Video:

Excellent video quality on this release! I didn't notice any points in which the quality dropped. No pixelation, not even in the high action scenes, which this show contains. I think this may just be my DVD player though, but I notice sometimes there would be a quick flash of a frame from the previous scene play during a different one. The reason I beleive this is just my player is because it's been doing that for a bunch of other DVDs, too. If it is a problem with the release, it's nothing to worry about and won't detract from your viewing. At the most, you'll raise your eyebrow wondering what that was. As for the video source, definetly DVD. It's to sharp to be a TV-Rip, and the only other available source would've been the VHS, so it's definetly DVD. Show's presented in a widescreen format, apparently. I say apparently, because I'm not sure if it's really widescreen or just Gainax slapping some bars on the top and bottom for looks. Hey, you never know! So great job in the video department.

Audio:

Sound is awesome on this release. I didn't notice any drops in quality in sound or hissing or any other distortion. Not much to be said about the sound on this release, other then it was great!

Subtitle:

This release did not falter when it came to subtitles, luckily! The subtitles on this release were great! The translation most likely comes from a fansub, but I'm not totally sure on that. I see AV (Animation Video) also did a release of this, so it might have been another great original subtitle version from them that MI ripped, or it could simply just be that they used fansub scripts. Either way, the translation is great! The names are all correct in this release, too! I dropped subs by half a point for one reason. Episode nine. You've probably read the other reviews and know that episode nine has transparent subs. It makes it impossible to see since all that's left of the subtitles is the black outline of the letters, which blend in with the black bars for the most part. What I did for this episod,e which isn't the best but it was all I could do, was simply go into my DVD Player's set up menu and changed the video mode so that the video filled the whole screen. The video looked kind of funny, and I could read the subtitles in some parts. Problem was, a large chunk of this episode takes place at night, in the dark. What can ya do? Sorry I don't have anymore solutions for this problem :( That's the major problem. There are also misspellings from time to time. Most of the time you just pass over them. Things spelled like "Mqhoro." Funny mispellings like that. They don't put any strain on the brain at all. Though the ending songs suffers from alot of them at times, but they do like six different translations for the ending song. Anyways, subs are most definetly safe on this release and besides episode nine's problems, everything is great!

Comment:

This was such a cute show! The story is about a combat android (Mahoro) that was designed to fight off and alien race. Once these aliens had been pushed back, she chooses to disarm herself so she can live a longer life (at the end of each episode it tells you how many days she has left.). She becomes the maid of a young boy who had lost both of his parents. What follows is whacky situations, and fan service, but don't worry, as this is a action/drama concealed in a fan service show rather then a fan service show concealed in an action/drama. That probably didn't make sense. What I mean is that the fan service never overshadows the show, and the show would still be totally enjoyable riding on the emotions of the show alone. You know what I mean? Just watch it. :P Now for the release itself. The case is really nice. I'm not sure where they got all the artwork from though. The front cover can be seen on the page before you click reviews. It's hard to see, but the background is white and light blue stripes with Mahoro looking like she's leaning in for a kiss really big in the center. On the left side, is the main boy being chased by his well endowed teacher who is being floowed by the boys dog. On the other side is the boy's three female friends and class mates holding microphones, because they sing the ending theme that way. The show's title is written in an easier to read way at the top, followed by the logo on the bottom.The back cover features a picture of all the cast, a picture of the main boy (why can't I remember his name...) falling into Mahoro's lap, and some random screen shots from the show along the top and bottom. Very bottom feautures the usual information like subs, region, audio, that stuff. The spine features the show's logo going vertical and a picture of Mahoro holding a dog on the bottom. Opens like a book, and the left part has a picture of the main boy character and Mahoro dancing or something. Really cute. The right side has a picture of Mahoro, and the blonde girl and black hair girl all dressed as maids. Another cute picture. One problem though. This one has the email addresses all over the art! They's kind of see through, but you can see them pretty well on the darker background colors. Kind of ruins the inside packaging a bit. This was also present on my Shin Getter Robo: Last Day of the Planet HK set. The disc art consists of smaller versions of the gatefold art that they belong to. Nice packaging, though I must admit, the FX set's cover looks totally awesome, but I'm not a fan of R1 rips so I didn't want that one. Each disc starts off by showing the MI logo big, and then it cuts to a little animation before going to the menu. The first disc has paper dolls of Mahoro and the well endowed teach, and different outfits are switched onto them, including Evangelion plug suits. Then it shows the menu, with the usual Play All, Subtitles, and Chapter selections. It says something on the bottom in kanji that I can't figure out. You can't click on it, so it must be nothing. Disc two opens with the MI logo, then it shows a bunch of production art flying by in the background, then it brings up the typical menu. Let me mention this now, that yes, there are extras. To access them, go into the chapter select menu and there will be a tab with some kanji on it. Click on it, and it plays the extras. Disc one has creditless opening, a pilot short of some sort, and then creditless ending. Disc two has some scenes of Mahoro humming. Each episode is broken into show opening, first half of episode, eyecatch, rest of episode, ending credits, Satelite Poem segment (a character in the show reads a poem.), and then next episode preview. Chapter stops aren't like that though. Chapter breaks will allow you to skip the opening, then skip to the ending song, then skip to the next episode. No chapter break in the middle of the episode. The show only has one opening and ending, and they're present for every episode on the disc. All are subbed, too. It's just that the ending song is subbed differently everytime it seems. Sometimes it's perfect, and sometimes it's an HK original job. The original subbed one is hilarious. There are water marks in the show, but they are only on for a little bit. I think there were hardcoded email addresses in the episodes. I seem to remember them in this show, but I may be thinking of a different release. Anyways, if they are in this, they're the green writing ones that aren't in the subtitles, but hardcoded in the video itself. But again, I may be thinking of a different release. Great show. It's a bit fanservicy, but the fanservice doesn't take over the show like ome other shows I've seen. It's really funny, but the ending is serious and doesn't really conclude anything. There is still the second season I have to see, plus my friend tells me they are making a third season, but I've heard nothign about that. My friend has the first issue of the manga, and it's even more fanservicy! In the first episode, when the guys hijack the bus, they make the girls on it get naked. Anyways, I watched it on my old Zenith TV from the 80s that still works great, and my Toshiba DVD player that has trouble playing shows correctly when they switch layers on the DVD.

