The Series:
This third volume of Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time
plays out like the others have; introducing new heroes and having them
fight a new demon to protect Akane. That's not to say it's a bad
series just that it's stuck in a bit of a rut. Part of the reason
is doubtlessly the way Bandai-Visual is releasing the show, with only three
episodes on a full-priced disc. Still fans of fantasy anime will
be pleased with the show. It has been trying to flesh out the characters
and make the world that the heroine finds herself in deep and textured,
as so far they're succeeding.
Series Background:
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 though, 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.
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.
This volume:
Even though this is the third volume, the story feels like it's just
getting started. Akane is still discovering who the eight guardians
are, and while that's going on the series feels like a monster of the week
show.
At the beginning of this disc, the head of the Demons hatches a new
plan; he sends a female to do the dirty work. Shirin appears as a
beautiful woman, and she can put any man under her spell. She poses
as a dancer to get near the powerful members of government and bewitches
them. The only person she can't get near is Fujiwara. He's
wary of this gorgeous woman who seems interested in him and doesn't trust
her, which infuriates Shirin to no end. No matter, even without him
she has enough men to carry out her plan and assassinate the emperor.
The next story looks at Yorihisa's past. As a young man growing
up in the family of a respected samurai, Yorihisa wanted to prove himself.
To do this he entered a deep, dark forest and hunted for the Nue, a monster
reputed to live there. He finds the creature, but this handsome man
with long, pointed ears and gorgeous white wings doesn't seem evil.
In any case Yorihisa attacks, and is easily bested. The Nue advises
the boy to return when he's grown strong, and he does. Time after
time he fights the Nue and though he grows and learns to fight, he can
never best the creature. Finally he has to go move to the capital,
and he realizes that the creature he's been fighting is his only true friend.
Flash forward to the present day and a creature that sounds like the
Hue is attacking innocent villagers. When Yorihisa and Akane go to
investigate, they discover that it is the Nue who has been causing all
the chaos. He's done so to draw Akane out and quickly kidnaps her
when she appears. Why has this gentle beast turned evil, and how
can Yorihisa rescue the priestess if he can't defeat the Nue?
In the final episode we meet Inori, a poor young man who works as a
blacksmith's apprentice. He barely gets by and uses anything he makes
to take care of his older sister who is ill. While delivering a sword
to the palace, Inori meets Anake and Shimon, and immediately thinks that
Anake's friend is a demon. They no sooner get that straightened out
than a real demon shows up and attempts to take Akane's life.
Like the previous volumes just as I started to get into the show, the
DVD was over. While some of the episodes are very interesting, like
the one that fleshes out Yorihisa's character be examining his past, others
feel slow. Getting the eight guardians seems like it's taking forever,
even though at the end of this disc we've only seen 8 episodes. It's
a little bit too much by the numbers to really pique my imagination though,
which is sad because it could be a great program.
The DVD:
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 a little 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:
There is nothing much in the bonus department. Like the previous
volumes, there are 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:
It's still a bit too early to tell if this is going to be a fun and
exciting fantasy adventure, or just a re-imagining of things that have
come before. So far I'm leaning towards the former, though there
are a lot of familiar plot elements in this show. Fans of fantasy
anime like 12 Kingdoms and Fushigi Yugi will most likely enjoy this, and
for them, this disc comes Recommended.
Buy: