Video:

Let's get the unpleasantness out of the way first; this is yet another set that MAC has produced on single-layer DVD-5 discs as opposed to dual-layer DVD-9s. This effectively means they are trying to squeeze the same number of episodes (9 per disc) into half the space. Video quality is bound to suffer under these circumstances but the extent seems to vary from set to set. So how do these discs hold up? The answer is not too badly. Although heavy pixellation is quite noticeable on fast moving scenes and in panning shots, the rest of the time the quality can almost be compared to MI/MAC's previous CCS set (though that set had some other video problems which this new rip does not). So a disappointment, but not altogether as bad as it could have been.

Audio:

This set has the digital 5.1 audio track from the R1 discs and it sounds fantastic. A big improvement over previous sets. Only japanese audio is available (as in the R1 originals) since these are uncut episodes.

Subtitle:

Again, taken directly from the R1 discs. Not a spelling or grammar error in sight. The opening/ending songs are subbed in both english and japanese (alternating) and Kero's little post-episode segments and the next episode previews are present and fully subbed. Much, much better than the subs in past sets (which got a bit engrishy towards the end of the series) and in my opinion the main reason to choose this one.

Comment:

I got this set hoping it would be good enough to replace my old MI set with its video glitches and variable subs. And I think I can safely say it does the job. Audio, subtitles, and presentation are far superior. Not only are all opening/ending/kero/preview sequences present in the episodes, you also get textless opening and ending songs and some (pretty pointless) character bios as extras. The only big disappointment here is that the video quality suffers noticeably due to MAC's decision to use of DVD-5s.