Review of Beck: Volume 3

Introduction

These are truly golden years for fans of the anime medium in the UK. There`s more of it available than ever before, and slowly but surely, its influence is being felt in more and more of the mainstream media. Here at Reviewer, we get review discs from around half of the main companies that release anime in the UK, and scarcely a week goes by that we don`t have some titles to review. If you are a committed fan, and don`t discriminate between titles, you could find yourself on average with three new DVDs a week to watch. That doesn`t take into account the copious back catalogue titles available, and if that isn`t enough, the import market. Right now, following a Christmas splurge that added a heap of my own discs to Reviewer`s continuing anime coverage, I have more unwatched anime than I know what to do with. You`d think I wouldn`t begrudge Revelation moving to a quarterly release schedule just to find a little breathing room on the shop shelves. So why is it then, that I`ve been waiting impatiently for the next instalment of Beck, gnawing my fingernails to the nub, watching my hair fall out? The third volume is finally here, and for the brief ninety minutes that I can spend finding a suitable vein, I don`t have to think about waiting three months for volume 4.

It`s a problem common the world over, the disaffected, disillusioned and rebellious teenager who wants to get away from the reins of authority and do something meaningful with his or her life. That means picking up a guitar and starting a band of course. That`s before realising that they`d have to learn how to play, and most instruments are gathering dust within a month. There are some brief bursts of raucous glory, bands of Wyld Stallyns calibre, which provide a summer or two of memories, and tales of rock and roll excess to tell the grandchildren. But once in a while there emerges someone with genuine talent, someone who really can perform and has charisma. Then they have to deal with the fickle music industry, the adulation, and the groupies, all the while avoiding those pesky creative differences. Beck tells the story of Koyuki Tanaka, a daydreaming student who wandered into the wrong side of town one day, and had his future opened to world of possibilities.

This third disc of Beck-Mongolian Chop Squad, entitled Be Heard, comes with four episodes. Previously on Beck, despite some bullying at school, things were looking up for Koyuki, as he had finally become part of the band, and his singing and playing were coming along by leaps and bounds. Surely things can only get better for Beck.

11. Summer Holiday
A little news headline gets Chiba all perked up, and he`s off to tell the rest of the band. Dying Breed is coming to Japan. At school Koyuki`s grades are slipping, and a typically encouraging teacher tells him he hasn`t a hope of succeeding as a musician. Still Miss Ogasawara invites him and Sakurai to take part in the school`s talent contest, Koyuki and Maho get to spend some time together at a funfair, and then it transpires that Eddy from the Dying Breed will be at Beck`s next gig. When they score an invite to Dying Breed`s next secret gig, surely it couldn`t get any better?

12. Secret Live
It does get better, although it doesn`t look that way at first. Old rival Eiji and his band Belle Ame has been booked to support Dying Breed, and it looks like the first step on his way to stardom. Except Dying Breed`s volatile frontman Matt doesn`t think much of Eiji`s music. Then a spotlight shines down on Koyuki like a finger from heaven. Getting down from Cloud Nine takes Koyuki about a week, but it`s a hell of a letdown. Suddenly he notices that Maho has been paying attention to a popular actor, and being a typical teenaged male he fails to communicate. Instead when Izumi comes back into his life, he accepts an invite to go swimming. Only it`s the midsummer festival, and the only way to get their feet wet is to break into the school pool. The last time he did that, it was with Maho exactly one year ago, just after he had played in public for the first time at a song contest.

13. Ciel Bleu
The school`s cultural festival is looming, and Sakurai and Koyuki need a couple of members to complete the band, not easy when they are still relative outcasts at the school following Hyoda`s bullying. Fortunately, Koyuki`s friend Tanabe volunteers his services as vocalist (to impress a girl obviously), and more importantly brings along a bassist. The rivalry between Ciel Bleu (as they are called), and Hyoda`s band just gets worse, and dirtier. It all comes to a head at the cultural festival, and the battle of the bands. Meanwhile, Beck`s members need to get some money together to put towards recording their first CD.

14. Dream
Despite his nonchalant attitude, Ryusuke realises that tension within Beck can`t be a good thing. So he sits Koyuki down and has a good heart to heart with him about his little sister. Meanwhile Izumi runs into Maho and insists on setting things straight with her. The rest is up to Koyuki and Maho. At school, Koyuki`s teacher is still having a go at him about his grades, which continue to slip, and Saito gives him a swimming lesson that is ill advised during the winter months. So it is that when Beck needs its members at full strength and fighting fit, Koyuki becomes ill verging on the delirious. Will they get that important first CD recorded?

Video

Beck gets an unproblematic 4:3 transfer. The image is clear throughout, the colours are strong, and there are no signs of obvious artefacts. That`s with the exception of the credit sequences. The credits are re-versioned to show the English cast and crew in addition to the original crew, and when overlaid on the credit animation, the image suffers from strong aliasing. Fortunately the jagged lines are absent from the textless credit sequences in the extras, but it still looks poor in comparison to the main animation.

Madhouse studios provide the animation for Beck, and it is strong, vibrant and dynamic. The world design and the character designs are distinctive, and the singular feel of the show is palpable. As with all modern anime, CG and traditional 2D animation combines to make a pleasing whole. Here it is the guitars that are given the digital makeover, and the care taken on animating the instruments really adds a dimension to the anime.

