Bandai-Visual continues with their marketing experiment by releasing anime in the US at the same time it's released in Japan, and charging Japanese prices.  Truth be told I thought they would have stopped by now, so maybe these high-priced discs are selling better than I thought they would.  (Though I doubt it.)  Their newest series is Haruka:  Beyond the Stream of Time.  This fantasy series concerns a young girl with special powers who is whisked to an alternate reality.   Once she's there she discovers that she's the only one who can save a kingdom from certain doom.  The first volumes only contains a pair of episodes (for a $30 MSRP) so it's hard to tell if this show is going to be significantly different (or better) than all of the other 'girl has to save the world' fantasy series.

While walking to school one morning, Akane is inexplicably drawn to an old boarded up well.  Almost in a trance she goes to the ancient hole, and when she gets there a giant wind gushes up from the well and a shadow-creature tries to pull her in.  Her two friends, Tenma and Shimon, fight the creature but all three of them end up being pulled into the well and transported to a different place.  (Shades of Inu Yasha!)

Akane wakes up in the house of a princess, Fuji, and immediately bolts out of the compound. In the city she encounters the man who summoned her:  Akram.  He's a demon, though he looks human.  His race has been fighting the people who like in the Capital city for years and years.  The four Gods who lived in the mountains surrounding the city have protected it however and now the demon-people are few in number.  Akram has been able to steal the four Gods however, and now the city is vulnerable.  The only person who can possibly save it is The Priestess of the Dragon God; none other than Akane herself.
 

WOOOAAHHHH!  I'm spooky!!!

Eventually she's brought back to the castle and her two friends are found.  They've become Guardians, fighters empowered with a Dragon Jewel who battle to keep the Priestess safe.  There are eight in all, with one of Princess Fuji's guards being the third.  But who are the others and can they stop whatever plane the demons are hatching.

There just wasn't enough on this disc to get a good feel for this show.  These two episodes made the program feel like a cheap copy of other fantasy shows: 12 Kingdoms, Fushigi Yugi, and Kyo Kara Maoh to name just three.  There wasn't an original idea in the show.  That doesn't mean it's bad...it might turn out to be great.  There just wasn't enough to tell.

At the end of these two shows I was left with more questions than anything else.  Some of this didn't make sense.  Why did the demon bring Akane to this world if she's the only one that can save the city?  Wouldn't it be better to leave her in her own world and take over, secure in the knowledge that no one could save the capital?  Akane also seems to have immense powers, so why does she need eight guardians?  And how were the demons able to steal four Gods without breaking a sweat?  I'm sure at least some of these will be answered in future episodes but at the end of this volume I was just scratching my head.
 

Audio:

Being a Bandai Visual show, this DVD did not have an English dub, only the original stereo mix in Japanese with optional English subs.  The show sounded fine, though for the price they could certainly spring for a dub track.  There was some separation in the audio but nothing too fancy.  A 5.1 track would have been nice for the action sequence at the end of the first episode but as it was this track was adequate.

Video:

I was very disappointed in the way this series looked.  On smaller monitors it may look fine, but on my 52" display the image was very soft and colors were muted.  It looked like I was watching the show through a rather thick layer of dust on the screen.  (I wasn't, I checked.)  The 1.78:1 anamorphic image just didn't impress me at all.  I suppose this could be the look the creators were going for, but it came across looking below average.  Aside from that, digital defects were minor.  A little aliasing was all.

Extras:

Nothing much in the bonus department.  There are two alternate voice-over tracks for the 'next episode' previews but that was it.  I'm really surprised that BV isn't putting trailers for their other shows on their releases, or textless songs.  These are pretty standard bonus items and to have a premium priced disc leave them off is pretty bad.

Final Thoughts:

With only two episodes to go by, it's hard to tell whether this will be a good series or not.  The show starts off like many other fantasy series, with a 'chosen one' being pulled from Earth to a fantasy land to save a kingdom.  I wasn't impressed with these first couple of shows, mainly because it's something I've seen before.  I'm hoping that the series will pick up steam from here, but to be on the safe side I'd make this one a rental.