Pioneer Entertainment’s DVD, NAZCA: BLADES OF FATE, includes the first three chapters of a 12 episode Japanese animation series which originally aired on Tokyo TV in 1998. Pioneer plans on releasing the entire series on 4 DVDs throughout the year 2000. The NAZCA series is unique in that it mixes standard anime characters and situations with ancient Inca lore. Usually if anime programs incorporate older mythologies, it is usually Asian in origin. So the NAZCA series depicts the standard anime staples in a new light, and the characters actually leave Japan and travel to South America!

Kyogi Miura is a teenaged high school student, who also studies Kendo under his Sensei, Tate (pronounced Ta-tay). Kyogi confesses to holding Tate in high regard like a brother or father. Kyogi and Tate’s fiancé Yuka (a reporter), attend a Kendo tournament, where Tate is facing his opponent. As Tate accidentally delivers a fatal blow to his opponent in full view of the crowd, Kyogi swears he saw Tate transform at the moment of impact for the fateful blow. Strangely, this event triggers nightmares and hallucinations for Kyogi.

After the match, Tate mysteriously disappears, and it is believed that he has quit fighting because of the incident. Kyogi is informed that without Tate around, the dojo is not making enough money and must be shut down. So Kyogi recruits his friends, including Dan (who is blind) to learn the art of Kendo. One day, Kyogi comes over to the dojo and finds it being run by his nemesis, the sadistic Shimri. Shimri is also a student of Kendo, but he doesn’t quite look fully human. Shimri tells Kyogi that Tate left him in charge of the dojo until Tate returns from his retreat in the Peruvian Mountains.

While he can’t fully believe Shimri’s story about himself being left in charge, Kyogi is elated that he knows where Tate is. He calls up Yuka and tells her the story. She suggests that they get together and follow Tate there, since she needs to go there for a newspaper assignment anyway. They take a plane over to Peru, and soon locate the area of the mountains where the ancient Inca’s used to live. Once they set foot on Inca soil, an ancient Inca temple rises out of the ground. They enter the temple, and discover drawing and scrolls that seem to be purposely left for them. This evidence reveals that they are Inca warriors reborn into a new generation. To Kyogi’s surprise, Tate shows up claiming to be a warrior reborn, named Yawaru. Yawaru/Tate tells Kyogi that he is Yawaru’s ancient enemy, and that he must kill Kyogi. Kyogi believes that Tate has gone mad. But how can Kyogi bring himself to fight against his Sensei, a man he loves like a father?

So not a whole lot of action occurs during these three episodes. But they serve to develop the main and secondary characters. It seems that Kyogi and Yuka were lovers in their former life, and that Kyogi somehow threatened the leadership position that Yawaru held. This situation supposedly results in the downfall of the Inca civilization. So what creates the conflict is that these Inca warriors are reborn into a contemporary life where they end up being friends. By the end of the third episode, it appears that the characters have accepted their former selves, which means their contemporary friendly relationships are sadly over.

While the NAZCA: BLADES OF FATE DVD won’t blow you away, it does show a lot of potential. The characters are slowly built up and things are revealed as the episodes progress. This sets the stage for any amount of soap opera-like twists, which may occur later in the series. The Incan themes are pretty faithful to the history books, with the exception of the Incan warrior garb.

The main characters in NAZCA: BLADES OF FATE experience some strange dreams and nightmares. The narrative plays these scenes out like flashbacks. When these scenes of non-reality occur, the animation takes a very surreal and atmospheric quality. To further enhance this almost psychedelic vibe, computer animation is added to some scenes to make to make the visuals even more surreal. Many of the animation camera angles also add to the bizarre aspect of NAZCA. For instance, there are a few scenes where the point-of-view shot circles around the characters, like in THE MATRIX. These simple animation techniques help to keep things going.

We have two major complaints about this DVD. The way Pioneer treats these episodes is very faithful to the show’s original broadcast. But this doesn’t really work on DVD. Pioneer makes us endure the beginning and end credits 3 times! I can see if the credits had changed with each episode, but they are the same each time (believe me, we had to read through them 3 times). What they should have done is show the opening title sequence, then show the episodes together (so it appears like one single feature), then run the end credit sequence once. But no, the viewer must suffer through the end and title sequences 3 times. To make matters worse, they stick a trailer for the next episode between each episode. This presentation really hurts the momentum that the series tries to build. What they should have done was take the trailers completely out of the feature, and put them in a separate menu. Our other complaint is the repeating of scenes. For some reason, these episodes of NAZCA keep repeating the same scenes over and over again, presumably to keep events from being forgotten in the viewers mind, but all it serves is to annoy the viewer. Another problem is there are too many chapters stops—33 in all.

