Witchblade Vol. #1

By Bryan Morton     February 04, 2008
Release Date: February 04, 2008



What They Say
To kill, to live, to love, to die.

Masane Amane is a woman on the fringe of society, but her strange destiny was written ages past. She has been chosen from the anonymous depths of history, a fresh host for the coveted artefact known as the Witchblade.

The raw power of conquering armies courses through her veins, the taste of death sweet on her lips. Naked aggression with brutal birth in the fires of eternal lust for battle. Struggling to build a life her daughter, with no memory of the past and no clue as to her future, Masane Amaha will be forever scarred by her salvation... And many will step forward to see it.

Episodes Comprise
1 – The Beginning
2 – Bewilderment
3 – Defiance
4 – Movement

The Review!
A US comic gets the anime treatment, courtesy of the masters of style-over-substance, GONZO. You know this series is going to look good, but does it have anything under the hood or is it all just for show..?

Audio:
Audio is provided in Japanese 2.0 and English 5.1 versions – I listened to the Japanese track for this review. Sound is clan and clear, with some good use of direction and a decent amount of oomph in the action scenes. There were no apparent problems.

Video:
Video is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen format, and as you'd expect from most things GONZO a lot of effort seems to have been spent on making it look good – from character designs to backgrounds, the look & feel of the show is just right. Fortunately, the transfer does justice to that effort, with very little in the way of visible encoding problems.

Packaging:
No packaging was provided with our review copy.

Menu:
The main screen features an image of Riko and her mother (in Witchblade mode), with the various options on a banner running across them and a series of clips from the show playing in the background. Options are provided for Play All, Episodes, Setup & Extras. There are no transition animations, so it’s all quick and easy enough to use.

Extras:
There’s a decent selection of extras on this disc , starting with a 15-minute tour of Top Cow Studios, who are responsible for the comic the series is based on. There’s also a 10-minute interview with Masane’s Japanese VA, Mamiko Noto, a promotional video for the series, and a creditless versions of the opening and closing sequences.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review will contain spoilers)
The Witchblade - the Weapon of God, or the Tool of the Devil, depending on who you ask. Either way, it's the most powerful weapon on Earth. Men seek it, but can't have it - it's exclusively for the use of woman, and only one at a time may be the Bearer of the Blade. In a Tokyo that's been partly destroyed by a massive earthquake, a rash of strange incidents have taken place - "pulverizer" killings, where nothing is left apart from blood and the badge of government organisation NSWF. Masane Amaha and her daughter Rihoko miraculously survived the earthquake, and have now returned to the city to begin a new life - but when the Department of Child Welfare tries to separate Masane from her daughter, it's the beginning of a chain of events that will change her life forever...

Every time I see "NSWF", my mind translates it to "NSFW". Probably appropriately, as a lot of the content here is not safe for work – but then, that's part of the charm. Witchblade relies in no small part on the visual appeal of its female characters, who when they switch into their blade-wearing forms don't leave much to the imagination. Add in a good helping of blood and gore, and it doesn't take much to work out what the target audience for this show is.

The show's setting is quickly set up to introduce the two opposing sides. Introduced as decidedly the bad guys are NSWF (who include the Department of Child Welfare that Masane hates so much), who are after with Witchblade but in its absence have spent a lot of effort on recreating it artificially (Cloneblades, if you're interested). Opposing them, but not necessarily good guys, are the Douji Group, a huge conglomerate who focus heavily on weapons and military hardware – and whose previous attempts to gain control of the Witchblade were probably responsible for triggering the Great Quake. That's also the incident that brought Masane into contact with the Witchblade.

For someone in control of such a powerful weapon, though, she's a complete airhead – full of determination, especially when it comes to her daughter, but completely clueless most of the time about how to get what she wants. It's Riko that is the real brains of the family – mature beyond her years, she keeps her mom in check and acts as the voice of reason a lot of the time.

Initially, Douji Group want Masane – or more specifically, the Witchblade – to help deal with their past mistakes: X-Cons, military machines in the form of humans. Now discontinued due to their unreliability, a number of them had escaped recall and are now on the loose (hmm, shades of Winona Ryder's role in Alien Resurrection there), and they're the ones responsible for the mysterious "pulverizer" killings. Officially, it's up to Masane to deal with them – but there's the unspoken suggestion that there's more going on under the surface that we've yet to see. Add in NSWF's desire to get hold of her for themselves, and the seeds are sown for a conflict that has yet to come – but you know it's going to happen.

A number of characters are introduced from both NSWF and Douji Group, but sadly they're presented as cookie-cutter people of unknown motivations – they're there, they help and hinder as appropriate, but about their reasons for doing what they do we know nothing, as they don't do or say anything that's not strictly essential to the plot. That's actually not as critical as it may seem, as for this disc at least, the real focus of the story is on Masane and Riko and their efforts to stay together, despite the Child Welfare Agency's meddling. Taking up the Douji Group's "offer" allows that to happen, as they have the influence needed to keep them at bay – and so Masane's life as a contract killer begins.

I wasn't too sure about Witchblade before I watched it – I'm not a fan of Western comics, generally, but with this one GONZO have adapted the original property rather than directly translating it. This story is also original to the anime – the comic creators have worked with GONZO on it, but it has that "anime" feel to it that it probably wouldn't have otherwise had. The end result is pretty good – visually impressive, suitably visceral, although not yet really standing out from the crowd.

In summary:
Witchblade gets off to a good start here by introducing the setting and main characters and creating the conflict that the rest of the series is going to be built around. The move from printed to screen has come off really well, although so far at least it's not as good as the hype around the name would lead you to believe. There's plenty of potential waiting to be used, though, and what's here is certainly enjoyable enough to be worth taking a look at.

Features
Japanese Language 2.0,English Language 5.1,English Subtitles,A Tour of Top Cow Studios,Japanese Cast Interview: Masane Amaha,Promotional Video,Textless Song

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.