Record of Lodoss War: The Complete OVA Series+Chronicles of the Heroic Knight: The Complete Series [Blu-ray]
DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:
First and foremost: Thank you, thank you Funimation for licensing and releasing a number of classic anime series this year. It’s been a joy revisiting shows like Outlaw Star and Wolf’s Rain in full high definition glory. But this, THIS release was definitely the most unexpected and quite possibly the most welcome of all.
Record of Lodoss War is one of those essential classic series every anime and RPG fan should check out at some point. It has everything a fantasy junkie could want: Magic! Action! Beautiful Elves! Excellent world building and mythology! Well fleshed out characters with rewarding story arcs! Beautiful and distinctive background music! Did I mention MAGIC?! Lots of magic. Anyway, overall it’s aged remarkably well. Unfortunately it’s also a series that has never been given a worthy presentation in the United States. The long out of print DVD sets from *15* years ago have commanded high prices in the secondary market and feature what I consider to be incredibly poor, muddy transfers.
Now this has finally (mostly) been rectified with a long overdue blu-ray release of the original OVA series. Sourced from new HD masters, the clarity, detail, and color of this new presentation is so good that I feel like I’m seeing the series for the first time again. Viewing this on a 100″ projector screen at full resolution is absolute magic and it was difficult not to burn through all of the episodes in single viewing.
The sequel series is unfortunately only included on standard definition DVD – but even so it looks light years better than the shameful masters used for the 2002 set. Anyone viewing these on a regular television (HD, 4K, or otherwise) will notice that they upscale rather nicely with the help of a trusted blu-ray player. It’s a shame that the Japanese rights holders haven’t mastered part two in HD in time for this set, but until then this is a fantastic option and certainly a worthy upgrade or purchase for anyone interested in enjoying this magical series for the first time or for the 100th. Quite pleased.
DVD Wholesale Main Features:
Actors: Bill Timoney, Lisa Ortiz, Jacques LeCann
Directors: David Siegal
Format: Animated, Box set, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Language: Japanese (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), Japanese (Dolby TrueHD 2.0), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), English (Dolby TrueHD 2.0)
Subtitles: English
Dubbed: English
Region: Region A/1
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Number of discs: 2BD+6DVD
Rated: NR-Not Rated
Studio: Funimation
DVD Release Date: July 18, 2017
Run Time: 1325 minutes
ASIN: B0722CP3ZW
