Once Upon A Time Is Windaria

[TaranT]

"Freely adapted from Windaria" is what it says on the back of the box. Which is an overstatement. It is Windaria minus a few short scenes and a nice song.

AD Vision apparently acquired the Harmony Gold version that Streamline produced over 15 years ago. It has not been released like most of ADV's other titles. This is the Macek dub, with an added Spanish track, and that's it.

Storywise, some small scenes were cut and re-arranged, but almost all of the plotline is unchanged.

The DVD's picture quality is not too bad. Some color problems here and there, definitely not as good as the out-of-print region 2 DVD, but still a whole lot better than the EP tape that Best Video released (also out-of-print).

The dub track is...give it a B- or a C grade. It's actually not that poor considering the time period (late Eighties). It has two significant problems. One is the addition of a narrator, kind of a reverse Blade Runner thing. The other is the removal of a really nice J-pop tune that was a musical interlude scene. (It's the scene where Roland and Veronica are play-chasing each other in the forest.) I guess Macek didn't want to do the translation or find a decent singer for it.

And I don't know what the deal is with the new title. Maybe ADV is hoping to get the real thing one of these days. As it is, at least it's a good buy: $12 at Best Buy, probably cheaper elsewhere.

The AnimeOnDVD review is here.