Petite Cossette (Animé TV)
Picture: C+
Sound: B- Extras: C+ Episodes: C+
Petite Cossette is an ambitious, different
Animé story for several reasons. It is
not idiotic and silly like too many of the titles we have seen, it is limited
to three episodes, has the intriguing idea of an entity (the title character)
being released from beautiful glassware and is a more mature 16+ age group
production that lives up to its age. It
can be bloody, but is not graphic. It
has some great elements, but it ultimately is a mood piece more than anything
else, though the visuals are too common to make such a thing work.
The narrative is standard and few of the sequences are
dream sequences, but it just cannot seem to get past a restrictive genre wall
that too many promising works in Animé seem to hit. Looking imaginative is not always being imaginative, that old
style over substance bit. This (for all
practical purposes) mini-series is going into Twilight Zone, Night
Gallery and Roald Dahl’s Tales Of The Unexpected territory and does
not know it or know what to do with it.
That makes Petite Cossette a beautiful, interesting failure.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image would be fine
if the style of the show was not soft white throughout, but that is what they
have chosen and if the effect was to be about being something dreamlike, they
can forget it. Otherwise, it is clean
and as well transferred as it is going to get.
The sound is here in English and Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes, but
the Japanese DTS 5.1 mix is preferable, with subtle details having much more
warmth. It is not demo quality either,
but much better than the majority of Animé titles on the market, including a
few in DTS. Extras include previews for
three other Geneon titles, U.S. & Japanese trailers for this program, a
Music Video of the Marina Inoue end theme, a making of/interview featurette and
a T.V. ad promoting its DVD release in Japan.
Hope they got DTS too.
- Nicholas Sheffo
