Gankutsuou - The Count of Monte Cristo Boxset

Introduction

There are anime shows aplenty that never make it to the UK. They're too niche, or would never get past the BBFC, or sometimes they just slip under the radar. Then there are the shows that are just too damned expensive to licence. They are the flavour of the month, the next big thing, and while some US companies can afford to shell out megabucks for the latest Japanese animated delicacy, it's a whole different cricket match for UK companies. Sometimes we get lucky, and time proves the great equaliser. It's how we eventually got FLCL, almost half a decade after everyone else. Of course it can all be put down to the heady days of the mid 2000s, when anime was about to go mainstream, and companies felt justified in charging licensing fees that were quite ridiculous, and distributors still had the balls to pay them. We're still dealing with the fallout of that daft couple of years even now, as US anime companies fold, and just who has the rights to what causes consternation. Gankutsuou was one of the major titles from this period, a Gonzo anime from 2004 that went and won the best TV series at the 2005 Kobe animation awards. Geneon in the US picked it up, and released the series to universal acclaim. As most Gonzo titles make it to the UK eventually, it would have been fair to expect it to come here, except no one was willing to pay what was being asked. Then Geneon stopped US distribution last year, although this year Funimation picked up the rights to distribute a whole lot of their titles, and one of the first boxsets they re-released was Gankutsuou. Still no sign of it in the UK.


There's only so much positive word of mouth a person can take, and believe me there is a whole lot of positive comment about this show. I caved and imported. If you can do so, try and find the original Geneon artbox as I did. The episodes are split across six discs, and come with copious extras. Funimation on the other hand have reformatted the series across 4 discs, stripped out the extras, and packed them in a thinpack receptacle not much larger than a single Amaray case.


Mahiro Maeda's adaptation of the Count of Monte Cristo does add a couple of new twists to it, not least of which is shifting the story to the distant future, in an aristocratic and royalist Paris that figuratively is the centre of the universe. More striking is that unlike any other adaptation that I can recall, Gankutsuou tells the story from the point of view of a young man who encounters the enigmatic Count of Monte Cristo. Albert de Morcerf finds the ennui of the aristocratic life unbearable, so with his best friend Franz d'Epinay, he leaves home to find himself. In his journey he ends up on the hedonistic capital of the solar system, Luna, just as Carnival is about to begin. It's there that he first meets the enigmatic Count of Monte Cristo, a blue skinned man of devilish aspect, when the Count saves him from a ruthless gang of kidnappers. Much to Franz' concern, Albert is taken with the older man, fascinated by his attitude to life, and his unique style. When the Count tells him that he is looking to move to Paris, Albert is quick to offer his hospitality, promising to introduce the Count to all the movers and shakers in the capital. What Albert doesn't know is that the Count has ulterior motives, and that his true intentions will be made clear to the families of Edouard de Villefort, Baron Danglars, and Fernand Mondego. Mondego changed his name and his whole identity 25 years previously however, and he now goes by the name of Fernand de Morcerf, Albert's father. Now these three men, and their families must pay for what happened to an innocent named Edmond Dantes.


Geneon presents 24 episodes of Gankutsuou - The Count of Monte Cristo across 6 discs.

Disc 1
1. At Journey's End, We Meet
2. Until The Sun Rises Over The Moon
3. 5/22, Stormy
4. A Mother's Secrets

Disc 2
5. Do You Love Your Fiancée?
6. Her Melancholy, My Melancholy
7. The Secret Flower Garden
8. A Night in Boulogne

Disc 3
9. I Dreamed A Dark Dream
10. The Letter From Edmond
11. An Engagement Broken
12. Encore


Disc 4
13. Haidee
14. Lost Souls
15. The End of Happiness, The Beginning of Truth
16. Scandal

Disc 5
17. The Confession
18. The Duel
19. Even If I Should Stop Being Me
20. Farewell, Eugenie

Disc 6
21. The Golden Boy's True Identity
22. Counterattack
23. Edmond Dantes
24. At The Shore

Picture

Gankutsuou gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer, NTSC of course, so a slightly lower resolution, and (for some people) imperceptible flicker is offset by the absence of ghosting, judder and other standards conversion issues. It's a fine transfer, clear and sharp and free of any glaring problems, although the sheer fast animation and mayhem of the closing sequence does throw up some compression artefacts. The episodes themselves are fine.