SIGHT

The full frame DVD presentation is mostly well done, but it’s not without some problems. The opening episode suffers from some softness, and even some pixelation. These two problems seemed to have worked themselves out by the time episodes 2 and 3 come on. It looks like the entire image suffers from a lack of sharpness. That is, if you look intently at the image, you’ll notice many characters and scenes look blurry. This blurry look does hold up well for the many dream sequences and the overall surreal atmosphere that the animators were trying to create. The transfer also has its share of grain, speckles, and dirt. We are positive this is from the source elements, but it is a little surprising considering how recent NAZCA is. We noticed some banding during the introductory scenes, specifically when the clouds roll in. Most of you probably won’t even notice these imperfections, so if you are a fan of NAZCA don’t let these comments put you off. The animation itself is pretty good, and includes some realistic fluidity of motion. Our only complaint with the animation is a lack of detail. For the most part, the colors are brilliantly vivid, though they are intentionally downplayed in the film. Except for the exterior scenes, of course. The Peruvian Mountains and surrounding landscape look wonderful; the artists purposely color the skies orange, red, and purple. These images are the highlight of the transfer. There is also some computer-generated imagery mixed in with the traditional animation, which we found added a lot to these particular surreal scenes. We did notice, however, that these computer graphics scenes induced some shimmering into the visuals. The black level seems a little off, not that there were a whole lot of deep black colors in the imagery anyhow. The character designs are pretty good except for the villainous Shinri, who for some reason has ghostly white skin with purple hair. Ditto for those ancient Incan costumes; these costumes resemble a person in spandex and horse feathers dressing up as a Christmas elf.

SOUND

This is a surprisingly strong Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. There are moments when it sounds like Dolby Digital 5.1! There is plenty of stereo separation and panning activity from all channels. The clarity is excellent and my only complaint is the bass is a little low, but even that is not a problem because there is not a whole lot of action going on that requires truly deep bass. The dialog is clean and clear and without hiss or distortion. Strangely, the English track seemed stronger than the original Japanese language track. The rear speakers provide some awesome ambiance, reverb, and panning activity. When a character walks from one corner of a room to the other, you hear their footsteps and voices follow suit. When it rains out, you hear the rain failing behind you. When an Incan temple bursts out of the ground, you hear the ground rumble, and the rocks crumble. The areas where the soundtrack truly shines is with the musical score. This is a multi-layered score, which contains symphonic elements, classical arrangements (including Sebastian Bach), with an Indian/Incan flavored choral accompaniment. Throw in some light progressive touches, and you’ve got a unique soundtrack that’s worth getting on CD. The music is performed by The Eccentric Opera, a group that includes some brilliant chanting vocalists. The music has CD-like fidelity on this soundtrack. The English dubbing is a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that NAZCA features a lot of characters, and Pioneer got enough voice actors so that nobody sounds the same. The bad news is that no one puts any real emotion into their performance, and it’s obvious the voice actors are just reading their cue cards. The dubbing, the musical score, and the sound effects are perfectly synchronized and integrated, making this one of the best non-DD 5.1 soundtracks we’ve heard yet.

FEATURES

There is an extras menu that contains an image gallery. There are seven character images included and four painted pictures. There is also an online catalog of Pioneer’s animated properties. There is also episode trailers for each episode. These trailers are treated as part of the feature and not as an extra. All 3 episode trailers are Full Frame and Dolby Surround.

CONCLUSION

The NAZCA: BLADES OF FATE series may not be the most memorable, but at least it strives to be different. We will reserve our final judgement on the NAZCA series, until we have witnessed more episodes. We don’t want to commit to saying NAZCA is good or bad based on the weak introductory episodes on this DVD. These episodes set up the characters and story nicely, but do little else. Hopefully, future episodes will include more action and plot twists. Hardcore Anime fans were high on NAZCA, so perhaps we were expecting more. We can remember many anime programs which were initially uninteresting, (like TECHNOMAN), but which ultimately turned out to be quite excellent. Hopefully, NAZCA will follow suit. Though the DVD is not technically perfect, Pioneer has really hit their stride in the year 2000, with some superior DVD products. If they could change the presentation by removing the repetitve beginning and end title sequences (and remove the trailers from the feature), the DVD would have a more theatrical presentation. We are a sucker for shows and films featuring ancient civilizations, so you can expect more reviews on future NAZCA DVDS.

NAZCA: BLADES OF FATE is available at DVDEmpire

NAZCA: BLOOD RIVALS is available at DVDEmpire

NAZCA: BETRAYAL OF HUMANITY is available at DVDEmpire

NAZCA: ETERNAL POWER is available at DVDEmpire

                                                Rating (out of 5):