Freezing: Complete Series (Blu-ray Review) at Why So Blu?

Freezing: Complete Series (Blu-ray Review)

November 19th, 2012 by Charles Cassady

The masters of action-oriented fan service who brough you Ikki Tousen are back with a brutally busty bloodletting that Anime News Networks calls “lewd and sadistic.” Synopsis: Eager to follow in the footsteps of his fallen sister, Kazuya enrolls at West Genetics Academy, a training facility for buxom heroes known as Pandoras. These courageous schoolgirls are genetically enhanced with enough sex appeal to cripple a man – and the superhuman strength to slaughter aliens by the dozen. Kazuya’s role is that of a Limiter, a Pandora’s battle partner, and he quickly sets his sights on the most feared beauty in the school, Satellizer el Brigette. This full-figured annihilator of aliens is as desirable as she is deadly, but rubbing her the wrong way could lead to gross bodily harm. Can Kazuya forge a bond with his new partner and rise to the top of the ranks at West Genetics? Or will he fall victim to a mysterious bloodlust lurking within Satellizer?

Film

Call it Wardrobe Malfunction: The Motion Picture. Balloon-breasted pinup-types go to battle and suffer frequent loss of clothing and occasional devastating wounds. The reason is that in the late 21st century, the Earth has seen periodic invasions by inscrutable, extra-dimensional aliens called Nova. This has forced humanity (well, Japan, anyway) to mount a defense in the shapely shape of genetically developed (or overdeveloped, as the case may be) teenage grrl warriors called Pandoras.

At the special school that trains Pandoras, males enroll too, because a Pandora achieves full combat potential via the Ereinbar Set, a kind of bonding deal with the right guy (or guys, since a Pandora can sometimes have multiple partners). We’re told that the sensory synchronization of the experience is quite…stimulating. The girls sometimes wear really lacy underthings to prepare for it…Wink-wink, nudge-nudge. Do we have to draw a damn picture?

Of course, the school is a female-dominated hierarchy, the Limiter lads being mostly passive underneath them (in more ways than one). Ice-cold blonde Satellizer, a keen fighter never bonded to a Limiter, is such a feared Pandora that her mean-supergirl classmates jeeringly dub her the `Untouchable Queen.’ Yet sensitive schoolboy Kazuya, still grieving his Pandora sister’s KIA death, begins to melt through Satellizer’s reserve, to the amazement of the academy’s sensuous she-bullies. While similar Japanimation cheesecake has been wisely done as self-parody, Freezing plays out mostly straightfaced – or at least as straightfaced as can be expected under the circumstances. And, yes, there is a beauty-pageant episode among the standard dozen here (the 300-minute series does not have a conclusive finale).

And, because the Pandoras have Wolverine-style super-healing powers, they can sustain heavy damage, even partial dismemberment, and bounce right back. Of course, viewers into this sort of exploitation will only be caring about the two principle things doing the bouncing.

Video

The animation is the usual total-pro Japanimation style, with cost-cutting evident only in the Nova creatures; they pretty much just stand there throwing off bad vibes. — (No other technical information provided)

Audio

The Blu-ray comes to battle with Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and dialogue options in English or in Japanese. The DVD version only has Dolby Digital Surround in both languages. Subtitles are an option, but the dialog and action is always loud and clear throughout.

Extras

Six OVA mini-episodes in the extras pump up the T&A, nipple slips and lesbian-imagery quotient even more. Lucky you. There are also promotional videos, the original commercials, the trailer for the American market, and the opening and closing musical numbers without credits, plus trailers for other Funimation anime releases. The Blu-ray interior box art happens to depict a delectably nude Satellizer in a clinch with another naked Pandora.