The summaries of the four episodes:

1. "The Land of Gold"- Japanese soldier Kusaka knows the outcome of the war, but wants to change it and create a Utopia of his own titled Zipang.

2. "Collision!"- Japanese battelship Yamato fires on American soldiers, but the Mirai intervenes.

3. "The Living and the Dead"- While on Guadalcanal, crew of the Mirai engage in a deadly and tragic battle with American soldiers.

4. "The Will of Lt. Okamura"- Kadomatsu and Okamura searches the jungle of Guadalcanal to find and evacuate Japanese engineers.

Instead of exploring the idea of Japan having the opportunity to change the outcome of the war, we instead get characters talking. Normally this wouldn't be such an issue if the characters were likeable, but characters come and go and spout by the book dialogue. The characters have little personality aside from Kadomatsu (whom I'll get to in a bit). I realize that the series is trying to go for some realism. They want viewers to see that war relies on strategy and playing the waiting game. The problem is this does not make good television. "Zipang' seems to be too artistic for its own good.

The only redeeming quality of the series thus far was the character of Kadomatsu. In the episode "The Living and the Dead," Kadomatsu has a hand-to-hand fight with an American soldier, which ends in the American's death. Kadomatsu quickly begins to fall apart as he is haunted by the man's death and the fact that the man shouldn't have died at all. Kadomatsu was from the future and should never have interfered. As Kadomatsu stands frozen with fear, he looks down and sees rain filling up in the deceased American soldier's mouth. It's an emotional and haunting scene. More scenes like this are needed to give the series more depth.

The DVD

Video:
An all around impressive 16:9 Anamorphic video picture.

Sound: English Dolby Digital 2.0 track.

Extras: DVD credits and opening and closing credits. Yawn.

Final Thoughts:
Perhaps the earlier or later episodes are an improvement, but this particular bunch of episodes doesn't take advantage of the intriguing premise. Skip it.

Film and television enthusiast Nick Lyons recently had his first book published titled "Attack of the Sci-Fi Trivia." It is available on Amazon.com.