Disgaea Collection   Starring (voice): Kaori Mizuhashi, Tomoe Hanba and Yuko Sasamoto MVM RRP: £29.99 MVD6060 Certificate: 12 Available 07 June 2010

Flonne is a not very successful angel in training from Celestia. Having been given the task of hunting down and killing King Krichevskoy, it has taken her two years to track down what she thinks is his coffin, in a garbage dump. The problem is that, having broken into the coffin with a rocket, she doesn’t find Krichevskoy but his son Laharl. When Laharl discovers that his father is dead he determines to travel to his castle and claim the throne...

Disgaea (2006) is a twelve part anime series based on the successful series of Playstation games. Adaptations of this sort tend to either transcend their origins or, more likely fall flat on their faces. Disgaea nearly pulls off the former, in a Saturday morning show sort of way. The series has already been released as separate volumes, but if you didn’t pick those up this collection of all of the show is a cheaper way of getting the series.

Laharl is a demon lord in waiting, of the netherworld, who tries to be as evil as possible, however his age and inexperience work against him. Flonne isn’t much better; between the two of them they represent the shallow pool of celestial talent. But fear not, they are not alone in their adventures and soon they are joined by Captain Gordon the Defender of Earth, his idiot robot and his buxom sidekick who seems to be able to gyrate her assets independently. The group is completed with the arrival of Etna, a scantily clad mischievous female demon, who is backed up by an army of penguins - I kid you not!

We follow our collection of misfits as Laharl journeys to take his rightful place as king of Hell - honestly the story is lighter and funnier than it sounds

This three disc collection appears to be the original discs repackaged together so the extras are the same. On disc one you get textless opening and closing sequences plus the English trailer (4 min, 54 sec) which is almost like a mini episode. In the same vein you get the Japanese trailer (37 sec). There are a couple of trailers and a piece entitled Special Talk (4 min, 16 sec) which isn’t as sexual as it sounds as it turns out to be a small discussion between Kaori Mizuhashi (voice of Laharl) and the show’s creator Sohel Nikawa. Disc two has some trailers as does disc three.

The stylised animation is bright and cheerful as befits a kids show. The audio comes in flavours of English or Japanese with optional subtitles. The stereo mix does the job but there is little in the way of any noticeable separation, the English dub keeps things light.

Not a deep show by any means, but it is in turns funny and entertaining proving that adaptations can sometimes outgrow their origins.

8

Charles Packer