Devil Lady tries, with a good amount of success, to be something more than a straight horror show.  There is more than just fighting monster and ripping off limbs.  Jan worries about being half monster, and how that effects people around her.   Her character, and most of the supporting characters are more developed than in your usual monster show.  Of course the show does make some mistakes.  The fact that Kazumi's parents are both murdered doesn't seem to bother her much at all in the next episode.  It was more of an inconvenience more than anything else.

There was a good amount of continuity in the program, making it more than just a monster of the week show, which is a good thing.  But even with an overriding story arc, this show is one of those average series that isn't so good that you really can't wait until the next episode, nor so bad that you don't want to watch the rest.  I enjoyed watching most of the episodes, but afterwards didn't really think any of them were outstanding.

One aspect that I really didn't like was the giant monster episodes.  In these shows Jun would become as tall as a building to fight the giant Beasts.  I was expecting Rita Repulsa to throw her magic wand and yell "Make my creature GROW!" like in the old Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers shows every time Jun would decide that she needed to be 40 feet tall.  I don't know why I can suspend my disbelief over humans changing into monsters but I can.  I draw the line at turning into giant monsters though.

The animation and look of this series leaves something to be desired.  The animation is very flat, with a two dimensional feel to it.  Even the action sequences lack depth and they are a little jerky, which takes away from the excitement.  The show suffers from rather bland coloring too.  The images look like they come from a comic book, with little shading or variation in color.  Since this series was made in 1998, I was expecting a little more quality in both the quality of the animation and the coloring.

One of the irritating things about this set is menu selections.  The various choices are listed on the screen, and a blood splatter covers the current choice, so that you can't read it.  Though I appreciate the atmospheric quality that the blood adds, it would have been nicer if they had placed the cursor/blood just below the text.

This is the entire six DVD set, previously released individually, contained in a six DVD 'brick.'  The DVDs themselves seem to be identical to the individual releases.

Audio:

The viewer has the choice of viewing this program in either a stereo English dub or in the original Japanese also in stereo.  I prefered the original language although the English dub was good and I listen to quite a few shows that way.  The soundtrack was very adequate, presenting the dialog and music faithfully, even if it wasn't exceedingly dynamic.  The audio sounded clear on both tracks without any his or distortion.  There are optional full English subtitles or just subtitles for the signs and song lyrics.

Video:

The fill frame image was a little soft, with the lines not being quite as sharp as I'd like.  The colors were a little muted and there was a slight grain to the image.  But these were minor annoyances that we critics feel obligated to point out.  Overall the picture looked good, and the encoding didn't introduce a lot of digital defects.

Extras:

As for extras, each DVD has the same original trailer and clean opening and closing animation.  A different a series of four original sketches to the series, and a selection of previews are also avalible on each disc.

Final Thoughts:

While this isn't my favorite series, I was glad that I had a chance to watch it.  Mush better than Go Nagai's other work, it is more introspective and philosophical.  Fans of his earlier shows shouldn't be disappointed though, since there are still gallons of gore spilled and splattered about.  Getting all six DVDs for less than the price of two of the individual volumes makes this a good bargain, and an easy one to Recommend.