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Review

by Bamboo Dong, Jul 1st 2002

Sorcerer Hunters

DVD 2: Magical Desires

Synopsis:
Sorcerer Hunters DVD 2
In the second volume of the Sorcerer Hunters, the group continues their quest in ridding the world of all its evil sorcerers. Interestingly, Carrot's hidden past is slowly revealed, and the characters take on more depth as their motives and hidden agendas are unearthed.
Review:
Released in North America by ADV, fans can now watch their favorite episodes of Sorcerer Hunters on DVD. With seven episodes on one disc, the DVD is a great bargain. Even better, the entire series is condensed onto four discs, so collecting the entire series is easier. Along with the seven episodes, the disc also comes with a few extras. Included is a clean credit version of the opening theme, with the original logos and without any overlays. This is especially nice for fans who want to view the theme without the hassle of peering over English overlays for the title. Another feature included on the disc is a section of character biographies. It showcases each main character and the major characters that appeared in the episodes, along with a brief description of each. The descriptions were written with humor in mind, but with that informal air came also an air of nonprofessionalism which was distracting. Written verbatim with casual dialogue, the descriptions were rather a turn off and detracted from the overall value of the character biographies. Yet another extra came with the DVD packaging, as the insert doubles as a kind of mini-poster featuring a picture of Chocolate posing in her transformed state.

What separates Sorcerer Hunters from other anime lies in one aspect of the story line. The other characteristics of the story are more common: tracking down bad guys and hunting them down, random humor here and there when things start to get dark, and transformation sequences galore. What makes it in a class of its own, however, is the amount of sex interjected in it that's so lecherous it's hilarious, yet not lecherous enough that it distracts from the story. In fact, the crude humor in the series actually is part of the story, and many an important scene is derived from one of the characters chasing another. As far as the plots go, there really is nothing to connect from episode from another. Fortunately, each individual episode is amusing enough to make one forget that he or she is just watching a string of random thoughts and ideas. Though each episode is fun to watch and enjoyable to laugh along with, the actual story of each one is confusing and disjointed. It's hard to keep each character's motives separate, as well as decipher what exactly is going on at any given moment. Luckily, there are so many chances for humor slammed into each scene that viewers are liable to forget that after each episode, they can't really remember what it was that they just watched.

Fortunately for viewers, both language tracks on the DVD were done well, with the actors of both casts performing at their best. Especially deserving praise are the Japanese actors, who did a remarkable job voicing their parts. Every inflection in their voices matched their respective characters perfectly, with the voicing changes before and after Tira and Chocolate's transformations carried out impeccably. The humorous scenes were also enhanced by the acting, as the sexual innuendo and the resulting escapades were carried out faithfully and commendably. The English voicing cast, on the other hand, did a good job, but had several trivial downsides to it. For one, the names of the characters and setting names were continually pronounced wrong, which could be an annoyance to some viewers. Also, through the process of casting, some of the actors just didn't fit the parts. Carrot sounded like a smooth, suave man, instead of being a sex-starved letch like was originally intended. As with the Japanese dialogue, though, the voice changes between the different personalities of Tira and Chocolate were also performed well, allowing the viewer to clearly see the variation in character.

While adequate, the music in the series is nothing to be excited over. The vocal opening and ending themes are nice to listen to, but they are nothing overly spectacular. Especially nice about the ending theme, however, was the catchy techno beat that carried throughout the song. Other than the two themes, the rest of the music was merely decent. Varying between bouncy shuffles and emotional ensembles, the music was nice to listen to, but typical of most anime soundtracks where the same tunes are expected to be recycled every time a familiar scene reemerges. Though it wouldn't be a loss to own a copy of the soundtracks for nostalgia sake, at the same time nothing tremendous would be gained. Also, while the pieces are pleasant to listen to while they are being played, none of the tracks especially stick out and render them memorable.

Altogether, Sorcerer Hunters is a fun series to watch as it is filled with nonstop humor and comic relief galore. While the story itself is nothing spectacular, the series is still guaranteed to make even the most emotionless rock chuckle out loud at least a few times. With seven episodes on a disc, the series is both easy to collect, and also easy to shell out money for, as it is definitely a bargain to both have so many episodes on one disc and be guaranteed a good laugh just about every time. With beautiful characters and raunchy, yet surprisingly un-crude humor, Sorcerer Hunters is definitely not a series to be missed.
Grade:
Production Info:
Overall (dub) : C
Overall (sub) : A-
Story : C-
Animation : C+
Art : B
Music : C

+ Hilarious series that's fun to watch
The story never really accomplishes anything

Director: Koichi Mashimo
Series Composition: Hiroyuki Kawasaki
Screenplay:
Shou Aikawa
Masaharu Amiya
Chika Hojo
Hiroyuki Kawasaki
Katsuhiko Takayama
Storyboard:
Gen Dojaga
Nobuyoshi Habara
Takaaki Ishiyama
Takao Kato
Koichi Mashimo
Yasushi Murayama
Kazuhiro Ozawa
Kunihisa Sugishima
Episode Director:
Nobuyoshi Habara
Takahiko Hoshiai
Takao Kato
Naoyoshi Kusaka
Yasushi Murayama
Yoshihiro Oda
Kunihisa Sugishima
Music: Kenji Kawai
Original creator:
Satoru Akahori
Rei Omishi
Miku Yuki
Character Design:
Hisashi Abe
Keiji Gotoh
Art Director: Toshihisa Koyama
Animation Director:
Hisashi Abe
Keiji Gotoh
Toru Sato
Sound Director: Shigeharu Shiba
Director of Photography: Yukio Sugiyama
Producer:
Satoru Akahori
Noriko Kobayashi
Masakatsu Kozuru
Rei Omishi
Yukinao Shimoji

Full encyclopedia details about
Sorcerer Hunters (TV)

Release information about
Sorcerer Hunters - Magical Desires (DVD 2)

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