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D. Grayman: Season One, Part One [Blu-ray] Review

In 2004, mangaka Katsura Hoshino's "D. Gray-Man" was serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump Magazine with 19 manga collected manga volumes currently released.

With the manga series popularity, in 2006, "D. Gray-Man" received its anime adaptation and in three years, a total of 103 episodes were featured in Japan on TV Tokyo and also received various video game series, soundtracks and also novels.

FUNimation Entertainment began releasing the series in the US via 13-episode volumes on DVD (with the most recent release being the season two part two) and now the first 13 episodes (season one part one) is being released on Blu-ray.

"D. Gray-Man" focuses on the 15-year-old character, Allen Walker, who is an exorcist who works for the Black Order, an organization that is trying to stop the main antagonist Millennium Earl. Earl wants to destroy humanity by creating an army of akuma. What Earl does is go to those who grieve for a love one that passed away and asks them if they want to see their love one alive and if they do, they just have to call out the deceased one's name.

In this case, Earl brings up this metal skeleton in which the soul of the dead comes alive and takes over the metal skeleton that are now akuma. Earl then urges for these akuma to kill the person that wished them back and take over their body in order to inflict more harm on humanity.

It is the job of the exorcists to stop these akuma and kill them but for Allen, unlike others who work for the Black Order, he understands their anguish of being revived to kill and having no control over what they do. Allen knows this from experience as he was tricked by Earl when he was young and ended up bringing his dead father Mana back to life as an akuma. And Mana cursing Allen with an eye that can detect and see the anguish of the soul that inhabits an akuma body.

Along with others in the Black Order, Allen learns through his visits to various villages of the evil of Millennium Earl but also that he has others working for him. And a race is on for both sides to look for 109 pieces of the "Innocence" which can be turned into anti-akuma weapons that the exorcist need to fight Earl and his akuma, while Earl wants these pieces to make sure that he can destroy them.

VIDEO & AUDIO:

"D. Gray-Man: Season One Part One" is featured in 1080p High Definition (16×9). Overall, picture quality varies from episode-to-episode. The animation and character designs are well-done. I actually like how the characters are animated and although not a vibrant anime series (since a lot of the scenes take place indoors or during the night time, especially with a foggy atmosphere), there are colors that come out from the various visual effects from the red that comes off of Allen's eye to the green light aura around his arm, the blue of Yu's innocence sword or the orange and red from explosions and fire.

Part of the problem that I found is that the discoloration problems that were evident on "Samurai Champloo", "Basilisk" and several recent Blu-ray releases shows up. During closeups of a face, you can see these green splotchiness surrounding the faces of the characters. But it is important to note that the splotchiness and artifacting is not as evident as the two series mentioned but it does show up from time-t0-time. But because of this, I'm guessing that for this Blu-ray release, the video is an upconvert.

As for the audio, "D. Gray-Man: Season One Part One" is featured in Dolby TrueHD English 5.1. Dialogue is clear as it comes from the center channel, music and special effects from the front channels. During the more intense action scenes, good use of the booming effects as the bass is nice and punchy from the subwoofer and sound effects are strong coming from the surround channels. So, for the most part, lossless English track is pretty solid. Voice acting was also very well-done on the English dub track as well.

As for the Japanese track, on the back of the package it says that the audio is Dolby TrueHD 2.0 but when you see the menu of the disc, it is Dolby Digital 2.0 and the signal coming from the player and receiver shows it as Dolby Digital, so it's a missprint on the rear packaging.

I did enjoy the Japanese vocal track and for those who prefer watching their anime in Japanese, if you have a modern home theater receiver and a good 5.1, 7.2 or higher setup, you can have a more immersive setup by setting audio to come out on all channels. But it is important to note that the Japanese audio track is not lossless and I'm sure that anime Blu-ray fans who were excited about a Japanese lossless soundtrack may have issue with this.

Subtitles are in English.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

"D. Gray-Man: Season One, Part One" comes with the following special features:

* Episode 2 Audio Commentary - Featuring audio commentary for episode 2 by Asst. ADR Director and voice actor (for Allen Walker) Todd Haberkorn and Luci Christian (voice actress of Lenalee Lee). Todd talks about the episode and being a voice actor trying out for a role and Luci Christian talks about being a writer and voice actress for the series.
* Textless Opening and Ending Theme - Textless themes for Abingdon Boys School's "Innocent Sorrow" and the ending theme "Snow Kiss" by NIRGILIS.
* Trailers - Featuring FUNimation Entertainment trailers.

JUDGMENT CALL:

"D. Gray-Man" so far is an entertaining anime series. It happens to also be the longest anime series out on Blu-ray in the US and with over a hundred episodes, it's going to take some dedication to follow the series with each volume only containing 13-episodes.

In some way, I found "D. Gray-Man" as appealing as "Fullmetal Alchemist" but with only 13-episodes so far, it's too early to tell how the overall season progresses. One thing that I did enjoy about this TV series is that each episode is connected and there are not as many filler episodes. One thing that tends to drag a series is too many stand-alone episodes and the good news about "D. Gray-Man" is that there is always an episode arc in regards to Allen's missions, so that was quite a positive.

Character-wise, so far I've enjoyed the supporting characters such as Lenalee Lee, Yu Kanda, Komui and a few others. Although, I wonder if the entire series primarily focuses on Allen (which it does so far) and if Lenalee will have her own episodes further into the series. I also enjoyed the character designs and also the costume designs of the characters. So, my first impression plot-wise is that for the first 13-episodes, so far, so good.

As for the Blu-ray release, I know that there are people who may be dissatisfied that there is no Japanese Dolby TrueHD soundtrack despite the package displaying a lossless soundtrack but I will say the English lossless soundtrack was very good and well-acted, also there is good use of the surround channels and the subwoofer during the action sequences.

There are not as many special features included on this Blu-ray release and it would have been good to have a few more commentary tracks instead of just the one for episode 2.

Again, it's important to emphasize that "D. Gray-Man" is a 103-episode TV series, so it is a much longer series compared to the average 13 to 26-episode anime TV series. I do wish there was 26-episodes included on each Blu-ray release but with this series being released not long after the DVD release in the US (and is still being released in the US at this time), I can understand.

So, before stepping into "D. Gray-Man", you may want to make sure you are committed to staying the course of purchasing multiple volumes of this series on Blu-ray. Overall, I found "D. Gray-Man" to be an entertaining series thus far and is another anime TV series worth adding to your anime on Blu-ray collection.

D. Grayman: Season One, Part One [Blu-ray] Overview

Darkness is moving in, and young exorcist Allen Walker is humanity's greatest hope against the wicked forces conspiring to bring civilization to its knees. Akuma - cruel spirits born of tragedy and lost souls - lurk in every shadow, willing and eager to do the bidding of their leader, the dread Millennium Earl. With an eye cursed to see evil in its truest form and blessed with an arm to slay soul-devouring demons, Allen stands ready to confront the gathering storm. Should he fail, Innocence will be lost forever.

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*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Apr 17, 2010 13:30:18

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Labels: Bluray, Cruisin, Disneys, GrayMan, Season, Toddler