舞-HiME COMPLETE (Mai-HiME) Blu-ray BOX to feature Chinese Audio (Blu-ray Review)

   

Bandai Honneamise’s recent Mai-HiME Complete Blu-ray BOX is an international version which includes Chinese Mandarin and English Dubs and English subtitle (NO Chinese subtitles though). To include a Chinese Mandarin Dub is just a big surprise, judging from the audio, this dub is done by some typical dubbing studio in Taiwan. My guess is maybe some English speaking country in South-East Asia with a big Chinese speaking population has licensed the show and wants to distribute it, could be Singapore, Malaysia, or even Philippine.

 

 

So it’s a 6 disc set, first five discs being BD50 each to have all 26 episodes, and the sixth disc being BD25 (a little less than 10GB) being all special features. The set is packed in three normal double Blu-ray case and comes with a box and a liner note. The price is about $220, $50 to $100 lower than “normal” Bandai Honneamise release…
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1. International Edition Menus

 

 

So being an international edition, it comes with both Japanese menus and English menus upon starting up. Unfortunately, you cannot change which version you want to use on the fly easily. The only way to switch versions is to restart the disc.

They’ve done the same thing with other titles, but I think this is the first time on a TV series.

FREEDOM, a seven episode OVA by Sunrise also has this type of international menus for example.

Both a pop menu a title menu are provided, with the pop menu covering the left and right of the screen, a typical design for show with a 4:3 aspect ratio.

The menu is largely white, and the design is simple, navigation is easy. The disc is HDMV only,no BD-J is used.

If the English version is selected, the first image is an FBI warning instead of the usual Japanese warning.

The English version is well translated for the first five discs, probably due to the English translation is already available. And English dub is the default audio.

 

The translation on the last disc is just so basic by comparison, most are given by Romanji or vague meanings. It’s not well translated, the meaning gets lost.

 

2. The Video

 

The video quality exceeds my expectation. Although it is produced later than Planet-es by the same company – Sunrise, it’s not produced in 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio. This point alone already screams a shitty upconversion, but surprising this title looks pretty decent, probably NOT upconversion. I’ve watched the first three episodes so far, no really annoying issue so far, might be some minor color banding, but I don’t see too much aliasing which could be a good indication that this is not an upconversion title. The video is encoded as 1080i with a 35Mbps average bitrate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sure some scenes could be fussy such as the above, or scenes depicting Mai’s fire ability.

 

Generally, the close-up scenes are pretty good, fighting scenes could be a little fussy. That’s my impression about the first three episodes. I haven’t gone through the whole thing yet, but I don’t expect too much of change in my opinion.

 

For videos on the last disc, I’ll save my comments in the special features section.

 

 

3. The Audio

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, there are three audio tracks in this set, Japanese, English, and Chinese Mandarin. All three are 16 bit LPCM 2.0 rated at 1536K. They are pretty basic mix with a little directionally and some bass, with Chinese probably the weakest. I didn’t expect LPCM 2.0 to do too much. I think this show could somewhat benefits from a 5.1 mix, but that’s NOT gonna be this price if they do it I guess. Music wise, there’s maybe one or two tracks that are good, others are just forgettable. A good song/music piece is It’s only the fairy tale, but it’s mostly ruined by Engrish IMO…

 

4. The Subtitle

They used the typical Arial font. The font size is a bit small, could be somewhat uncomfortable to read after a while. The translation seems to be from the R1 Bandai, but can’t verify it. Type setting wise, it’s a really basic subtitle. There’s on-screen signs translation. The subtitle maybe outsourced to some other country, because of the lines aren’t the usual left adjusted style from Japanese subtitle producing company.

A typical left-adjusted subtitle from Kanon by Pony Canyon.

The font on the FREEDOM disc is not Arial though, but it center lined as well.

For people who enjoy a dub would be disappointed there’s no extra sign only track available.

5. Extras

First, all the short footages from the DVD is now attached to the end of the episodes.

The entire last disc (which is about 10GB) is dedicated to the special features, a 4 minute new animation “Dance of Darkness/Last Supper” is in HD as seen above. This new feature shows how Mai and the other HiMEs tortures the big boss Kanzaki at the beach. All the other features are encoded in 4:3 1080i, which looks about the same as the TV since most are all trailers, and four character music video are just scenes from the episodes.

Personally The feature Mai-HiME vs Mai-Otome is the most interesting one.




A pop-up menu is provided on all the videos in the special feature disc. And this disc has Japanese audio only with NO subtitle.





6. Contents

The show has its moments, but generally I don’t feel I like it THAT much in the end. The pacing is quite fast in general. There are mysteries built on each episodes, and some twists along the way, especially the ending. It has a few fan service and quite a few fighting scenes which could make the viewers excited about. The most disappointing thing is the characters, there are 13 HiMEs, which some are forgettable, others are just plainly so annoying – especially Mikoto and Shiho. If Sunrise could tone down these two characters, I would rate this show much higher. The love relationship between Mai and Yuuichi is done pretty well, which is about the thing I like towards the end.

 

The show’s most interesting character is certainly Mai Tokiha, the protagonist. She’s a hard working student, always with a clear goal for what she wants, plus a huge boob to boot with… Her character design reminds me of Nanami from El Hazard, and after the HiME ability awakens with the golden ring element and fire ability design somewhat resembles Ne Zha, a character in Chinese history/mythology. She’s probably the most powerful HiME in the show from the beginning.

Lastly, Specs and disc scan by BDInfo.

DISC INFO:

Disc Title:     MAI_HIME_DISC1
Disc Size:      46,267,152,901 bytes
Protection:     AACS
BD-Java:        No
BDInfo:         0.5.3

PLAYLIST REPORT:

Name:                   00001.MPLS
Length:                 2:31:09 (h:m:s)
Size:                   46,164,332,544 bytes
Total Bitrate:          40.72 Mbps

VIDEO:

Codec                   Bitrate             Description    
-----                   -------             -----------    
MPEG-4 AVC Video        33538 kbps          1080i / 29.970 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1

AUDIO:

Codec                           Language        Bitrate         Description    
-----                           --------        -------         -----------    
LPCM Audio                      English         1536 kbps       2.0 / 48 kHz / 1536 kbps / 16-bit
LPCM Audio                      Chinese         1536 kbps       2.0 / 48 kHz / 1536 kbps / 16-bit
LPCM Audio                      Japanese        1536 kbps       2.0 / 48 kHz / 1536 kbps / 16-bit

SUBTITLES:

Codec                           Language        Bitrate         Description    
-----                           --------        -------         -----------    
Presentation Graphics           English         76.782 kbps                    

FILES:

Name            Time In         Length          Size            Total Bitrate  
----            -------         ------          ----            -------------  
00002.M2TS      0:00:00.000     2:31:09.727     46,164,332,544  40,719         

All the image captures in the original size can be seen HERE. Captured in MPC-HC using Cyberlink decoder and saved as png.