Super Dimensional Cavalry: The Southern Cross (DVD)

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Video:
The video aspect ratio is 1.33:1 (full-screen on 4:3 monitors). The video quality is not very good. There are artifacts aplenty, and every so often colors aren´t very good either. I assume this is due to a degraded source (the show was not super-popular when it originally aired, so it´s likely that any source prints left weren´t exactly kept in a sealed vault) and little time spent by ADV to clean it up.

There are some serious video problems on the fourth DVD. The last minute or two of episode 16 is encoded improperly, and comes out very jittery. The same problem strikes again in episode 19, except that it lasts for more than five minutes. I don´t understand how this could have gotten past any kind of quality checking process.

Audio:
You can watch the show in Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo Japanese. There is an option for English subtitles. I watched it in Japanese with English subtitles. You have to turn on the subtitles via your own DVD player´s controls if they aren´t on by default. That only happened to me on disc 1. There´s nothing to really recommend the audio, it´s standard TV-series quality.

Extras:
Only disc 5 has any extras. There is a brief Production Portfolio, followed by a Clean Opening and Closing Animation. For a box set, that´s amounts to practically nothing.

--Miscellaneous--
The DVD comes with a nicely printed booklet. It contains an interview with the Chief Director, Yasuo Hasegawa, and the Character Designer, Hiroyuki Kitazume, background information on the series that contains a few small spoilers, character profiles that contain a few small spoilers, and an impressive chart that details the organization of the Army of the Southern Cross. Don´t read too much into the chart though, I don´t think more than half of the units and mecha mentioned on it are actually seen in the series.

The box deserves some mention as well. Unlike a normal box set, which is merely a cardboard case that holds individual DVD cases, this box set is one case with multiple compartments, like multiple regular DVD cases glued back to back.

Film Value:
The plot in "Southern Cross" has been done before, and repeated ad nauseum since, but I still enjoyed this series. It feels very stripped down, completely devoid of filler episodes, and I appreciate that. The characters, although somewhat stereotypical perhaps, feel the more realistic for their unexaggerated behavior. I can see why this series didn´t take the anime scene by storm like it´s big brother, "Macross", but by no means is "Southern Cross" a sub-par production. It´s too bad ADV didn´t put much effort into the transfer or production of the discs, it´d be nice to see what the red carpet treatment for "Southern Cross" would look like.

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