Knight Hunters Eternity Vol. #3

By Chris Beveridge     November 12, 2004
Release Date: November 16, 2004



What They Say
As Sena uncovers the secret behind his family, the Weiss close in on Epitaph's true identity. She is protected by three of the most dangerous psychics on earth. The Weiss could never defeat her bodyguards, but there is another group of assassins that she must deal with. This group doesn't hunt the darkness... they are the darkness.

As all things must inevitably draw to a dark end, Shwartz makes its long-awaited return to put the "final" into the final volume of Knight Hunters.

The Review!
With all that heavy plot stuff out of the way, the last four episodes get down to bringing in old members, other groups and generally doing a lot of violent action sequences.

Audio:
For our primary viewing session, we listened to this show in its original language of Japanese. The series is a fairly standard stereo mix that's not unexpected for the shows content. The music itself is one of the areas that plays around with directionality and is pretty well done though the opening song will confuse some people at first since it sounds like the audio is dropping out. Dialogue throughout on both languages sounds good and has some noticeable areas of directionality but most of the dialogue feels full in general.

Video:
Originally airing in 2002, the transfer for this TV series looks good in general but suffers from a few areas where you can see some shortcuts in the animation itself. The transfer does a good job and has some solid source materials. In a way, the show often looks and feels like a number of recent hentai shows in that there are a lot of stills and panning shots (which means some aliasing in areas) combined with a bright color palette for the character animation that gives them a feel of not being entirely connected to the backgrounds. There's some good detail when it comes to the lead characters but most of the secondary characters tend to be a bit more generic and cleaner in general.

Packaging:
The bulk of the current teams' incarnation takes the cover this time but with the addition of Persia and the subtraction of Sena. As it goes, Persia and Aya's costumes continue to be the better looking of the group as the other two, particularly Yoji in that hat, just don't look that good at all. The logo is nicely done with the English version combined with the original series name as a subtitle. The back cover is done in the standard direction with a cross background that h as a good collage of images throughout it. There's a single small paragraph that goes into the shows premise and a rundown of the discs features and production information. Media Blasters continues to score points with their technical grid along the bottom. The insert combines various elements from the cover and provides a rundown of the chapter listings for the five episodes on this volume.

Menu:
The main menu uses the cover artwork as the static image set to music from the show with the selections lined down along the right. It's an attractive enough menu and simply done with an easy to navigate menu with fast access times. Unfortunately the disc doesn't go by the players default settings and starts with English only; it doesn't even automatically start with the signs/songs subtitle track active either as a default to go with the English dialogue.

Extras:
The extras continue to be good with this release. First, there are some dub outtakes that ranged from no reaction to some rather amusing ones and overall are still something I enjoy checking out. In addition to that, there's a voice actor radio theater kind of piece here where the four leads are at a table talking about all sorts of things about themselves with cameras specific for them. It's interesting to watch them goof off and joke with each other. This is the second installment of it and they just have fun with it. Another featurette is included in here where the cast is in a similar setting but just talking about their experiences doing such things as the fan events, both separately and together, as well as the perceptions of how fans see the show after this revival. Basically, if you like the voice actors for this series, and the series is banking on that, then you'll enjoy these pieces since they're just fun to listen to..

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Knight Hunters Eternity has been an interesting experience to watch. While I didn't see the original series as someone else reviewed it here, there wasn't a huge amount of material you really needed to know going into this one. Eternity essentially gives us a mostly new generation team with a mixture of old and new members. You knew over the course of the show that one of the previous members moved up into the role of Persia in order to guide the Weiss. And while we didn't see them until this last volume, other members still exist out there as well as other groups that have their own goals but are similarly set up.

Over the course of the first two volumes we got a fair amount of plot that was then followed up by a large amount of angst as we got to know (or meet again in the case of some of them) the pain that haunts them from their pasts. It got pretty heavy at times and almost comical in some ways but that's always been a draw with the show for its fans since angst does and will always sell on some level. But with all of that now out of the way, the final four episodes goes towards resolving the main storyline plot for this series and then providing an entire episode of epilogue material, to see where the surviving characters go in their lives and what they try to do. Those that stay and those that leave in order to start anew. In that respect, I enjoyed the finale a lot since too many shows still end on the final action sequence when there's still things that need to be resolved.

The action for this set of episodes is rather good. With the assault on the University being the main goal in order to take down Epitaph once and for all, especially with the belief that the Director there is actually the same person, Persia steps out of his role as that and back as Omi and takes his case directly to the Weiss members himself. His actions set a cascade effect of other groups being set into alert and ready mode since there are so many interests at heart here. With Epitaph having their human creation system and all the knowledge for what's essentially making godlings, there's plenty of reason to destroy it all as quickly as possible.

In a way, I know I'm missing a good part of the impact of these episodes as the various groups are brought in. Older Weiss members from previous teams show up in varying fashions but not knowing them or their history, they don't mean as much to me. The Rosenkreuz are brought in to help guard against the arrival of the Weisz but even they appear to have their own history as evolved clones of some other folks who have shown up to see where the dice land in this game. And then add in the Crashers part of the entire Takatori setup and there are a fair number of groups running around with varying relations, vendettas and objectives to each other. I expect that when I do get around to the original series a lot more may click as I "meet" these characters for the first time.

Overall, this version of Knight Hunters wasn't anywhere near as bad as the gossip goes for the first series since they avoided the entire florists by day/hunters by night gig and instead just focused on being hunters with no real lives otherwise. There's enough gimmicky material here to turn off plenty of people though and the angst level will certainly raise the bile in a segment of fandom as well, but I think the show here, as disjointed as it was at times, was a pretty decent action show with a flair for real violence that had no problem killing off any character that got to be problematic and in general just had fun with it.

My only real gripe with the series in the end is a technical one and that's the simple fact that for a show that's so highly built around the voice actors that it's almost criminal to not list them anywhere on the disc or apparently the packaging. The final volume does have an English cast and production list at the end, but the Japanese voice actors are nowhere to be found at all. Whether an oversight or by intent or by mandate from the Japanese for some reason I can't imagine, it's just something that marginalizes the persons work. Especially when you provide so much live material in the extras for the four leads. But I'd also like to know the roles of many of the other characters as well. It's very disappointing.

In Summary:
Most people have their preconceptions of what Knight Hunters is based off of the first series and it's probably pretty pointless to try and change them. The basis of the series survives here in some form but it's not the same. To my surprise, the show was more violent and darker than I expected and with an interesting enough plot to carry it through the thirteen episodes well enough while also providing an excellent epilogue episode that really shakes up the characters. None of these people are the same as they are at the start of the show and that's still a rarity among a lot of the really popular shows of the last few years. For that alone, Knight Hunters Eternity gets a nod. It may have some corny moments, some of the animation may cut a few corners here and there and god help us if there's a wave of Yoji cosplayers out there, but this was a fun little angst filled violent action fest that's making me want to see the original now.

Features
Japanese 2.0 Language,English 2.0 Language,English Subtitles,Outtakes,Japanese Voice Actor Interviews

Review Equipment
Panasonic PT50LC13 50" LCD RP HDTV, Zenith DVB-318 Progressive Scan codefree DVD player via DVI with upconversion set to 720p, Sony STR-DE835 DD/DTS receiver, Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.