DVD Review - ROD Read Or Die

Just when you thought anime couldn't get anymore out there (I'm probably going to have to use that again) along comes R.O.D. Read Or Die. Sounding more like a Liberal party literacy initiative, R.O.D. has the most original plot devices and characters this reviewer is yet to see.

Yomiko Readman is 'Agent Paper', a member of Section A of Library Special Operations. Her job with her fellow agents is to track down classic rare books at any cost. From what I could gather from the frenetic plot, now stay with me, they are being hampered by a dissertation of literary mutants (collective noun-) who have been resurrected from a library of stored genes called the e-gen.

In true anime form we are introduced to Agent Papers extraordinary skills as if we should have known all along. No secondary character narrates to us a la CSI or X Files; she just nonchalantly changes a book into a parachute or a wad of 50s into a sword.

Original to the very end, the doomsday device is far more interesting that anything a James Bond nemesis could dream up. Its only weakness being some of the dialogue but that is secondary to the mayhem on screen.

4/5.

Created by: Hideyuki Kurata
Directed by: Kouji Masunari
Rating: M (Low Level Violence)
Run Time: 90.0
Category: Anime / Manga
Language: English, Japanese, English
Company: Madman Entertainment
DVD Features:
-5.1 Dolby Digital English And Japanese
-original Trailer
-histrorical Biographies
-photo Gallery
-interviews
-previews Tags