Once more, I wish that I could screencap Region 1 discs (update: finally screencapped), as no description of mine is going to do Gankutsuou justice. Gonzo are well known for their fondness of eye-candy, and their willingness to invest more in the look of a show than its contents. We'll come to the contents of this show later, but it looks like they threw everything at the screen for this one. It's bright, it's garish, it's lush, lavish and rich, it's wholly inventive and unlike anything you have seen before. This is a re-imagined Paris, full of aristocracy and extravagance, and the animation reflects that, with grand designs, enveloping CGI vistas, and a visual creativity that belongs in surrealist art. The costume designs are fabulous, and the unique way of rendering textures, patterns and colours means that only the characters skin is conventionally coloured. Their hair, or their clothing is like a window onto another texture, and as that window moves, you see different parts of that texture revealed. It's off-putting at first, but once you get used to it, you realise that it fits in perfectly with this breathtaking universe that Gonzo have created.

Sound

This is something of a disappointment, just standard DD 2.0 stereo tracks in English and Japanese, alongside optional translated subtitles and signs. 5.1 audio would have suited the visual splendour of this show, and while it may not be loaded with action, as it is a more cerebral piece, it certainly has ambience and musically it is a warm blend of classical and contemporary pieces. Incidentally, Jean-Jacques Burnel of The Stranglers fame provides the show's theme songs. My choice as always is the original Japanese audio, and there's certainly nothing to complain about here. However, I did sample the American dub and found it wanting. There's something about American accents in a future Parisian neo-aristocracy that just rub me the wrong way. If there is a show that ever demanded a UK dub, this is one. One thing that I found annoying was the translation of the story recaps at the start of each episode. In the original Japanese version, these are delivered in French, to go with the tone of the piece and a nod to the original source material. It's subtitled in English of course, and no doubt it would have been subtitled in Japanese for domestic audiences. But the US dub ditches it and sticks in generic voiceover man instead to read the whole thing in English. Definitely stick with the Japanese on this one.

Extras

The six, original single disc Amaray cases are collected into a sturdy cardboard artbox, with lush character art from the show on three sides, the title on top, and the disc contents, age rating, and barcode at the bottom. The extras are spread across all six discs. All disc cases get reversible sleeves, and the discs all have animated menus.

Disc 1
Here you will find the textless credits, and trailers for other Geneon products, J2 Jubei Chan 2, Ghost Talkers Day Dream, and Le Portrait de Petite Cossette.

The promotional trailer for Gankutsuou is here.

The Act 1 Storyboard by Director Mahiro Maeda is just that, a picture in picture affair, with a large panel devoted to pencil art, and a small panel showing the completed product, and you can just marvel at how A became B.


There is a 5-minute interview with Mahiro Maeda, where he introduces the show, and discusses where it came from and what he hopes to accomplish, as well as the more mature nature of the story.

Finally there are comments from the voice actors, 9 minutes worth in all. This really amounts to a collection of 5 previews for forthcoming episodes 1-5, with the actor speaking directly to camera and dropping a few hints to the audience about what to expect.


Disc 2
The Geneon trailers on this disc are for Viewtiful Joe, Starship Operators, and Kyo Kara Maoh! There are more previews disguised as comments from the voice actors here, 6 minutes worth. The Classic Version of the promotional trailer for Gankutsuou is also on this disc.


Disc 3
Here you will find trailers for Saiyuki Reload Gunlock, Bottle Fairy, and Kannazuki no Miko - Destiny of the Shrine Maiden. There are 8 minutes of comments from the voice actors, the same format as before. You also get 8 minutes of TV Commercials for the show, and there are 19 trailers in total.

Disc 4
The trailers this time are for Elemental Gelade, Fafner, and Gun Sword. Once more there are comments from the voice actors on the episodes, 7 minutes in total. Finally there is an animated video for the end theme, 'You Won't See Me Coming', played in full to its 4-minute length.


Disc 5
Trailers once more for Last Quarter, the X-Remix, and Barefoot Gen. You have 8 minutes of comments from the voice actors, but most pleasant of all is a 23-minute long slideshow gallery of Art Settings. The backgrounds and locations in Gankutsuou are truly a work of art. Gonzo went to CG heaven to create lush, lavish and colour drenched vistas for this story. The buildings and cities, worlds and playthings of the neo-aristocracy usually just whiz by in the background. Here you can take a long leisurely look at them, and marvel at the thought and care gone into creating them.


Disc 6
The final set of trailers belongs to Shana, Trigun Remix, and Dragon Hunters. As before there are episode previews masquerading as voice actor comments, lasting 5 minutes. There are also 4 minutes of After-Recording comments, where the cast and director sum up their feelings about the show. The Mechanical Art Setting Gallery is a 7-minute slideshow that offers a closer look at the mechs, spaceships and vehicles in the story, while Anna Sui's Fashion Gallery is an all too short 4 pages of art designs, barely scratching the surface of the wonderful costume design apparent in this anime.

