The Series (4/5)

    OK, so A Spirit of the Sun is one of those series I sort of let get away from me. It sat in my stack staring at me, daring at me to watch both 77 minute episodes until I finally did, and when I did what I watched ended up not being entirely mind-blowing, but rather quite special in its own odd way. It's little finds like these that made me wish I could somehow add more hours in a day, though I suspect they'd be exploited into more working hours, instead of movie and anime watching hours, but I digress.

   Anyway, A Spirit of the Sun is an interesting 2 episode series that follows a group of survivors after Japan falls victim to a dual-apocalyptic scenario of a massive country wide earthquake, and the eruption of Mt. Fuji. These events kill off most of the island nations populous, leaving the country governed by the dual governments of the United States and China (how these 2 could agree on anything is probably the greatest fiction presented here). The survivors are forced to live in Taiwan, alongside the native people. The causes conflict between the survivors and the natives, who have difficulty living alongside each other, the survivors have a hard time finding work, or otherwise making a living. The first half is more about the initial devastation and fallout, while the 2nd half which takes over a decade later in in a Taiwanese encampment deals with friendship, relationships, and more overt political things.

   The art style isn't totally mind-blowing, but it works for the series for the most part. The story tends to be a little too black and white at times, but it has a nice social flavor that works overall, and has some really strong messages running through the whole thing. The score when used is quite effective, and overall I ended up enjoying A Spirit of the Sun quite a bit.

Audio/Video (4/5)

    Section 23 brings a Spirit of the Sun to Blu-ray in a solid 1:78:1 1080p transfer that brings the animation to HD quite effectively. Colors are nicely reproduced, line detail is fine, and I could find no glaring issues.

   Audio is handled by DTS HD 2.0 tracks in English and Japanese I skewed more to the Japanese track as per usual, but both tracks were quite solid, with no discernible issues.

Extras (0/5)

     Sentai trailers

Overall

    A solid look at what a real apocalyptic scenario would like Spirit of the Sun is a little too black and white at times, but overall is filled nicely with political intrigue. The Blu-ray looks and sounds solid, but is lacking in extras. RECOMMENDED.