It's a strange and very funny little sixteen minute short, created digitally, and if you enjoyed the character in the feature you'll get a kick out of this as he gets to go even more over the top.

The Cast Interviews section has a combined running time of just over fifty minutes in length and as such it provides quite a bit of insight into the making of the movie through those who were there and experienced it for themselves. Masaomi Kondo, Hiroyuki Miyasako, Sadao Abe, Mai Takahashi, Etsushi Toyokawa, Takashi Okamura, Bunta Sugawara and finally, Kuriyama Chiaki are all on hand to share their experiences with us, though they all more or less touch on the same things – working with Miike, their take on the source material, the folk legends that a lot of this material is based on, and working with all of the effects used pretty much constantly throughout the film. It's interesting enough to sit through this once but by the time the last few participants get their chance on camera, it gets a little bit redundant. What makes this worthwhile, more so than the interviews themselves which feel fairly promotional in nature, is the behind the scenes footage and make up/FX footage that we get to see play out underneath the interview audio.

Visual Records Of Promotion is a seventeen minute featurette that contains some different press conference footage wherein the producers talk about the kind of film that they had hoped to make with this project and from there the cast is introduced. After that we get some footage from the film's premiere and then for some strange reason we get in a time machine and go back to 2004 for the press conference where this project was officially announced. Some of this material is rather interesting but it is bizarre to see it presented in reverse order.

Up next is The Great Yokai Conference, which is basically Miike and the films producers at a press conference with some members of the World Demon Association as well as a few cast and crew members. They ramble on for thirteen minutes about some specific aspects of the film but it's a fairly disjointed discussion and most of the attempts at humor from the participants don't work so well.

The A Short Drama Of Yokai section contains two shorts, neither of which are all that good. They revolve around two child-Yokai who head out to a giant banquet and get into some goofy trouble on the way home. They're played straight but they feel rushed and while they might appeal to kids, they're probably not going to appeal to anyone over the age of six.

The Documentary On Ryunosuke Kamiki is a genuinely interesting twenty-four minute piece that follows the child actor's involvement in the production from beginning to end. While he'd had experience in movies and voicing anime before, this was a huge step for him at such a young age and as such, the pressure was definitely on for him. We see him come on board the project, get familiar with how some of the stunt work will take place, how the CG will be integrated, and get familiar with some of his fellow performers as the shoot goes on and it is a pretty neat little portrait of how he grew as a person and as an actor over the months that it took for this movie to be finished.

The Making Of The Great Yokai War is the best of the supplements on the disc as for the first twelve minutes of its forty plus minute running time we get to hear Miike speak about the project and his take on things. He seems to have genuinely enjoyed working on the project as he's quite enthusiastic about it here, talking about how much fun he had with it, which is nice to see. From there we get to hear from one of the producers who speaks for quite a bit about the various monster designs used in the film, how they evolved, and how there was definitely a strong desire within the development team to keep some of the creatures as close to their folklore counterparts as possible. After that we chat with two of the technicians who brought the creations to life, one who was responsible for some of the design work and another who was responsible for a large portion of the CG animation. It's interesting to see and hear how creatures came to be and this proves to be the best of the supplements in the set, hands down.

Finishing off the extra features is a very cool Introduction Of The Yokai option which serves as an interactive way of learning the specifics of each creature from the film – a very handy resource and a good way to familiarize yourself with some of the legends and stories that influenced this movie. Both discs are housed inside a very attractive and sturdy digipak which looks great sitting on the shelf and which also does a good job of keeping the discs safely intact.

The Great Yokai war is a whole lot of fun and is a completely entertaining experience from start to finish. Is it Miike's best film? Not by a long shot but as pure pop art, it's great. The two disc set from Universe looks great and sounds even better and with the added bonus of English subtitles on all of the plentiful extra features, this one comes highly recommended.

Ian lives in NYC with his wife where he writes for DVD Talk, runs Rock! Shock! Pop!. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and loud.