Parasite Dolls - Animetique
- Animetique
- 11/12/04
- click here
"There is nothing cutesy about this anime.
"
Parasite Dolls Review
Title: Parasite Dolls
Publisher: A.D. Vision
Running Time: 95 min
MSRP: $29.98
Ratio: 1.33:1
Region: 1
Release Date: 10/19/2004
First, let me say that this anime is rated 17+ and there is quite a bit of violence, nudity, sex, prostitution, gore and all those other things that would give it a R-rating. There is nothing cutesy about this anime.
Parasite Dolls is a collection of three stories that take place in a futuristic Bubblegum Crisis universe. The stories revolve around Buzz Nikvest, an officer of Branch, the secret division of the A.D. Police. These stories flesh out the nitty-gritty, often gory details of the underworld in Genom City. The stories have a very mature theme to them and deal heavily with the concepts of the purpose of machines in human life, the human characteristics of boomers, and government corruption taken to a Third Reich extreme.
The DVD contains 3 episodes, with a runtime of 95 minutes, so it's on the shorter end of dvd runtimes. I thought the episodes got progressively better - with the last as the climax tying the overarching themes of the first two together. In that sense, it really felt like these episodes went together to tell a grander story.
1 - A Faint Voice
Boomers are going berserk at a rate of at least one a week, and Buzz and his Boomer co-worker, Kimball, investigate why. Meanwhile, another Boomer falls in love with his co-worker.
2 - Dreamer
Eve is a Boomer prostitute with the ability to dream, cry, and perhaps even to feel emotions. However, there's a serial killer on the loose who has mutilated a number of Boomer prostitutes recently.
3 - Knights of a Round Table
A government official has decided that humanity would be far better off without Boomers and begins a quest to exterminate them.
Packaging:
When I first saw the cover, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. There's a naked girl covering her breasts with machine parts growing from her limbs. The title was called 'Beware the Temptations of the Flesh' so my first thought was that it was a hentai title. The subtitle on the back supported this belief, asking 'What are little girls made of...? In Genom City, the answer might surprise you.' While the DVD does contain scenes related to sex and prostitution, it is certainly more horror/sci-fi. The sex scenes are brief and aren't graphic though there is a gore factor involved with mutilated bodies.
The menu display has a tech feel to it, though on closer look, it appears we are looking through a boomer's eye (or through a sniper's target). There's lots of subtle movement, with this red targeting animation that bounces around the screen. The options are clearly visible on the right side and easy to navigate.
Audio/Visual:
I watched the title in Japanese, so I won't comment on the English dub, but the Japanese version was done very well. I had some minor tracking issues at a few parts, and the titles of the episodes were difficult to read, but overall, I had very few problems with the video. There were no problems with the subtitles, which were clear and easy to read.
What struck me about the DVD was that the episodes were presented as a movie rather than playing the opening and closing themes before and after each episode. Instead, each episode transferred seamlessly into the next, with a brief time and title preface. I wish more DVDs would skip the themes and previews and go right into the next episode.
Extras:
There aren't a lot of extras on this DVD. There are some promo trailers, a few character sketches, and the video for the intro theme song, which was probably the most interesting of the features. Called 'Get on the Beat,' the opener is a catchy techno-pop song complete with a barrage of flashing images that are thrown together more for impression than actual meaning. They sing in Japanese with an English chorus and display the subtitles at the bottom.
Posted on Friday, November 12, 2004 (Archive on Sunday, December 12, 2004)