Selector: Spread WIXOSS Box Set Review

By: KaylaTheRivera

Summary of Selector: Spread WIXOSS

The adventure continues for Ruuko , the main character of Selector: Spread WIXOSS, and owner of a rare LRIG—a card that is not only alive but can grant her wish. With her wish, she hopes to save her friends, including her LRIG, in this second season and epic conclusion to the Selector series. Will her wish be granted? Or will she lose the game and everyone she loves to WIXOSS’ twisted secret?

Blu-ray Disc Set

I was happily surprised to find Selector: Spread WIXOSS came with several extra goodies. Now, the special features aren’t anything to backflip over. But they actually exist, and better yet, they’re more then trailers and contain interesting content. Therefore, I was pretty excited. Add to that beautiful cover art—seriously, sometimes I just stare at this thing with a goofy smile—and I have to applaud FUNimation's efforts here. They really stepped it up for this one.

Voice Acting

Unfortunately, this is where the box set kind of falls short for me. The Japanese voice actors do a better job of this, so I’ll focus mainly on the English dub for this critique.I didn’t like most of the voice-acting. Now, it’s no secret FUNimation has a repeating cast of voice actors, and honestly, that’s never bothered me. I actually enjoy being able to identify my favorites and such. But, there are certain ones I don’t—ahem—enjoy as much. And when those are cast into major roles, and I have to listen to them throughout every single episode, you can understand it grates on the ears.It wasn’t just one voice that earned my frowns, though. It was just a myriad of weird, different, or just badly volume-adjusted voices gathered in one series that made me raise an annoyed eyebrow.One of Ryuuko’s friends, Yuzuki, has a lisp that the actor tries to hide, and that only serves to mar some of the words more. Then there’s Ryuu herself; this actor is actually fairly good, but her inconsistency is off. Most of the time, if she wasn’t directly in camera speaking, I had a hard time telling if it was her voice. That’s not normal after the first few episodes, and I was still struggling near episode eight. Unheard of!And then there’s my least favorite—Tama. I love the character of Tama, and I can definitely see how she needed a squeaking, younger voice to play her, but why did they choose the one they did? Agh. It’s such an obvious falsetto and scratchy when she shouts, so I had to wince every time she had a passionate moment. Which does, admittedly, soil a bit of the exciting moment in story.To be honest, the voice acting didn’t ruin the series for me, so I suppose it’s passable. But most of the time, and contrary to popular opinion, I do enjoy English dubs. Just, not when so many weird or less than enjoyable voices are gathered in one single series. Then, it spoils the joy just a bit, and makes adjusting the volume a trickier situation.So, not my favorite English dub experience by far. Still, I’m glad I had the option to listen in English, so go FUNimation in that regard.

Animation

While the series art style is more simplistic and reminiscent of Card Captor Sakura or Madoka Magica, the animation is flawless.Or, nearly flawless anyway. In one lone episode, Selector: Spread WIXOSS did trigger my overwhelming hatred for badly incorporated CGI, and in a really obvious scene, too. If studios don’t have the time to incorporate CGI with an art layer on top to help it match the rest of the scenery, I wish they wouldn’t make the bad CGI the center of attention in the scene. Seriously, if they just didn’t zoom in on the front of the CGI car, and it would have stood a chance. Although, my eyes seem to target bad CGI through almost any guise, so maybe I’m just being harsh.Then again, that’s kind of what I’m here for.Anyway, besides that moment, this second and last half of the Selector series has stunned me with its quality. The colors! The fluidity! The raw power of the unique settings, expressions, and ideas captured in each frame! I loved every moment outside of that CGI blunder, especially during the LRIG battles. Yuki (known as Iona in the first season) and Tama’s battles, especially, showcased just what the animation budget was capable of.Not to mention, the white room and Mayu were spared no expense. Seriously, that landscape was gorgeous. They could have played 22 minutes of that white room each episode, and I would have been satisfied.

Plot

This series is exactly the kind of show that would drive me crazy if I couldn’t binge watch it. For that reason, I’m definitely glad I had the box set. Watching this one episode a week? No thank you. I couldn’t handle its amazing cliffhangers.At first, I have to admit the plot line and story were confusing. But, that was also my fault. I hadn’t watched the Selector: Infect WIXOSS yet, so I missed a ton of background. So, if you’re trying to get into this series, don’t start here. Definitely be a smart human and get the first season. If it’s anything like this one, and I’m sure it is, you won’t regret it.But back to the plot, it’s honestly so good, I’m not sure I can tell you much. The depths of the WIXOSS battles get exposed, enemies turn out to be friends, friends turn out to be enemies, LRIGs become humans, humans LRIGs, and at the core of their world, a god-like girl trapped pulls on everyone’s strings in a twisted version of revenge and confused pain. If I go any further, honestly, I’ll spoil half of Selector’s fun.Seriously, this series is Madoka Magica meets Yugioh. And for any of you who have watched Madoka, you know that half the fun is discovering how the world works, and then discovering the mysteries and dark secrets behind those rules. It’s everything I could have hoped for from a series describes as both Madoka and Yugioh—dark, hopeful, and most importantly, entertaining.You can pick up the Selector blu-ray set on Amazon.