Submarine 707R – DVD Review

The Series:

A high-tech terrorist plagues the ocean… To counter the subversive activities of the USR (a shadowy terrorist group menacing the seas), the leading nations of the world join forces to form the Peace Keeping Navy (PKN). Its inauguration ceremony, however, quickly turns into disaster as Admiral Red, charismatic leader of the USR, launches a surprise attack on the PKN. With fierce power, Red lets his intentions be known that he will destroy anything that gets in the way of his twisted vision of an ideal future… Dive into this exciting deep-sea military action-adventure thriller, as Captain Hayami and the crew of the 707 try to outwit Admiral Red’s gargantuan nuclear submarine! Submarine 707R is a two episode OVA produced by Group TAC and Sony. The episodes are based on a manga done by Satoru Ozawa which was written in 1963.

The world is at war, a group named the USR led by Admiral Red is waging a war against the rest of humanity to stop exploitation of the seas, destroying many ships and ports to achieve this.  Nations of the world unite their naval powers to create the Peace Keeping Navy, donating their countries greatest submarines. At the inaugural meeting, the Japanese submarine the 707 (an old diesel submarine), captained by Youhei Hayami, is running late. During the meeting, Admirals Red’s sub (the UX), begins launching torpedoes at the PKN’s flag ship, which is saved thanks to the sacrifice of the 707. Six months later the 707 is rebuilt, and back for round two against the UX.

Conclusion:

I liked these two OVA episodes; they showed a lot of promise of the start of a great series. The majority of the animation was of the subs under water which was crisp and clean. Along with detailed characters animation. I am also a fan of movies like Hunt for Red October, so that was another reason I checked this one out.

The sad thing is that this Anime is plagued by more downfall issues than greatness. They leave so many loose threads at the end with no hope of ever continuing the series. Stories about the crew and the families on the good and evil side of the war. Will the 707 ever beat the UX? They keep talking about “Project Red Screen”, what is that all about?? Plus there isn’t enough time to develop any of the characters to get to know them better, giving viewers little time to understand and get behind them.

In the end, the premise of this series was a fantastic idea with such a great foundation for a series but, was immediately torpedoed and sunk due to not continuing with further episodes. I recommend that if you watch this, don’t get your hopes up to high about it. Just enjoy it for what it is, awesome under water battles.

The DVD:

Audio/Video

The sound is clean and the animation is great. The language options include English or Japanese with English subtitles.

Special features

Unfortunately, they are no special features for this DVD.

The Series Rating:

The DVD Rating: