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Feature Presentation:
Special thanks to Geneon Entertainment for sending a copy for a review for this site. If you like James Bond, I think you will enjoy this series, but it's twice the Agent & working for royalty only! Set in England or England-like town of Ishtar, our royalty Agents, Rowe & Jack, set us all in action, while doing what they do best in a smooth & fun way. Yes, there are even special gadgets, cool cars, a cool boss & even a cute secretary helping them out! Their jobs is to protect the honor of the royal family, along with keeping the peace in Ishtar. These agents are good to what they do, to recovering stolen artifacts, getting rid of royal terrorist, outsmarting newsporters, to even protecting a sack of teasures, which ended up a little contest that when a little mess up. Boy, those news reporters are a pain. There isn't any bloody killing in this series, which is pretty good thing to have. The music is very cool & I really enjoy the introduction theme by Billy Preston. In any case, I still don't know who is L & who is R? Oh, this series start off in a pretty cool introduction right on the first episode, like you're going to watch a movie.
Video:
Geneon Entertainment did a very great job. I found no problem, the image are clear & the color looks perfect. To top things off, the series is feature on Widescreen format. If you got a Widescreen TV, you're going to enjoy this even more. There is some watermarks done for the introduction & ending credits (they are translated in English). The first episode is separated into 6 parts: the prologue, the introduction, part A, part B, ending & the preview for the next episode, but the rest are separated into 5 parts: the introduction, part A, part B, ending & the preview for the next episode. Since all the episodes are on one single track on the DVD, there is no loading time or changing tracks when you move on to the next episode. I do note that you can skip all those warnings & logos when you first load the DVD by just pressing the "Menu" button on your remote control.
Dubbing: English:
Well, the fun thing about English dubbing, it makes a little more sence. The cast is well picked. Since the setting is somewhere in England or England-like town, most of all the cast are doing the voice with an English accent! Oh, they even dubbed a little singing in the third episode on this volume, which really nice to hear. It's about 80% of the original Japanese.
Audio 01: English 2.0:
No problem found.
Audio 02: Japanese 2.0:
No problem found.
Subtitle:
Geneon Entertainment have selected a great font, very easy to read, bolded I might added. They use green for the introduction & ending themes, the rest is yellow. However, there is only one subtitle track, just for the Japanese audio track. Well, there isn't much Japanese sign or texts to go around & the introduction is already in English, so I guess adding another subtitle track is pointless. Problem is that the ending theme is still in Japanese, so you need to turn on the only subtitle to have the lyrics. I might note that every odd numbered episodes, the ending subtitles are in English, while the even numbered episodes are in Japanese on this volume.
Menu Option:
The menu is simple, quite colorful & 60's style colors. There is moving clips back & forth from the episodes in this volume. There is "Play All", "Screen Access", "Set Up" & "Extras". Selecting will make clips move around. The background music on the main menu is one of the background music in the series, however, the other sections got none.
DVD Extras:
There isn't much, just the original Japanese opening & ending, as well the non-credit opening & ending.
Packaging:
It's pretty simple. On the cover, you see Rowe & Jack in action with a interesting background that relates to the episodes on this volume. In the back, you get some screenshots from the episodes on this volume, with a nice picture from the main theme. The insert got the chapter listing with screenshots from the episodes, along with an original drawing on a scene. Inside the insert, you get a mini-poster of Jack & Rowe. On the DVD disc itself, it's just the same L/R logo as the cover, with the shadow of our Agents ready for some action. The color red is mostly used.
PC Viewing:
Watching it on the PC is the same as watching it on the TV. Very clean, no problem at all, very little pixel (little squares popping in & out), both normal mode & full screen mode. The sound is just great. In the menu, you need to click on the bar below the options in other to make it work. The episodes are place on one single track as you play the episodes, so loading time is really small. You can fast forward to the first episode to the last episode with one move on your mouse! Like on your regular DVD player, you can skip the warnings & logos when you load the disc, just use the "menu" option to go to the menu screen.
Overall DVD Rating:
If you like James Bond, this series is perfect for you. It's fill with fun, action, a little humor thrown into it. You get cool Agents & you can't forget the cool gadgets. Plus, the music itself is good to listen. Yup, this series kept it's word, it's twice the Agents, twice the fun...
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