Ragna's leader, Shunack, also from the past, needs Toola to fulfill his plan to restore the world to the way it was in the past before the plants took over and he persuades her to join him. Agito, however, goes into the forest, and becomes, "enhanced," or, a hybrid of man and plant imbued with special powers and takes off to save Toola from Shunack so that people and plants can all become one.
As a film, Origin is one of the strangest pieces of anime I have ever come across. It doesn't fit neatly into any of the normal categories of anime. There's a little cyberpunk, a hint of mecha and some fantasy. Overwhelmingly, though, Origin just seems from the outset to be a warning about the impending ecological doom we may be facing. That may in fact be a very pressing issue, but I'm not so sure it makes for fascinating fiction.
On the positive side, Origin does have beautifully drawn animation. When it is strictly hand-drawn, Origin looks amazingly original, but there are lapses when some CG effects are used. The CG effects used in Origin do not blend as well as they could with the earthy, organic palette of Origin; so they tend to really stand out and throw the viewer out of the moment. Thankfully, they are not used heavily, so the world of Origin mostly remains intact.
The Picture
At times Origin's 1080p/24 AVC/MPEG-4 1.78:1 encoding looks breathtaking, with vibrant primary colors and sharp details that render its line art and CG effects flawlessly, but there are other moments where the picture takes on a haze and things soften. I wasn't sure if this was artistic intent or not, but at one point when the scene on the screen was very active and colorful and the details softened, I checked the bitrate and it dropped as low as ~9Mbps, so I'm inclined to chalk some of the issues up to a low bitrate encoding, which shouldn't be happening at this stage in Blu-ray's lifespan.
Occasional issues aside, Origin's overall picture quality is still quite pleasing, with a clean source absent of any major flaws and post-processing misdeeds.
The Sound
Origin comes with two lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 options from Funimation. When it comes to films, even animation, I always prefer to listen to the original language track with English subtitles engaged, so having a lossless option available for the original Japanese soundtrack in addition to the English language version is definitely a bonus here.
The mix, as usual with most anime releases, makes aggressive use of all of the channels. There is a lot of front-to-back panning of discrete sound effects, sounds travelling all around the room, and even the front three channels are used for directionality, following action across the screen. Low frequency extension is resounding and really starts to kick in towards the film's frantic climax, when explosions and gunfire abound. Never fear, though, even as the soundtrack is active and dynamic, it is mastered to listenable levels that never become fatiguing. Dialogue is also clean and natural.
The Extras
Origin: Spirits of the Past is hardly provided with a windfall of must-have extras, but there is a lengthy making-of featurette that a lot of anime fans should find interesting.
The extras available on this release are:
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