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Knight Hunters - Dead Ringer (Vol. 1)

Knight Hunters - Dead Ringer (Vol. 1)

List Price: $29.95
Your Price: $26.96
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Must See Anime!!!
Review: Weiss Kreuz (Knight Hunters or translated as White Cross) is the story of 4 guys - Fujimiya Ran (also known as Aya), Hidaka Ken, Kudou Yohji, Tsukiyono Omi - intent on one thing - revenge. During the day they work as florists, but by night they hunt the evil that can not be touched by the law. The series contains 24 missions (A two part OAV also exits: Verbrechen and Strafe-translated as Crime and Punishment) Each mission progresses the story plot by giving background details pertaining to each charater and how they came to be a part of Weiss. Each character has their own trajic past. Ran/Aya's family were all killed except his younger sister Aya who remains in a coma. Aya is the silent leader of Weiss who has taken his sister's name to never forget his pledge for vengeance. Omi is a kidnap victim whose parents refused to pay the ransom. He is the computer genius of the group, and is also the youngest, but his does not remember his true name. Ken was an upcoming soccer star (goalie) who was accused of gambling and losing games for profit when he lost a major event. He is the most normal out of all members. Yohji was a private investigator that had his partner killed in front of him. Yohji is the suave memeber and his favorite past time is picking up women. Weiss obtain their mission information from a mysterious organization call Kritiker,a man called Persia and his assistant Manx.

All members of Weiss carry their unique weapon of choice: Japanese sword-Aya, archery/bowgun/darts-Omi, wire-Yohji, bugnuk/tiger's teeth-Ken. Of course no anime would be complete without villians. Weiss must confront two groups: Schwarz (translated as Black) and Schreient.

This anime is greatly enhanced by the songs of the vocal group Weiss Kreuz: Takehito Koyasu (Ran), Tomokazu Seki (Ken), Shin-Ichiro Miki (Yohji), and Hiro Yuuki (Omi). Music is by Kazuya Nishioka. The popularity of the series created several art books, music scores, and lots of anime merchandise.

Information in this review is based from the TV series and "Weiss Kreuz Film Book".

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Weiss Kruez is a must see!
Review: Weiss Kruez is great! The begining is slower then the rest of the series (of course!) but this is one of my favorites. Its got everything in Bishounen-ness: Youji's a ladies man, Omi's small and kawaii, Ken's athletic and shy, and Ran/Aya's cold and mean. If you're a fan of Rurouni Kenshin, Gundam, or Fushigi Yuugi, i think you'll enjoy Weiss Kruez

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A major disappointment
Review: I did'nt enjoy this at all. I was bored with alot of it.
The animation is horrible, and the story is pretty bad. One episode from this dvd had good animation, that's it.
But it's not just animation that makes an anime good, it's everything. But this one had not only bad animation, but bad everything. English voice acting sucked, the japanese voice acting was decent, as it usually always is. Do not be decieved by the pretty box art! I was... and by god did I pay for my mistake.. yeah. 20 freaking dollars! LOL.. do youself a favour and don't buy this. If you have an opertunity of watching it... go ahead, but there's a good chance you'll be wishing you had your 125 minutes back.


Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Four Guys With Flowers
Review: Aya, Ken, Yohiji, and Omi are florists by day, and silent killers in a war against crime and evil at night. Classic bishonen (beautiful boys) our heros have dark pasts, haunting memories, and a tendency to tragic relationships, sprinkled with light banter and serious mayhem. The people they are fighting are archetypically evil - gambling on death fights, providing women for violence, and poisoning health drinks. The kind of folks you wouldn't mind dead.

I wouldn't call the episodes repetitious, but they do follow a form - using interconnections between the characters personal lives and the ongoing assassination to build a whole story. This allows for considerable variation and one has to credit the writers with making an effort to avoid the overly hackneyed. It quickly becomes obvious that the violence isn't the plot, but the backdrop for the emotional development of the characters.

