The Series (3/5)

    OK, so full disclosure about me. I am a sucker for 80's anime. I love the style of the hand-drawn animation even when it's more rigid like the recent Glass Mask anime put out by Section 23. I am also a collector of retro video games, and consoles, though to be fair, when I started collecting them, they weren't retro. Zillion, therefore as a series should be right up my alley. It is a 1987 sci-fi anime series that either was inspired by the Sega Master game Fantasy Zone, or the game was inspired by the anime. Regardless, the main weapon a handheld gun at the center of the series took its design from the Sega Master System light gun.

    The series itself is pretty light sci-fi fare. If you are a fan of Robotech/Macross (which I would assume, most people reading this will be), you can at least probably dig this at a surface level. But to be honest this is pretty much a surface level sci-fi anime. Probably not the first anime that was made to market around a game or a toy, but the earliest one I can think of off the top of my head. The series is a a group of fun sci-fi adventures about humans being at war with another species called the Noza for control of a planet called Maris. The heroes of the series are called White Nuts and specifically are a main team of 3 that possess the titular Zillion weapon, a powerful handheld gun with the power to turn the war around.

    I am a viewer who can pretty much turn my brain off to most illogic, but a handheld gun is usually not what I think of when I think of a weapon that can turn the tide of a huge planet spanning conflict. Especially as it something that can change hands so easily, but once I put that in the back of my mind I had fun with it. Each episode seemed like a little adventure with the trio, and then the Burning Night OVA seemed to take it's title and primary inspiration from the 80's cinema cult classic Streets of Fire by Walter Hill, a firm favorite of mine, so I couldn't help but get caught up with that.

Audio/Video (3.5/5)

     Funimation presents Zillion - The Complete Series in a 1080p AVC encoded 1:33:1 transfer that looks solid for the most part. Detail is solid, colors are reproduced well, but the film elements seem to have gone through some DNR process and lost some of their detail and grain in the transition to Blu-ray. It's not too liberally applied, and thus not too distracting, but it is there, and noticeable at times.

    Audio is handled by a Japanese DTS-HD MA 2.0 language track. Everything sounds quite solid here with dialogue and score coming thorugh clear and concise with no obvious issues.

Extras (.5/5)

    Textless opening and closing songs, trailers.

Overall

    Zillion is a fun, but very surface level sci-fi anime. The Blu-ray looks and sounds decent, but not as good as it could look. The extras are also limited. RECOMMENDED.