Bandai Visual continues their experiment of pricing anime in the US at the same price point as they do in Japan with the release of Super Robot Wars Volume 1. With only two episodes and a running time of 48 minutes, the $40 retail price is pretty steep. Add to that the fact that Amazon, DVD Planet, and DVD Empire have declined to carry the title, and you've got a receipt for disaster. That's too bad because the show is a fun, if typical, mecha show and would probably be getting a lot more buzz if people could actually afford it.

In the future the earth is a very different place. After being hit by two giant meteors and going through a series of wars, the Earth Federation Government united all the peoples of Earth under one flag and restored the peace.

Then the third meteor struck, but this one was different. Inside was a cache of alien technology and proof that invaders were coming to take over. The technology that was discovered was used to create mecha, called Personal Troopers, in order to defend Earth.

Ryusei Date is a teenager who is crazy about Personal Troopers and is very good at the popular game Burning PT where opponents fight mecha in a virtual reality world. Little does he suspect but Burning PT is actually a training ground to find likely Trooper pilots. When aliens attack just after a PT tournament, the government sends out an unmanned Trooper that Date climbs in and uses to defend his girlfriend. Of course playing in virtual reality and real life are two different things, but with his life on the line, Date doesn't have a lot of time to adjust to the differences.

It's hard to get the feel for a show with only two episodes. I really wish they had included at least four, but from this limited glimpse of the show, it looks like it'll be a fun anime series. Date is your typical mecha pilot, young and bright but with a lot of problems. The fact that he's tricked into becoming a pilot was fun, and there's enough background story to make him interesting so the show certainly has promise. The show itself is also fairly predictable and unfolds exactly as you'd expect it to, but then again the beginning of mecha shows are often similar. With only a pair of installments to go on it's hard to tell if this will be an average run of the mill show or something unique.

The mecha designs while not all that different from what we've seen before, look pretty good and the alien 'bugs' are a bit creepy and formidable looking. Most of the mecha action is animated by computer, and this CGI fits in well with the more traditional 2D animation. It's not jarring and though it's easy to tell which parts are computer created, it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb.

Audio:

Once again Bandai Visual has released a disc without an English dub. For the amount they are asking, you wouldn't think it would be too much to provide an English soundtrack for those who prefer watching dubbed anime. As it is the original Japanese audio is only in stereo but it sounds pretty good. The track had a fairly wide dynamic range and the impacts when two mecha were fighting had a fair amount of bass. Of course a multi-channel mix with a dedicated subwoofer track would make the fights more exciting, but you take what you can get. Overall this is a nice sounding disc.

Video:

The video quality of the 1.78:1 anamorphic image was pretty good, much better than the OVA that was released earlier (even though it takes place after this series.) The image was pretty sharp with lines being tight and well defined. The colors were bright and solid and the blacks were deep. There was a bit of aliasing, but with only two episodes on the disc compression artifacts weren't a problem.

Extras:

Zip. Nada. Ziltch. Nothing. Just an 8-page insert. For the amount that they're charging for this disc, I was expecting something more.

Final Thoughts:

It's hard to tell how this videogame based anime show is going to turn out, but these first two episodes are pretty good. Though they are a bit formulaic the characters have some personality and there's enough background plot to make the show interesting. The biggest negative is the price. Not taking that into consideration, the show itself is recommended.