The artwork is to about a 2001 standard. Better than many efforts, but is quickly eclipsed by what is being done at present. Sometimes it is hard to remember that work that was great when it came out can look very tame a few years later. Nothing wrong here, but don't expect fine details or complex animation. The dubbed version works very well, although the actors have trouble with some common Japanese names. This is one of those occasions where the actors reworked the Japanese script and managed to avoid the awkwardness that often plagues word-for-word translations.\

A high level of action, lots of emotional content, and characters that are easy to look at, this is one of the better examples of shojo (for women) anime. One that manages to hold interest across the gender barrier as well. Mainstream it is, but good mainstream.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Don't be fooled by the hype...
Review: Sure, the plot sounds nice--four attractive young men, innocent flowershop workers by day, savage assassins by night. Eh, it sounds cheesy right there, but I gave it a chance anyway. I'd heard all about the characters, the voice actors, the seemingly promising action/drama/romance integrated throughout. Now, I know better than to listen to the biased reviews of fangirl and boys.

This is a really poorly done anime, by any standards. The dialog is dull, the episodes repetitive and truly inane, and the animation looks like it's done by amateurs. The DVD itself looks good--nice packaging, art--but do NOT judge a DVD by its cover. Yeah, there are some extras for diehard fans, but for the casual viewer, they are pretty much useless. The bloopers section was not amusing at all, just the American voice actors messing up and cussing in the background.

If I had to describe this series, the first and most prominent word that comes to mind is CHEESY. The drama is superficial, the "sci-fi" action is cringe-worthy. I'm not being overly critical, but if you are the type of person who is impressed by black-and-white concepts of justice, Sailormoon style, then by all means, spend your extra [money] on this. But lemme tell you, even Sailormoon has more depth. At least the Sailor scouts were friends.

I gave this a one ... I have seen the first and second DVDs and it's enough for me to conclude that despite the mature content, this is clearly for kids 13 and younger.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Always wanted to get these with English subtitles
Review: now I finally can understand what is going on in the first real Anime I ever saw and got hooked on. I loved the outtakes in the extras section! They were so funny! A very well put together DVD.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An extremely good DVD purchase
Review: I've been into this series, Weiss Kreuz, for years; named Knight Hunters for its commercial release here in the states. I normally dread to see releases of series that I like commercially, but in this case, the DVD edition of this series is truly one of the better that I own. The quality of the image and sound are both very high, and at five episodes a disc and a good amount of extras it is well priced.

In the case of anime in general, I normally do not support dubbing of anime, believing that it takes away from the original work. For this release, Media Blasters/Anime Works has done the series justice in both languages. While I don't necessarily prefer the dub, it is worth watching for some of the completely ad-lib lines that you don't find in the subtitled version. The American voice actors are not spectacular in my opinion, but they aren't terrible either. I do like the voice actor that does Yoji's voice for the simple fact that he can ad-lib lines so perfectly and they fit in with the character's personality. Sometimes there are points when the English just doesn't seem to go too well and comes out sounding a little weird. Still, my opinion might be a little biased since three of the four main Japanese voice actors (seiyuu) are among my favorites, and it's hard to accept any English voice for those characters. I do consider that the dubbing is above average and it would be fine for someone who does prefer dubbing rather than subtitles. While there are slight changes to the script it does not take away much from the translation itself. Since it is a DVD though, there is always the choice of both Japanese and English vocal tracks, so if you prefer one version rather than the other you can just change the setting. Both the dub and sub translations are thorough and true to the original script.

In addition, the extras on the DVDs are a wonderful addition. I was extremely excited to find out that the voice actor talk sessions from the original Japanese VHS release made it into the American DVD release (starting in the second DVD). I thoroughly enjoyed those subtitled topic discussion sessions since the only time I saw them before was years ago without subtitles and before I had an adequate understanding of Japanese. The production sketch gallery was very interesting, sketches being taken from the Japanese artbooks, and the English outtakes were hilarious. Overall, this DVD and the others in the series are "must buys" for any anime fan that likes action series, bishounen/pretty boys or really neat extras.


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