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Marvel Anime: X-Men
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Plot Summary:
The X-Men are reunited following the death of a teammate and are summoned by Charles Xavier to Japan following the abduction of Hisako Ichiki. There, they confront the U-Men, a lunatic cult that steals and transplants mutant organs to further strengthen its own army, and the battle for justice is on. Discovering a series of bizarre occurrences in the area they X-Men investigate only to be confronted with a terrible truth that will force them to confront long buried secrets.

DVD Bonus Features:
-Re-Examining The X-Men takes viewers behind-the-scenes of creating X-Men’s mutant tales.
-X-Men: A Team of Outsiders provides an in-depth exploration of Marvel’s most heroic and infamous mutants.
-Special Talk Session round table discussion with the creators of Marvel anime's X-Men and Blade.
-Trailers

Street Date: April 24th, 2012
Release Format: Two-Disc DVD
Suggested Retail Price: $14.99 (US only)
Feature Run Time: Approx. run time 287 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen (Enhanced for 16X9 televisions)
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Sound
Languages: English (US) 5.1, Japanese 5.1

Released through Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, X-Men comes to DVD in a nice two-disc collection. Much like the release of the Marvel Anime Iron Man DVD title, we get a nice helping of extras that provide nice insight into the main feature.

Digging in a little further, the discs themselves feature no artwork save for the logo for the series and a few company related brandings. Very, very bare. Be careful handling these discs as you’re likely to smudge both sides of either disc very, very easily. The audio and video is actually pretty top-notch. The video, best I can tell, is pretty much flawless save for the occasional banding. But even the banding is far and few in-between, and very easy to miss. The video quality is really surprising, and the same goes for the audio. A very boisterous and loud mix, usually giving the entire sound system a nice workout. The mix is center-based, but still gives a nice immersive experience when the action really kicks up. The default language setting is Japanese with English subtitles, but that can be quickly altered to your preference with a quick trip through the set-up menu. All in all? Very nice presentation save for the blank discs.

Taking a look at the bonus features, they manage to provide some interesting insight into both this series and the overall Marvel Anime project. “Re-Examining the X-Men” and “X-Men: A Team of Outsiders” explore why the creators behind the series chose the X-Men as one of the anime projects and why it’s a good starting point for those new to the franchise. They do provide a nice look into the production of the series, and are worth a watch. The “Special Talk Session: Marvel Anime’s X-Men and Blade” looks to be on older featurette or documentary, perhaps a promotional program for the series from Japan. It’s actually fairly interesting and worth a watch.

From start to finish, I really enjoyed X-Men and would love to see Marvel revisit this particular rendition of the Mighty Mutants again if they ever decide to do another run of Marvel Anime titles. The main feature is a pretty enjoyable spin from start to finish, and the same can be said about the DVD release itself. A nice helping of bonus content and a solid presentation makes this an easy DVD release to recommend.