Funimation puts out one of the best anime box sets I have seen and gives the Fractale television series the deluxe treatment it richly deserves. Featuring exceptional packaging, a bevy of extras, and a top notch English dub, it is a fantastic bargain for fans of the science fiction anime.
Fractale tells the story of a young teenage boy living more than one thousand years from now in a world where the Fractale system connects everyone to an augmented and mostly virtual existence. There is no war, no hunger, and no need to work as the system takes care of your every need. Families are a quaint concept of the past and relationships are all remote since you can tailor your entire existence to be whatever you desire.
One day, a girl falls into his life and Clain’s peaceful solitary existence is changed forever. With the Fractale system beginning to fail and an armed terrorist movement rising to finish it off, the boy finds himself caught up in a conflict he does not understand and that will not leave him alone. So begins his journey toward adulthood with the fate of an entire world at stake. It is trip where innocence is lost and the mystery of Fractale is finally revealed at terrible cost.
Being eager to get my hands on the Fractale box set, I preordered it from RightStuf at the beginning of the month. July 17 seemed a long way off and since shipping from them arrives quickly here, I expected to have it around the 19th. Instead, it arrived ten days before it was supposed to be released. So now it can be reviewed before it is officially out and the good news is that this will be an absolutely glowing review.
The first thing I noticed was the high quality of the packaging. Fractale: The Complete Series features a very glossy full color slip case with full artwork on front and back taken from the promotional art before the series was launched in Japan. This means gorgeous watercolor renderings of the characters with the hair colors being different from the actual episodes. The description, details, and blurbs are on a printed sticker attached to the shrink wrap, so the case is unblemished by large amounts of text. My copy has a corner on the bottom flap pulling away, but that will be a simple matter to glue down again.
Inside are two Blu-ray cases with more artwork of the same quality with Phryne gracing the DVD set and Sunda accompanied by his sister Enri on the Blu-ray set. The backs of each case have a very tastefully designed listing of the content and make a very classy impression. More full color artwork is found on the insides of the case lid and is viewed through the lightening/plastic saving cutouts. I like how they broke up the different types of discs so it will be easier to loan out the DVDs, for example.
The discs themselves are printed in monotone color, but give an almost 3D effect from the artwork which is again taken from the promotional media. The DVDs are printed in black and the Blu-rays in an attractive sepia tone. Each one has different artwork, so you will not be confusing them easily.
At this point you are probably thinking, “Enough with the packaging! Did they do a good job on the videos?” They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so check out the screen captures from the Blu-ray here and at the end of the review. While I shrunk them down to 720p size, the quality still shows and I can say this show is nothing short of spectacular in 1080p. It is a staggeringly beautiful anime, falling just short of Studio Ghibli quality. The DVD’s are high quality, but this show demands HD to be fully appreciated.
The sound quality is not neglected and features Dolby TrueHD for both languages. While the original Japanese is only Dolby 2.0, the new English dub is full 5.1. Both make good use of surround, but the English dub is better in that regard. Subtitles are very well done and faithful to what I remember from the streaming broadcast.
Now is the moment where I go into the English dub and if you have read any of my anime reviews, you know that I am an original language purist. Give my subtitles or give me nothing is how I feel about foreign films and television. Okay, now that I have that disclaimer written…
Funimation did an excellent job with the dub. While I have some quibbles with the new script, which does heavily rewrite the dialogue, the essence of the story comes through in a way those who did not get the story before might find easier to understand. The American voice cast do a very good job and I cannot find fault with any of the casting, as opposed to some of the horrors of the Bleach dubs done by Viz. I still find the original superior, but this is high quality work and a huge relief for me. Dubbed anime tends to get a much larger audience and this show needs to be spread far and wide.
Normally I do not single out voice actors by name, but I have to credit Luci Christian with doing a great job on Nessa. That was the voice I was worried the most over and she conveys the sweet personality well. Kana Hanazawa’s performance was frighteningly perfect, so I did not expect lightning in a bottle twice. Getting Nessa right was going to make or break the dub, that is all.
Extras include:
- Episode Commentaries (for Ep. 1 and 7)
- Original Preview (Japanese)
- Promotional Videos (TV ads for the Japanese broadcasts)
- DVD & Blue-ray Commercials (Japanese release)
- Shobi Wind Orchestra, Tokyo (performing the main theme)
- Fractale’s Art Sanctuary (Promotional art again)
- U.S. Trailer (Brilliant, in my opinion)
- Textless Songs (OP and both ED’s)
- Trailers (for other Funimation series)
The commentaries will either highly annoy you or amuse you, I suspect. The first by the English dub script writer and Sunda’s voice actor strays completely away from the first episode and becomes a discussion of the entire series plus the perils of technology. The second by the voice director and Clain’s voice actress stays a little more on topic, but covers the entire series again. One thing common to both is an affection for the series. At one point the voice director wonders how well Fractale did in Japan and states she would be heartbroken if it did badly.
One very nice touch is the songs are fully translated in subtitles for the OP and ED. This is actually important because they hinted very strongly as to what the end of the series was going to be.
As for the series itself, please read my reviews of the episodes and remember to avoid the spoiler sections if you have not seen Fractale. I will be redoing all eleven reviews with new HD screen captures and some revision to the text in a project I am dubbing “Fractale: Reiterated”. Thanks to watching it in Blu-ray after not seeing it for some time, it has moved to my number one spot in anime after being in a three way tie for quite awhile.
If you are a fan of this series, do not hesitate to buy this set. Funimation’s edition shows a loving care for the material that I did not expect. Thank you Funimation, for this beautiful box set.
HD screen caps:
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