Blue Seed - The Nightmare Begins (Vol. 1)

Momiji Fujiyama is a young woman who wants nothing more than an ordinary life. The death of a twin she has never met finds Momiji being hunted down by evil creatures called Arigami. She is now the Kushinada, whose sacrifice will put the Arigami to sleep for decades, unless she is killed in special circumstances. She escapes, and is taken under the wing of the TAC Organization, dedicated to preventing the Arigami from devouring Tokyo.

TAC is the typical paranormal defense group. A gruff commander, efficient assistant, scientist, gun geek, and a computer freak. Add to this poor Momiji, whose desires for having a normal adolescence go up in smoke as one monster after another plague Tokyo. Momiji has a strange connection to the Arigami, through the blue seeds that are the essence of the monsters.

One of the problematic issues with this series is that the English dubbing considerably softens the original Japanese dialog. This would be bad if it were not for the problem that the Japanese narrative is very blunt and harsh. To the point that it seems out of pace with the story itself. Add to this the fact that the dubbing is unevenly recorded, and you have a dilemma of modest proportions. To be honest, I find the English dub a little easier to listen to than the Japanese is, but it is a personal choice.

This is a series where many of the characters specialize in being rude. Kome Sawaguchi, TAC's military specialist ignores her duty, insults the rest of the team, and is permanently angry. Mamoro Kusanagi, the Kushinada's guardian, uses unusually pithy language and behavior around 15-year-old Momiji. Everyone seems fixated on what cute animal print is on Momiji's unmentionables. The dubbing cleans this up enough to get the age rating down to 12+, but I think that is a bit optimistic. Some of this is funny, but it sets an uncomfortable tone to a series that has a very serious main theme.


Immature and pedophilic   June 25, 2002
 0 out of 11 found this review helpful

I am a lover of Anime but the sexual themes are generally a bit off. This one is the epitome of what I hate about that aspect of Anime... EVERY SINGLE EPISODE (from the first disc at least) shows the main characters, a 15 year old school girl, underwear. Not only that but it generally makes a point of talking about it as well. I'm not against a little gratuitous sexuality/sensuality but showing a 15 year girl as such is wrong.

I'm not into that whole little girl thing. Taking advantage of underaged children is sick... even cartoon ones.


Great Value!   May 9, 2002
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Any fan of the Blue Series should definately get the DVD over the VHS. Volume one contains episodes 1-7, and includes both the Japanese w/ subtitle and English Dubbed versions of the show! Considering single episodes on VHS are the same price, you just can't do wrong with the Blue Seed DVD.


Blue Seed - the Nightmare Begins   February 16, 2002
 9 out of 9 found this review helpful

This review is not only about the last DVD release in the series, but also as a review of the entire series. I have never really been into Anime like most people, but this one caught my attention. Blue Seed is about a young girl who finds out that her humdrum life is not all it seems. Taking its cues from japanese mythology as well as other world religions, the story involves the coming of the auragami, a race of spirits who exist in the form of a 'blue seed', or mitama, and must possess a host in order to Take over Japan and the world. The only known way to stop them is to sacriface a female virgin from the Kushinada family. It turns out that, like all living things, certain energies are released that put the auragami to sleep. Momiji, age 15, must be sacrificed in order to save the world.
Luckily she has friends that want to find an alternative to killing a young girl. The fight for the world begins when the auragami try to kill Momiji while keeping her safely inside a Ceramic field, thus removing any threat to their existance. A team of scientists and military types known as the TAC Rescue Momiji, but not before An auragami nearly kills the girl outside the field. Without giving away too many details, Momiji winds up with a BLUE SEED implanted on her chest! Nuff sed.

I now have the entire series on DVD. It can be had on four discs, 26 episodes, With both english and japanese languages, as well as spanish! The clarity of the DVD format really shows here, not because the original material is so good, but because you can see the grain in the film, which in a strange way adds to the overall look of the series. The discs also include the now infamous "Omake Theatres", little humorous 'outtakes' if you will, some racy and some downright side splitting.

Another thing to mention about this series is the english voice acting. In the past, I have often hated the english dubbing of any movie, and in the first few episodes of Blue Seed the acting is at times not very good. But as the series goes on, it improves dramatically, and by the time I got to the last two discs I found that I prefered it over the original japanese. By the time you reach the last episode, the emotional quality of the dubbing is just dead on right, and at times you thing that maybe the series was made with english in mind.

This is the only Anime that I have ever cared enough about to own. As a total package of dvds, this cant be missed.