During the Heian Era in Japan a young warrior seeks the ancient artifacts that will bring peace and prosperity back to her land. In place of her ailing brother, Minamoto no Raiko, Hikaru Minamoto embarks on a quest to recover the artifacts, called the Magatama. She disguises herself as her brother and begins her quest. The roads are perilous and infested with bandits. Political insiders plot to ruin the ruling family and bring an end to their rule and lives. Will Hikaru be able to find all the Magatama, bring peace to the land and stop the plots to ruin the emporer? This begins the story of Otogi Zoshi from MediaBlasters.com and their AnimeWorks line of anime titles.
Disc One: The first 5 episodes of the 13 episode series [originally planned for 26 the series was shortened to 13, then another 13 episodes where later added to bring the total back up to 26].
Audio/Subtitles: The audio is offered in both English and Japanese in 5.1 or 2.0. The English audio sounds a bit silly at times but I still found it helped when I wanted help distinguishing between characters when watching the show with the Japanese audio [the way it should be]. The subtitles are clear, comprehensible and easy to follow.
Animation: This thing is gorgeous! Yet the stark contrast and deliberate shadowing in the character design swings a bit from conventional anime. Director Mizuho Nishikubo and Animation Director Kazuchika Kise stopped for a moment during the Round Table discussion to point out that Kise even shadowed the eyes in his design and when they went to remove the shadows the characters just looked creepy. It is not highly stylized and a traditional character design with classical lines was used. The backgrounds are beautiful and the dry brushed texture offers further contrast from the characters and help them stand out. Oh, did I forget to mention that Production I.G was responsible for the animation? Yeah. You may have heard of them. They did a couple little things: the animation sequence in Kill Bill Vol. 1, anything to do with Ghost in the Shell [both films and television series, and the new Blood+ series coming in October.
Story: I found that the story doesn't sway too far from traditional anime/samurai storylines. So I am interested to see how the story concludes with only 8 episodes left in the first series but I'm not waiting with bated breath. By the end of episode 5 new characters were still being introduced and perhaps we aren't expected to grow any sort of attachment to them as with the lead characters but even the creators of the series admitted that they wished for more time to further develop secondary characters. Now things may have changed when the series was extended back to 26 episodes the storyline was continued though that wasn't really hinted at during the round table discussions on Disc Two. I don't know myself as this is my first exposure to the series in this first volume. So the story is traditional in an anime sense but not so engaging that it leaves me wanting more.
Disc Two: The extras on this disc are fascinating. You get nearly an hour of Round Table discussion between the anime creators: Director Nishikubo, Animation Director Kise, Series Writer Yoshiki Sakurai and Character Designer Shou Tajima. You can also watch the opening and closing segments of the show without the titles. What I also found very interesting was the interview with Dr. Kazuto Hango of the Historiographical Institute of the University of Tokyo. Dr. Hango was the technical advisor for the series and he outlines the historical accuracy and liberties taken by the production team on the series. Literally, they had nothing but ancient scrolls to use as historical references for the Heian period so you get to know what was true in the series, what was embellished for the sake of artistic license and what was flat out made up.
So what is my overall impression? I like Otogi Zoshi. I don't love it. It looks great but the story could have been more compelling by the end of episode 5, almost halfway through the first series. I will save any sound judgement until the second half of the season is released though as things may dramatically turn around and Otogi Zoshi may become highly recommended rather than merely suggested viewing.