Taiyz no Tabi

TOKKO| DVD 1 | Release Date: February 6, 2007

TOKKO’s an interesting title. It’s a horror show featuring a police force, so you have a bit of cop drama in addition to the gore and action. This DVD is brought to America by Manga Entertainment and dubbed by Bang Zoom! Entertainment; you shouldn’t miss out on this disc!

Episodes:
1. Dawn 暁 “awakening”
2. Dream 夢 “a girl appears”
3. Bond 絆 “moments would be lost”
4. Omen 兆 “corpses in the laboratory”
5. Phantom 鬼 “a father, all alone”
Extras:
Japanese Voice Cast Forum
“TOKKO” Theme Song (clean) dB - Nothing
“TOKKO” Close Song (clean) dB - Sherry
Gallery
DVD ROM “TOKKO” Screen Saver
Also on DVD (previews)

Languages: English, Japanese and Spanish audio tracks in 2.0 and 5.1 (Spanish is only in 2.0) with optional English subtitles.
The DVD is rated 18+ due to the obvious gore, but also due to the amount of swearing in the dub.

Strongest Feature: Enhanced Widescreen Presentation. I originally saw the series as a fansub, and it looked like someone rung the footage through YouTube first. The DVD from Manga however, matches most x264 quality fansubs of this generation. It’s a real treat.

I remember TOKKO very well. After all, it’s pretty recent. As for Manga Entertainment, I’ve only ever seen their production of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, so I didn’t know what to expect. I’m certainly familiar with Bang Zoom! but I wasn’t expecting anything like this.

This is a kind of revisitation of something that could’ve worked but didn’t, and then making it work with style. In the original version, we had a lot of hard cop drama. Everybody was very stiff, just trying to get from one clue to the next, with a very boring, stereotypical enigmatic presentation of each member of the TOKKO group. (They’re the guys in black.) Simply put, aside from the mystery and action of the series, it was really boring; it still says a lot that those two elements carried the series, however. The subtitles on the disc are fine, but unless you want a couple of stiff police officers doing “stuff” you won’t have a fun time with the series.

Bang Zoom! made something different happen with the dub. Nothing is lost in translation, but at the same time, that’s really not important. What’s really important is the transition from fantasy to reality, which is what Bang Zoom! has done. The drama was too serious. The characters were too boring. They’re facing a life or death crisis where creatures from hell come out of the earth to hunt down survivors of a past massacre and the only way to kill them is to slice them into tiny bits with a friggin’ broadsword. This isn’t to be taken as just another case, and this is what the English dub changes.

The characters resemble actual people. They care for one another, make wisecracks, have rivalries, get pissed off and vent, freak out and are generally better because of that. The talk between characters is interesting and small talk among co-workers such as the main character Ranmaru Shindo and his friend and partner Ichiro Hanazono is full of laughs. (Cosplay freak versus sis-con, who will win? Watch to find out!) The dialogue is modern and each character fits into their personalities quite well, with voice actors such as Tony Oliver and Grant George acting perfectly to match. Lines like “I’m gonna bust that bitch back to meter-maid!” can really give the ex-Riot Squad, Yakuza-like Kunikida an unforgettable edge and every other character brings their own personalities up with the same level of talent.

This is one of few dubs with which I can confidently say it deserves a 10 out of 10. It saves the series from being “just another” horror title and makes it one of THE horror titles.

Now for the important part of this post. Should you buy this DVD? My response is: Hell Yes!
You can get most of your needs from this series. Comedy, drama, mystery, horror, gore, romance…? fanservice, (somebody needs to button up their jacket) and kickass conversations that keep you enticed to just watch more and more.

The disc itself has enough extras to show you just how serious Manga Entertainment is about this series. There’s about 6 previews of their other series’, the gallery is pretty badass, the clean opening and closing is pleasant for such a high quality production and the cast forum was amusing. The DVD menu is extremely slick and you can tell that there’s a lot of effort in it, with quality special effects and amazing art that didn’t make it onto the DVD package (like the image at the start of this post.) The screensaver is really neat too, but I don’t know anyone who would want to have it on because of the creep factor.

On the DVD are 5 episodes, which cover a lot of ground, so you don’t need to immediately worry that you’ll be out of TOKKO soon, and for a price of $22 to $24.99, you’re getting a great deal. If there’s one thing Manga has done right, it’s the market price and DVD content, and you already know what Bang Zoom! has done right, and everything’s perfect because of it.

So here’s to TOKKO, and given this DVD, I’ll be extremely excited as the next one gets closer to release.

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