Conclusion

Gonzo have a reputation as purveyors of anime eye-candy. And with shows like Burst Angel, Basilisk, Blassreiter, and Gantz in their catalogue, I have to say that it is a richly deserved reputation. Then along comes Gankutsuou - The Count of Monte Cristo, and it certainly lives up to the eye-candy reputation, but it also excels in terms of story and character, indeed it could well be the best thing that Gonzo have created. It's certainly up there with Welcome to the NHK in my estimation, and it beats NHK hands down when it comes to the quality of the animation. That's two great shows from Gonzo, and neither is available in the UK. There's something seriously wrong with that state of affairs.


Despite all the glowing reviews, I did have one or two qualms about a Japanese anime adaptation of a classic French novel. I did wonder if anything would be lost in translation, or if moving the story forward a few thousand years into the future, and giving it a sci-fi spin would somehow lessen the impact. I needn't have worried. If the Japanese do like one thing, it's a good revenge story. Remember, Oldboy was a Japanese manga before it became a Korean hit movie. Gankutsuou is a rich, measured, and thrilling tale of vengeance. It also pulls no punches, it's certainly more adult than the usual anime series, and it's fiendishly smart and well written as well.


It's been so long since I read the original Dumas novel that I can barely recall it through the mists of television adaptations and movies, but from what I can tell, the future setting is hardly as major a departure as is the story's new point of view. There may be aliens and spaceships in this anime adaptation, but it's still set in Paris, and this is still very much a tale of the aristocracy, and betrayal in the pursuit of power. It allows for some absolutely fantastic artwork, character design and world visions, but the really significant alteration is the addition of Gankutsuou as a power and driving force behind the Count's search for revenge. It makes the Count a more tragic and sympathetic a character, in that he's practically at war with himself, the last vestiges of his humanity at odds with retribution as a force of nature within him.


The biggest change is that the story is told from the point of view of a young fifteen year-old son of the aristocracy, Albert de Morcerf. He's the one who first encounters the Count, and he is instantly taken with this cool, charming, alien presence. The Count uses him to get noticed by the movers and shakers in Paris, but the relationship that develops between them is the driving force of the story. It's a father son dynamic of sorts, with the Count apparently providing the strength of personality, the inspiration and example of honour that Albert obviously isn't getting from his own father. In fact, when the Count first arrives in Paris, although he makes quite the visible splash, it seems that the extent of his vengeance is really just limited to exposing the hypocrisy and corruption around him. There initially isn't that much malice in his actions, and even though it begins to throw Albert's social circle into turmoil, he still remains entranced by the Count, no matter how distrustful his friends are.


Gankutsuou is a grand, epic tale of revenge, operatic in intensity and visually breathtaking, but if I do have one complaint… well it's more of an observation than a complaint, in that the show doesn't work all that well as an episodic experience. It's almost as if the episodes here are like chapters of a novel, and while a novel may have an overall structure, rhythm, and energy, that doesn't necessarily translate to the individual chapters. Some episodes here may be dramatic and thrilling, while others may be downbeat and low key. I can well imagine that watching this show on a weekly basis would be problematic in maintaining one's interest. Of course that isn't an issue at all with a boxset, where you can marathon the episodes, or watch however many you feel like at that moment. In other words you can treat it just as you would the novel. Once you get started, it's very easy to watch a whole disc at one sitting, and you may be even tempted to stick the next one on as well.


What I am intensely grateful for is the way the story has been plotted. A lot of Gonzo shows that I have seen wind up losing the thread in the closing episodes, most often because they are adapted from an ongoing manga, and the animators have to make something up for the conclusion, and wind up cramming too much in. That's not a problem with the Count of Monte Cristo of course, and the story comes to a natural conclusion at its own measured pace. But what I was really thankful for was the final episode, which gave the story a much-needed epilogue, to show how the preceding events had impacted on the characters and changed their lives. Rather than climaxing with a crescendo of explosions and emotional carnage, for once a show gets a sedate, and reflective closure, and it was this one episode that nudged my opinion from brilliant to timeless classic.


Yes, Gankutsuou - The Count of Monte Cristo is a timeless classic, no surprise given the novel that it is based on. It's a stellar adaptation of a classic novel, and it certainly bodes well for Gonzo's forthcoming adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. Fortunately Romeo X Juliet is one Gonzo show that will be released in the UK in 2010. That Gankutsuou isn't available in the UK is annoying beyond belief, but there's no reason that you shouldn't import this set. The Geneon Artbox collection is preferable of course, as it retains the extras, and as the name suggests, it comes with some absolutely gorgeous artwork, but failing that, you can always opt for the Funimation release. No matter which you choose though, make sure you get this show; you'll regret missing out.