Video:

In widescreen, excellent video quality, most definately an R2 rip. There were a few video glitches but they rarely happen. MI watermark and hardcoded email addresses appear but not to often. 8/4 episodes on a DVD-9 and a DVD-5 respectively

Audio:

Standard DD Stereo 2.0 Nothing to complain about, no echo and everything is clear and well define.

Subtitle:

Excellent subtitles, must be from a fansub script. There are some mispellings and typos and the subs do get cut off at the sides sometimes. No timing problems whatsoever. In episode 9, the subtitles are transparent with a black outline. If you have a DVD-ROM you can rip the subs and overlay them with DVDsubber in the colour you want. If this is not possible you can change the settings on your DVD player to 16:9 view. This cause the video to be scretched vertically but it will remove the black bars so the subtitle outline won't be covered by them. its still kinda hard to read some lines though. If it wasnt for the transparent subs in ep 9 I would have gave them a 4.5 instead of a 4.

Comment:

Extras are accessible in the chapter selection menu, they are not subbed. 1st DVD: Creditless opening/ending theme. Promotional trailer of Mahoromatic. 2nd DVD: A clip of scenes from the show where Mahoro is either singing or humming.

Video:

Close to perfect, but for a few dropouts. On the second disc I also noticed some translucent green bars, that come with certain MI releases. 16:9 widescreen.

Audio:

Nothing to complain about on my simple stereo TV speakers.

Subtitle:

Very good with your usual amount of typing errors. On episode 9 the subs only have black outline and transparent body. So you can read them on the computer since they are placed inside the picture, but on 4:3 TV most of them are in the area of the bottom black bar and nearly impossible to read. (This was my friend's disc, so I wanted to copy it anyway. I changed the subs color with ifo-edit to white outline. While still having transparent body, they were readable now, being placed on the black bar)

Comment:

The usual story: Cute female battle android moves into the home of alone-living schoolboy. Add a lot of fanservice and you know what this is about. Not must-buy stuff, but I enjoyed it very much. Note: There are only 12 episodes, not 13 as stated in the info.

Comment:

This was a fun little series. Very enjoyable. Video - 5/5 Very bright and crisp images. Widescreen too :) Audio - 4/5 No pops or scratches or anything, just not that impressive overall. But I guess that's not the DVD's fault. Subs - 5/5 Yeah, you can't read episode 9's subs since they're transparent, but they are perfect besides that. Either fansubs or MI's translator is totally on the ball now. One problem that I had with disc 2 was that it wouldn't play at first in my Sony DVD player. My G4 played it fine right away. Only after putting it in my Sony then turning the power off then back on did it start up (after some backtalk). Kooky.

Comment:

VIDEO: 5/5 Colors and details look great. Sharp, preserved in widescreen. AUDIO: 5/5 Sounds fine. Nothing noticeably weird and no dropouts. SUBS: 4/5 Fansubs are probably used (there are honor-rifics and whatnot), although not always from the same source (there are also 3+ slightly different translations for the opening and ending songs). Font--Simple white font with black outlines. Songs are subbed. On-screen text is subbed if there's no dialogue at the time. The "Satellite Poems" are subbed. Next episode previews are subbed. Minor/Nit-Pick Problems--occasionally an unsubbed line or missing words from a line, sometimes the lack of punctuation leading to run-on sentences and the like. Once in a while the subs run off-screen. Major Problem--On Episode 9, the subs aren't white but transparent with black borders. Since more than 2/3 of the subs appear in the letterbox/black bar portion at the bottom, you can't read what most of the subs say. It makes watching Episode 9 unwatchable if you don't understand a lot of Japanese, forcing you to do something like download a fansub (like I did) to learn what happened. OVERALL: 4/5 I would have easily given it a 5/5 if it weren't for that stupid glaring error with the subs on Episode 9. Otherwise you have 11 out of 12 near perfect episodes. I'd still recommend it as a safe-buy.