Audio

You have a choice of DD 5.1 and DD 2.0 English, along with DD 2.0 Japanese and optional translated subtitles and signs. Naturally, given that it is a music heavy show, you can expect some serious j-rock tunes to nod your heads to. The sound design is more impressive in the 5.1 track of course, but it`s pretty standard for a television anime. Given the music content, it`s a shame that the Japanese couldn`t have been a 5.1 track as well.

There is an extra dilemma in choosing languages this time around. Beck is a show about cultural differences, with everyday school kid Koyuki entering a new world of music. This difference is most apparent in the language spoken. In the Japanese dub, while Koyuki and his friends speak Japanese, Ryusuke and his circle are more used to speaking English (Ryusuke and Maho were raised in America), so for all the Japanese dialogue you`ll be reading subtitles for, there is a fair bit of English too (the songs are mostly in English). The trouble is that fluent English spoken for a Japanese audience by Japanese voice actors, isn`t fluent English for an English audience. Accents vary, with Ryusuke`s VA quite good, while Maho`s accent is strongly Japanese. Understandably then, the English dialogue is subtitled as well.

For the English dub, the cultural differences remain, but the script is reworked to lose the difference in language. It`s understandable why this is done, and you don`t have to suspend that extra bit of disbelief. It`s like Arnold Schwarzenegger`s perfect Arabic in True Lies. The thing that I am not quite au fait with yet is that the songs are rerecorded for the English dub as well. On the one hand you have performances by Japanese bands for the show, on the other you have voice actors rerecording those songs, and I`m not sure that is necessary in all cases. Regardless, you have both versions to listen to here, and you can make your own mind up as to which are better.

Features

The usual animated menus, jacket picture, and trailers for Suzuka and Mushi-shi, and textless songs are here. It`s fun watching the end credits to see how many of the manga style music icons you can recognise.

There is another `A Life On The Road` music video, and this time it is a new song, "Face".

Then there is the "With A Little Help From My Friends" cast and director commentary. To be fair, Chris Bevins does warn of what is to come, but no warning is sufficient for the barely controlled anarchy that results when eight people cram into two booths. Recorded in two sessions a few months apart, this is two ten minute yak tracks, one after the other. The first sees Taliesin Jaffe (voice director) joined by Jerry Jewel (Taira), Justin Cook (Chiba), and Colleen Clinkenbeard (Izumi). The second sees voice director and voice of Beck (the zombie dog, not the band), Chris Bevins, joined by Brina Palencia (Maho), Greg Ayres (Koyuki) and Eric Vale (Ryusuke). It`s mayhem to be honest, with a gathering of like minded people having a laugh, and letting loose with a little profanity on an R-rated disc. There`s information to be had through the banter, but it`s more likely that you`ll be left with a residing memory of just who is ticklish among Funimation`s voice actor ranks.

Conclusion

Waiting for Beck is an agonising process, simply because it is the best anime out there right now. When you`ve just sat through three generic sci-fi action shows in a row, you need something with intelligence, wit, style and quality to remind you of what the medium can aspire to. Finding out that you still have six weeks or so to wait until the next instalment is like being kicked in the gut. But for once, I can definitely say that the three-month wait has been worth it, as volume three of Beck maintains the high standard of the series, and delivers four more episodes of unmissable, and utterly compelling slice of life anime.

The story continues to move forward, and in this volume, we see that despite the odd setback, Koyuki`s growth as a musician, and his path towards fame and fortune continue on an upward trend. The band get a taste of the big leagues when the group that initially inspired Koyuki, Dying Breed, pay a visit to Japan. Ryusuke introduces everyone to his friend Eddy, but more importantly, some big suits hear Beck play, which opens a couple of doors. After one of those dream moments for Koyuki, it looks as if nothing can go wrong for them, before real life intrudes. No one will give Beck a record deal on the strength of a couple of performances, they still need to put the hard graft in, and improve their craft. Koyuki`s personal life gets a little rocky too. Things seem to be going well between him and Maho, until those inevitable crossed signals, and the traditional failure for teenagers to communicate. On the bright side, while the bullying does get worse at school, it builds to a resolution of sorts. While there is the traditional moment of said bully getting his comeuppance, more important is that Hyoda and Koyuki manage to find some sort of common ground, and establish a truce. Whether it will last remains to be seen. But on the whole this is a tremendously positive quartet of episodes for Beck and Koyuki, and I get the feeling that rockier roads lie ahead in subsequent volumes.

Beck grabs you straight by the empathy and doesn`t let go for its runtime. For ninety minutes, I was in this world, vicariously living with these characters as they go through their trials and travails. I was cheering every triumph, lamenting every setback, and feeling for them when they came up against adversity. When Maho and Koyuki had problems, over such a trivial thing, I really felt for them, and wanted them to sort things out. It`s not every anime that can grab an audience like that, and that clearly shows the strength of Beck`s writing, the heartfelt performances, and the utter realism (apart from the zombie dog) that infuses every aspect of the show.

I`d say that Beck was just getting better and better, except that it started out at the top of its game. It`s walking a tightrope of excellence, and hasn`t wobbled once yet. It just doesn`t get better than this. So, for the third time, buy this disc, don`t pause, don`t question, and don`t hesitate. Buy this disc, and buy another one for a friend. Beck is simply awesome. Only twelve more weeks to go until volume 4, sigh…