All of the musical tracks on all of the menu screens and entries are from the American version of the show. From the main menu you can access "Episodes", "Extras", "Coming Attractions", and the subtitles can be turned on and off directly from the main menu. What surprised me about the main menu was that it not only used one musical track but three. The first is a karaoke version of the American Tiga theme, followed by the regular version of the theme, and finally the musical track used in the show during Daigo's transformation into Tiga and often during Tiga's fight scenes. Switching to a different menu is accompanied by different action scenes from the show such as a clip of the transformation sequence or when Tiga performs an energy attack on a monster. The Extras menu provides extra features about Ultraman Tiga, the GUTS Team, and the Monsters Gallery.
The Ultraman Tiga section on disc 1 provides profiles on each of Tiga's different modes, albiet they are called by their American names of Omni, Power, and Speed rather than Multi, Power, and Sky. Each mode is accompanied by a video file, and yes people, these are those same video files that were shown often on the FoxBox when Ultraman Tiga was airing. Also a nice extra is a video of the American version Ultraman Tiga opening title sequence.
Naturally, the GUTS Team section on disc 1 provides text profiles on each of the seven GUTS members: Shinjoh, Horii, Rena, Daigo, Yazumi, Iruma, and Munakata. Unfortunately, at least as of Disc 1, the video profiles for the GUTS members are not included. My guess is because the video files are narrated by the characters themselves with their respective dub voices, and such a thing wouldn't be appropriate since this is a Japanese language & English subtitled release rather than a release of 4Kids' Americanized dubbed version.
The Monsters Gallery on disc 1 provides screenshots of the monsters for the volume including video files for certain monsters. They are Melba, Gakuma 1, Gakuma 2, Gazoto (with video file), Golza (with video file), Kilalien (with video file), Ligatron, Regulon, Sealizar, and Makeena.
The Coming Attractions section on disc 1 shows promos for releases from 4Kids Entertainment, the first of which is for vol.1 of "Ultimate Muscle: The Kinnikuman Legacy" followed by the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" volume "Notes From the Underground". Next comes a promo for "Yu-Gi-Oh!" vol.16 "Dungeondice Monsters", TV promos for "Sonic X", "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", "Funky Cops", "The Cramp Twins", and "Kirby: Right Back at Ya!". Next come promos for FUNimation Production's anime releases, the Tenchi Muyo OVA series "Tenchi Muyo GXP!: Galaxy Police Transporter", "Kiddy Grade", and FUNimation's online store "The Z Store" at http://www.zstore.com. I will be updating and editing this post as I view more of the discs. Catch ya' later.
Ok, I just finished watching episode one "Inheritance of Light". Although this release thus far gives us quite a bit in the way of extras (even though they're from the American version), the treatment of the show itself is somewhat bare-bones and isn't "truly" uncut. The episode was missing the episode title card, the commercial bumpers, and the next episode preview. Also, the opening and closing title sequences, "Take Me Higher" and "Brave Love, TIGA" respectively, went unsubtitled and used the original Japanese text credits. Other than that 4Kids Entertainment has delivered on what we Ultraman fans truly wanted. The translation is mostly accurate and very faithful to the original Japanese script and contains NONE of the lame humor that infested the American version of this show. With the exception of the missing episode title, bumpers, and episode preview I am pleased thus far. More updated edits will come to this post as I continue to watch. Later!
I've just finished watching all of Disk One, and there were no glitches or other technical problems whatsoever. Like the first episode, all the episodes are missing their episode title cards, commercial bumpers, and next episode previews. Even though the show isn't absolutely uncut it is a wonderful breath of fresh air to be able to watch the original version of this show translated properly. I am greatly enjoying my Christmas present so far. More updates to come after I've viewed Disk Two. Again, later! ^_^
Just got done looking at the menus and features on Disk Two. Before the main menu starts you get promos for the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" volume "The Shredder Strikes", the "Yu-Gi-Oh!" season one box-set, and a TV promo for "Shaman King". All of the menu music and Extras are the same as the ones on Disk One. The Coming Attractions section includes the following promos: "Yu-Gi-Oh!" volume fifteen "Legendary Heroes", TV promos for "Sonic X", "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", "Funky Cops", "The Cramp Twins", FUNimation anime release promos for "Tenchi Muyo! GXP: Galaxy Police Transporter", "Kiddy Grade", and an ad for FUNimation's online store "The Z Store" at http://www.zstore.com. Yet more updates to come once I finish watching Disk Two. Until then!
I got done watching all of Disk Two tonight. In terms of video quality I was a bit disappointed. In a few spotty, certain places here and there the picture suffers from some blockage (I don't know the proper technical term for this. It's when you see those large pixelized blocks on the video.), particularly during episode eight, "Halloween Night", where Daigo is exploring the witch's house. Don't think that it covers the whole screen, because thankfully it doesn't. The blockage only shows up for a split second on a small, certain part of the screen each time, but it is very noticable. Thankfully it does not hinder the DVD's play or the player's ability to read the disc, but for at least some viewers it may quite the annoyance. I will watch the disk again to mark down the specific places where this blockage occurs. Also, unless the video quality of the show was always like this, the picture seemed a bit grainy to me, as well. Could these technical issues be the reason that this release was supposedly meant to be delayed? I will update again in the near future.
Well, here're the last legs of my review since I just rewatched Disk Two and noted where the blockage as well as other technical flaws are located on the DVD player's counter clock.
Ep.8: "Halloween Night", blockage at 0:05:41, 0:05:54, and 0:08:50.
Ep.10: "The Abandoned Amusement Park", about 10 min. into the episode, the timing for Horii's subtitles is a little off.
Ep.11: "Requiem To Darkness", blockage at 0:02:18 and 0:08:48.
Also, as I said before, the picture appears a little on the grainy side. After rewatching the DVDs I noticed some translation quirks in the subtitles. In episode six, "Second Contact", the monster is named Gazote in the subtitles while one can clearly hear the characters calling him by his "American" name Gazoto. Either this was quite the mistake or the translator thought that the name was supposed to be pronounced "Gazoat" (zoat like boat) and that the last "o" is a leftover vowel sound meant to be ommited as often happens in the Japanese language. There's also a matter of the name of the device Daigo uses to change into Ultraman Tiga. I believe, if I'm not mistaken, this item has traditionally been translated as the Spark Lens. The subtitles, however, call it the Spark Lanse. I also forgot to mention there's an insert booklet that gives the synopsis of each episode. Now we can finally get to the extra goodie in the Starter Box, the t-shirt. Made by AAA (Alstyle Apparel & Activewear) and made of 90% cotton and 10% polyester, it's a large sized preshrunk grey shirt. The decoration on the front is a mix of the circular design behind Tiga on the Starter Box art with the shot of Tiga used for the cover of volume 1 "Prophecy of Evil". It should be noted that some parts of the front decorative is embossed and some of it covered in a rubber-like glossy finish. Some portions of Tiga on the shirt are enhanced by glitter. It certainly looks nice, but I have yet to see what washing and drying may or may not do to it. In closing, all I can really say more is I hope such problems are prevented and I can't wait for Vol.2 coming out in February.
