Words Worth Box Set (of 1)

By: Chris Beveridge
Review Date: Sunday, April 21, 2002
Release Date: Friday, April 05, 2002



What They Say
The legend has survived for generation. The Words Worth tablet, which will unlock the secrets of the Universe for the one who can decipher it, has been shattered. The warring tribes of Light and Shadow blame each other, and their accusations lead to all out war!

Astral, the undisciplined heir to the throne of the Shadow Forces, lusts for his bride-to-be, Sharon (Jenna Jameson). But Sharon, an accomplished warrior herself, feels her body drawn toward Caesar, the Shadow Tribe's bravest swordsman.

Sharon battles alongside Caesar during an assault by the Light Forces, and her ferocious beauty captivates Sir Fabris, the leader of the Tribe of Light. Fabris' army loses the battle, but he vows that he will one day get Sharon into his bed... the hard way, if necessary.

Meanwhile, Astral takes his sexual frustrations out on Maria (Nikki Dial), a Light Tribe sorceress who has been taken captive. As Astral penetrates Maria, Sir Fabris prepares to launch a penetration of his own: a full-scale attack on the Tribe of Shadow!

War drives them. Women drive them mad. And Words Worth is their prize!

The Review!
Words Worth is one of the more sought out hentai releases of recent times due to the popularity of the game and that the show actually has something of a plot, characters and a storyline. Disjointed as it may be. Of course, the fact it's in a fantasy setting is probably what really gets people interested.

Audio:
For our primary viewing session, we listened to these discs in their original language of Japanese. The show has a good stereo mix that makes use of the left/right channels for some good moments of directionality with the swordplay and other action, but most of the dialogue and sound effects tend to be center channel based. Music is nice and fills the forward soundstage. It's not an overly exceptional stereo track, but it sounded better and more involved than a lot of other series due to their being more than just mood music and dialogue.

Video:
Done before the time of all the flashy new CG releases that we're getting used to these days, the look and feel of the show gives it more of a raw feel which works in its favor. The transfer here comes across nicely with hardly any problems at all outside of some aliasing. Cross coloration seems non-existent during playback and I noticed none during some paused moments. Colors look good without being over saturated or bleeding and things looked stable and pretty much jitter free.


Packaging:
The artwork used for the cover packaging for this release look like shots from the show itself, but they don't actually appear there. Each volume features different women from the series, some just being demure while others are being held against their will. The back covers show a couple pieces of animation and give a good rundown of the episode contained on the disc. Features and technical information is also nice and clearly listed. The box itself uses a different piece of artwork than what's seen on the individual releases. And yes, seeing a horse-man with a smile that big is scary. As with all NuTech releases to date, there is no insert provided.

Menu:
There's a brief bit of flames flying all over the place, taken from the animation itself, used as the intro as the disc loads up. The menu itself only uses the shows logo while everything else seems to be new animations they've created to give it a good feel. The menu does look good with the sword prominent and bits of animation playing in the background obscured. Moving to submenus is nice and fast and access times are good in general. The layout is standard for a NuTech release, so if you've seen one disc you know exactly where to set the options and what extras can be checked out.

Extras:
Two sets of the voice actresses' video photo galleries are included here while the actual anime-related extra is a video image gallery with stills from the show. One unique thing added is a Jenna Featurette that's different on each disc, so there's something new to check out on each load.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The main draw of Words Worth has to be the fantasy setting, something very few shows do. Few shows go beyond the tried and true modern setting to begin with. And fantasy fans like to see things go beyond what they usually do. Words Worth certainly takes advantage of that.

The show is a tale of struggle between the Tribe of Light and the Tribe of Shadows. Our perspective is given in with the Shadows as the main character is Astral, the son of the king of the Tribe of Shadows. Watoshika, his father, won't let Astral become a fully "licensed" swordsman, as he needs him to stay alive for another purpose. Astral can't stand this and tries every which way to prove himself but to no avail.

The Tribe of Light's kingdom is located deep underground while the Tribe of Light is naturally outdoors on the surface. The leader of the Light, Fabris, is pushing through another attack to try and conquer and destroy the Shadow, which is something that has been going on since forever. The original argument over who destroyed the Words Worth tablet is what sparked it, but few even know or remember what it was. Grudges die hard.

It's during another push that we find Astral conning his way into getting "licensed" to fight that we also see his fianc�e, Sharon, fighting hard against Fabris and his troops along with the best male fighter of the shadows, Caesar. The battles are rather bloody at times but go by relatively fast and generally only set up other encounters. While there's a lot of fighting going on, there's a lot of sex going on as well.

During one particular fight, when Fabris is about to take Sharon, Astral arrives to defend her only to have Fabris' daughter Maria, a spellcaster no less, use her magic to essentially destroy him. The spell doesn't work as planned but still removes Astral from the picture. He now finds himself twenty years in the future with no memory and no idea of where he is. This sets up the amusing moments of him getting it on with Maria's daughter and a host of other fun time travel issues.

The main problem with the twenty year gap is an unexplained phenomenon. While everyone in the Light kingdom has visibly aged, with Fabris being gray and a grandfather and Maria being older, everyone in the Shadow kingdom looks exactly the same once the passageway between the two became closed. It's like they were sealed in time to some extent, but that can't hold up as one of the characters had a child that's a couple of years old. And the kid is Astral's no less.

But hey, we're not here for total story continuity are we? C'mon, we're here for the hot girls getting it on with all the guys. And sadly, with the horse-man and the two pig-guys. Oh man did I just fast forward through that pretty little segment. Barring that, there's a lot of good stuff to watch during these episodes. In particular, I think this is the first time I've ever seen a catgirl in hentai. It brings to mind just how difficult of a job that actress had in trying to both perform the part when Astral was being tender with her and to keep that cat inflection in her voice. I'll admit it, there's something about catgirl nookie.

In the end, I'm unsure if the anime has lived up to its reputation, but it was certainly a fun ride for the five episodes. I've been told that it mirrors the game pretty closely outside of a few sequences, so those who've played that will be pleased by it and will be interested in the changes. Overall, it's easy to see why this one is recommended and why it'll get a lot of play outside of anime fandom and more into the gaming and fantasy circles.

Features
Japanese Language,English Language,English Subtitles,Photo Gallery,Actress Gallery,Actress Featurette (5)

Review Equipment
Toshiba TW40X81 40" HDTV, Skyworth 1050P Progressive Scan codefree DVD player, Sony STR-DE835 DD/DTS receiver, Monster component cable and Sony speakers.