review provided by Katie and Andrew
Title: Hyperdimension Neptunia Limited Edition DVD/BD
Director: Masahiro Mukai
Studio: David Production
Author: Shogo Yasukawa
U.S. Distributor: Funimation Entertainment
U.S. Release Date: June 9, 2015
Format and Length: Blu-ray Combo Pac / 13 Episodes / 325 Minutes
Genre: Action, Comedy, Fantasy, Parody, Sci-Fi, Supernatural
Industry Age Rating: 14 and up
Overall Personal Rating: C+
Similar Series or Titles to Check Out: Leviathan: The Last Defense and K-On!
Synopsis:
Welcome to Gamindustri, a fantastical world where all your favorite video game consoles come to life right before your eyes! Neptune and her fellow Goddesses rule the four kingdoms of Lastation, Leanbox, Lowee, and Planeptune. For many long years, these countries fought each other over Shares, the source of the Goddess power within Gamindustri. However, fearful that the conflict would pointlessly erode their countries’ strength, the Goddesses signed a Friendship Treaty forbidding them from taking Shares by force. But, their royal duties often take a backseat to their obsession with gaming.
When their button-smashing shenanigans are interrupted by rampaging monsters, hacker attacks, and killer vegetables, the goddesses must transform into stronger, sexier versions of themselves and fight for their right to game! The bosses get tougher as the game goes on, and the girls will have to work together in order to defeat a bewitching goddess of piracy, an anonymous master hacker, and an evil CPU hell-bent on destroying everything in her path – using any cheat code necessary!
Commentary:
First things first, Hyperdimension Neptunia is based off a series of video games. That being said, it does fall into the usual problems that this genre of animes usually have; little to no plot, no character development, and a sense of humor you will not understand unless you are a fan of the games. However, this is also another cute girls doing cute things and kicking butt series so if you can look past the major issues it is enjoyable. I would not say there was a plot per say, instead they used battles to move the episodes along. That did get tiring after a while and I could only watch a few episodes at a time because of that.
While there was not character development or background given the characters were the best part of Hyperdimension Neptunia. You would not have had the awesome battle scenes without them and as this series has an all female cast there was also fan-service. However, the fan-service was not overdone. Neptune has a funny but sarcastic personality that may annoy you at first but it will grow on you. She also seems to be the most immature character of the series. Noire is the token tsundere princess who tries to hide her true personality. Blanc and Vert basically squabble over silly things that seem stupid. Those are the main CPU characters. Then they introduce the CPU candidates, or little sisters of the main characters. Those girls are learning to transform into their full CPU characters. I really wish there had been some character development as the characters were really cute but I did not fully understand them as I have never played the games.
The animation looked good. The characters were well drawn and the battle scenes were interesting to say the least. The background animation was beautiful and added depth to the scenes. The voice actors did an amazing job bringing the characters to life. The opening and closing songs were catchy and I found myself singing along after a few episodes. All in all, Hyperdimension Neptunia is a cute series.
Extras:
Hyperdimension Neptunia Limited Edition DVD/BD includes a transform collection, clean opening and closing animation, Blu-ray/DVD commercials, commercials, promotional videos, U.S. trailer, and Funimation Entertainment trailers as special features. Hyperdimension Neptunia Limited Edition DVD/BD was released with English and Japanese with English Subtitles as language options. The English option was actually enjoyable and as usual the Japanese with English Subtitles was amazing. Both were well done.
Overall Grade: C+
Hyperdimension Neptunia is a cute series and if you can get past the issues then I think you will enjoy it. It is a cute girls doing cute things and kicking butt series as well but it is hard to understand if you have not played the games for some background information.
