Kurau: Phantom Memory Vol. #1 (of 6)

By: Bryan Morton
Review Date: Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Release Date: Monday, September 03, 2007



What They Say
Her name is Kurau, and in a world of mercenary agents, she's the cream of the elite; a master swordswoman, martial artist and thief so skilled that no secret or objective is beyond her grasp. The greatest secret of all, however, is the one Kurau conceals inside herself: as the freak result of a disastrous experiment with a new kind of energy, Kurau's body has been fused with a binary alien life form called the Rynax.

Every second Kurau lives is lived twice, one alien sharing her consciousness, the other still waiting to be born... and now neither of those lives may last very long! The truth about Kurau has begun to leak out, and a worldwide manhunt has been launched. The ultimate agent is now the ultimate target.

Episodes Comprise
1 – Into the Wide World…
2 – A Good Word
3 – Those in Pursuit
4 – Passing Through the Night

The Review!
When alien life form Rynax takes up residence in the body of young girl Kurau, it’s a devastating blow for her father, who sees the daughter he loves become someone else, but for Kurau and Rynax it’s the beginning of a whole new life – but the unique abilities that Rynax gives means that others soon take an interest that may not be healthy for Kurau…

Audio:
Audio is provided in Japanese 2.0 and English 5.1, which seem to be ADV’s standard formats these days. I listened to the Japanese track for this review. It’s another competent stereo mix, with decent directionality adding a feeling of depth to the on-screen action. There were no apparent encoding problems or dropouts.


Video:
Video is presented in its original full-frame aspect, and it’s a good-looking release. There’s a wide range of locations used in these episodes, and there’s been a good amount of effort put into to making them look unique and detailed – all good, and it helps make it that bit easier to get into the setting. Fortunately, the transfer doesn’t spoil the experience, either – colours and detail all come across clearly, and apart from some minor colour banding on gradients there were no obvious issues.

Packaging:
Using a different piece of artwork to the US release, the front cover of this volume features adult Kurau in an action pose with her sleeping Pair behind her, set against a plain white background. It’s a simple but eye-catching image. The rear has the usual screenshots, technical information and promotional blurb, while the reverse side of the cover has interviews with Kurau's VA Ayako Kawasumi & character designer Tomomi Ozaki; and a column by scriptwriter Aya Yoshinaga, looking at the character of Kurau.

Menu:
One word to describe the menus: bland. A simple grey background carries the various options – direct access to each episode, and submenus for language setup and extras. At least it’s quick and easy to use.

Extras:
In addition to the interviews and character details on the packaging, the on-disc extras provide the usual creditless versions of the opening and closing sequence and a promotional video for the show. There’s also a text extra explaining some of the terms used in the show & a little about the future society that’s featured, and a gallery of production artwork.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review will contain spoilers)
Apart from living on the Moon (although that's nothing unusual in the year 2100), Kurau Amami's your average, cheerful young girl. For her birthday, her father agrees to allow her to visit his work - he's a scientist, researching a new kind of energy, so the opportunity to visit the labs is a real reason for excitement. The visit will change Kurau's life forever, though, as a freak accident leaves her playing host to an alien, energy-based life form - Rynax. With her physical abilities augmented far beyond human norms, but no memories of the time before Rynax joined with her, Kurau's life is about to become extraordinary. 10 years later, Kurau's a mercenary for hire - a job her augmented abilities make her ideally suited for - but she's no closer to finding a way to separate Rynax from her body.

The key to that separation is Rynax’s Pair, lying dormant within Kurau – Rynax had made a deal with Kurau’s father than once its Pair had awoken, it would work with him to find a way to separate the three of them into their separate identities – but as the years passed and the Pair remained dormant, Kurau and her father went their separate ways. Now the Pair has awakened, Kurau needs to get in touch with her father again – but there are others who are aware of Rynax and the abilities it can grant, and Kurau’s suddenly a wanted woman.

The first episode of Kurau: Phantom Memory does a good job of making you think you’re getting one kind of show – and then in episode two it goes off in a different (and for my money, less interesting) direction. You see Kurau’s father’s reaction to what happens to Kurau, his initial conversations with Rynax while he tries to get his head around what’s happened, his internal struggles to deal with the combined Kurau-Rynax entity behaving more and more like Kurau used to (is it his daughter, or a monster who’s subsumed her? How should he feel?), and you begin to see how a story about growing up and identity could begin to flow from that. I saw that possibility as quite an interesting one – so come episode two, where we’re suddenly dropped into a story where Kurau’s a super-powered bounty-hunter, I had a mental clashing of gears while I tried to adjust to the show’s direction.

The big issue I had with this, is that bounty-hunter shows aren’t exactly rare, and initially at least there’s nothing done to make it look like the series was going to try anything different. The awakening of the Pair – into the human form of Christmas, looking just like the young Kurau – also didn’t exactly inspire me. As the disc continued, though, things began to change, as Kurau herself became the one being hunted (quite easily, it has to be said – Kurau’s skills at catching other people seem to be much better than her abilities to keep herself hidden), and her efforts to keep Christmas safe and free took centre-stage.

Kurau may go to great lengths to keep her host status a secret, but it would seem she’s not the only one of her kind – among the group chasing her, there’s even a term for them: “Ryna sapiens”, a new form of humanity, and Kurau appears to be one of the strongest of them – and the shadier sides of society seem to want their hands on that power. While trying to avoid their pursuers, there’s also the promise made with her father to deal with, and that looks to be the direction the show’s going to go in from here.

In summary:
I’m still a bit torn about Kurau, to be honest – the initial setup of the series, and the dual nature of Kurau with Rynax on board, opens up a whole range of possibilities, but with Kurau always been seen as really a “single” personality there’s not as much use made of her nature as I’d have liked, and the story has large elements of a chase story to it, with Kurau having to stay one step ahead of those who want the abilities that Rynax gives her. It’s enjoyable, sure, but it somehow manages to be less than the sum of its parts. Hopefully volume 2 will begin to make more use of all that potential.

Features
Japanese Language 2.0,English Language 5.1,English Subtitles,Creditless Opening & Closing Sequences,Key Words,Promo Video,Production Artwork

Review Equipment
Toshiba 37X3030DB 37" widescreen HDTV; Sony PS3 Blu-ray player (via HDMI, upscaled to 1080p); Acoustic Solutions DS-222 5.1 speaker system.