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Orphen Season 2 - Revenge (Vol. 1)
I'm only vaguely familiar with the first season but the premise was that Orphen, a sorcerer in training, set out to save a friend that had bad luck with a spell. The spell transformed her into a creature and Orphen's master set out to hunt her down. Orphen, on the other hand, tried to get to her first, in order to reverse the spell and protect her. None of that came into play during the four initial episodes this DVD contained. Orphen and his immediate entourage decide to go to some hot springs, noted for their healing and medicinal value. They've apparently finished a long adventure and are getting on each other's nerves so the young magician agrees to go with them. The people of the town are hiding some dark secret and hate magicians, which pits them against the team who just want to enjoy a bit of rest and relaxation.
Needless to say, Orphen also has other enemies and must call upon his powers to fight off a variety of beasts and demons, as well as more mundane threats. The crew, on the other hand, has all the usual inter-personal conflicts with one another, to the point that they are usually more troublesome to each other than most of the enemies they encounter. After the initial arc of the season is over, a deeper thread starts too, one with some potential for an interesting plot but that may surface until later so I'll reserve my judgment at this time. Here's a list of the four included episodes for you:
Episode One: Heal My Soul, Hot Springs
Episode Two: The Big Bath Of Betrayal
Episode Three: The Supply Store From Hell
Episode Four: Wonderful- The Ripple Of Love
Okay, the series has potential but what about this set of episodes? I think it was worth a rating of Rent It, based as much on the fact that no attempt was made to clue in the viewer who hasn't seen the first season. How tough would it have been to include a five or ten minute synopsis of information a fan might need to know? I doubt that the folks at ADV Films wanted to automatically narrow their market to just the people who saw the entire first season (it didn't sell, THAT well) when they could expand it their sales possibilities, right?
Picture: The picture was presented in the usual 1.33:1 aspect ratio full frame color, the current industry standard. The picture was pretty good but there was some grain, some edge enhancement, and minor pattern noise at times. The anime style itself was somewhat limited, using various cost saving techniques (limited movement of the cells, static backgrounds, etc.), but about what you'd expect for a follow up series. I didn't see any artifacts or other major problems with the DVD transfer.
Sound: The audio was presented with a choice of either the original Japanese track with English subtitles or an English dub, both in 2.0 Dolby Digital. I didn't notice any real separation between the channels (I experimented with turning off my center channel) but the vocals were clear enough and the music okay for a budget release. The subtitles were not dub-titles in that they did not mirror what the English track said but most of the time, they followed it fairly closely.
Extras: There was a couple minutes of audio outtakes, trailers, clean opening and closing, and a paper insert that didn't have a lot of detail (it wasn't the companies top of the line style insert).
Final Thoughts: If I get a chance to see the rest of the second season, I'll probably enjoy it but it'll depend on where the series goes from here as to how high a rating it gets. The technical aspects were fair and the content promising but the limitations all too apparent.
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