After getting hooked on the Utawarerumono internet radio, picking up all the radio CDs, and spending a fair amount of time reading reviews and what not, I finally decided to pick up all of the DVD Box sets; and here's the first of the four.
Box contains 3 discs. First two discs contain the same contents as the individual release volumes 1 and 2 (VPBY-15345 and VPBY-15346), although the picture label may be slightly different. The last disc is only for the box and contains a short joke episode, special "educational" material (naze nani Utawarerumono), and extra trailers. Bonus episode is funny, but I feel it's a bit too... lowbrow.
Despite being a 26-episode series, its story moves extremely fast, especially early on. Because of this, viewers not familiar with the series (i.e. non-gamers like me) may feel a bit put off. After all, wars don't progress that quickly. However, after watching the whole thing, I feel that the move to compress the early stories was a good choice. I suppose it would've been better if it were a 52-episode series, but I doubt they would've been able to maintain the animation quality at that length.
Speaking of animation quality, it is impressive! One must never underestimate OLM when they get serious. After all, they did animate the original "To Heart" TV series. The best part is the character designs. People unfamiliar with the history of Utawarerumono may feel it cliche, but there's a perfectly good explanation for the differing races and their designs.
