Review of Kiddy Grade: Vol. 5

Introduction

Kiddy Grade relates the adventures of the GOTT, the Galactic Organisation of Trade and Tariffs, policing trade throughout the galaxy of the distant future. The stories focus on two cybernetically enhanced warriors working for ES, Éclair and Lumiere, both capable of taking on the toughest of opponents and facing the most trying of circumstances. They are also teenaged girls, of course.

This is disc 5 of the series, and we find ourselves around about the halfway mark. Not exactly the best place to start watching, especially after the dramatic events of the previous disc. Éclair`s memories have returned and she and Lumiere are on the run from their previous employers, the GOTT. But Éclair and Lumiere aren`t the only cybernetically enhanced warriors at GOTT`s disposal, and with Eclipse still issuing unfathomable commands, Éclair and Lumiere face dangers that they have never faced before. Once again there are three episodes on this disc, 13-15.

Conflict/Destiny
Un-ou and A-ou have been ordered to find the La Muse and eliminate Éclair and Lumiere once and for all. Ironic, as in a past life, the tables had been turned with hunters being the hunted. Their shared history leads them to a shattered world where they had fought last. Lumiere is injured, and only in a promise decades old does there lie any hope.

Steel/Heart
Planet EG-10129 is being terraformed, and is currently uninhabited. A perfect place for two renegade GOTT agents to hide out, until found by Tweedledum and Tweedledee. They are carrying an insidious computer virus designed to infect Wirbelwind and Donnerschlag, and soon Éclair and Lumiere are fighting for their lives against the machines to which they had entrusted their very lives. This virus lays traps within traps though.

Break/Down
After the events of last episode, Éclair and Lumiere have decided to stop running, and have returned to face the corruption of GOTT at its heart. All hell breaks loose at GOTT headquarters as they face their former comrades, and a final reckoning between Eclipse and Éclair is inevitable.

Video

The picture is presented in the original 4:3 format, and the transfer is perfectly adequate. Like most modern animation, computers have taken the place of pencils and paper, and that is immediately apparent from the precision of the animation. However, that fact soon faded from the awareness, and I was left to appreciate the design of Kiddy Grade`s world. The character design is simple but distinctive, and the realisation of the future world is intricate and well thought out. It`s a wholly realised future world with a consistent technological society based on the large scale and gargantuan. Warp gates and space elevators abound, as do the beautiful paradisiacal worlds of the future. Once again, the magnificence of the design is immediately apparent. Conflict/Destiny takes place in a rubble-strewn space dominated by a gargantuan space station, while the terraformers of Steel/Heart are just as awesome as any Imperial Star Destroyer. I`m always awed by the sense of scale in Kiddy Grade.

Audio

There are a fine choice of soundtracks here, DD 5.1 and DD 2.0 English as well as DD 2.0 Japanese. As per usual, my preference is for original whenever possible, and the dialogue is clear throughout. Kiddy Grade also has some nice pop lite tracks for the credit sequences, and the incidental music has a sense of scale and orchestration more often associated with feature films. It`s all very impressive. You can only select one subtitle track from the menu, and depending on whether the language track you chose was English or Japanese, the disc automatically plays either subtitles for the dubbed track, or translated subtitles for the Japanese track. You can switch between them on the fly if you wish.

I`m usually loath to sample the English dubs, but Kiddy Grade makes a welcome exception. Instead of merely translating and filling the extra lip movements with extraneous dialogue, the voiceover has gone back to basics and provided a dialogue that not only conveys the story accurately, but also sounds natural when spoken. The actors also suit the characters, so it`s fair to say that you don`t lose anything by going with the English dub, indeed the DD 5.1 track gives that surround sound oomph to the space opera action, so no matter what your personal preference is when it comes to soundtracks, you`re in a win-win situation here.

Features

Extras are once again a case of diminishing returns compared to the earlier discs. This time, the DVD credits have been hidden away as an Easter Egg. Otherwise this disc only has the usual 90-second image gallery with slides from the episodes, the title sequence minus the text and seven text character profiles.

Thanks to seamless branching, you`ll either see the English or Japanese credits played depending on which language you chose from the menu. The usual jacket picture that is displayed when the disc isn`t spinning is there, but in a small error, it`s the jacket picture from disc 4

Conclusion

Disc 5 gets off to something of a slow start, a little disappointing after the high tension of Disc 4. At the start of proceedings, Éclair and Lumiere are still on the run, and the first episode sees their former comrades being sent after them to eliminate them. It is different in that the confrontation becomes more personal than in the previous episode, but it`s devoted more to revealing the past antagonism of the characters, rather than moving the overall plot forward. In effect it feels like it`s spinning its wheels for twenty minutes.

But Steel/Heart provides more than a rocket thrust of acceleration to compensate, as the story gets moving once again. In appearance it is similar to Conflict/Destiny, in that two more ES agents are sent after our heroes, but this time GOTT up the ante and make the battle far more personal. In terms of character growth it is far more effective than the first episode. It makes the events of the final episode, Break/Down easier to understand at first, as Éclair and Lumiere return to the heart of GOTT to face their accusers, but as havoc is unleashed, and events begin to spiral out of control, things begin to feel a little out of place. The explosive end has just a tinge of ambiguity to it, more than enough to make disc 6 a temptation.

There is a certain mindset to get around first. You have to accept the incongruity of the galaxy being saved on a regular basis by teenaged girls, although with their innocence being shattered by the events thus far, the light childish tone of the earlier episodes is almost a fading memory. But as we learn on this disc, appearances are deceptive and these ES agents aren`t as young and innocent as they look.

Kiddy Grade is one of the better cyberpunk anime series that I have seen of late. While the story is getting dark, the tone remains light-hearted and the balance is perfectly judged. The scripts are excellent and the conspiracy at GOTT is absolutely compelling, extending and adding to the entertaining stories on the first few discs. The characters are well rounded and enjoyable to watch. Disc 5 is a little slow to get going, but when it does, it ratchets up the tension to an unbearable level, leading to the inevitable explosion in Break/Down. There may be a question of value for money with just over an hour of material on each disc, but with the story as involving as this, it becomes a small complaint. I just can`t wait for the next instalment.