Review of Kiddy Grade: Vol. 6

Introduction

In the distant future, mankind has colonised the galaxy, and established worlds light years apart connected by a network of warp gates. To mediate trade through the galaxy, The Galactic Organisation of Trade and Tariffs, GOTT for short, has been set up, staffed with a force of agents with broad discretionary powers. Éclair and Lumiere are members of the ES, cybernetically enhanced agents with youthful bodies and personalities; Kiddy Grade chronicles their adventures.

The sixth disc in the series sees the aftermath of the seismic events of the previous episodes. Eclipse has been deposed as the head of GOTT, and the new head is none other than Éclair herself supported by Lumiere. But Éclair is acting strangely, issuing odd orders. With most of the ES members recuperating from the destruction of the GOTT headquarters, Éclair has recruited some new warriors, warriors who look strangely familiar. But as she gathers more power to herself, there looks as if there will be two flies in the ointment. This disc contains episodes 16-18.

Look/Back
… Does exactly what it says on the label. Beginning with a look at the days following Éclair`s recuperation from the injuries that resulted in her amnesia. We learn why she lost her memory, and how Lumiere helped her find her place in GOTT once more. Then Armbrust recounts the events that lead up to Éclair`s ascent to power at GOTT, but to whom is he delivering the report?

Phantasm/Reborn
Éclair is now the head of GOTT, and is overseeing the reconstruction of the headquarters. She has recruited some familiar faces to reinforce their depleted strength. However her orders are becoming increasingly erratic, especially to the last remaining ambulatory ES members, Dextera and Sinistra. During Éclair`s inauguration ceremony as she lays out her vision for society, two mysterious figures show up to spoil the party.

Unmasked/Face
Éclair and Lumiere order the two intruders to be hunted down and destroyed. A frenzied chase leads out of the city, where the two masked intruders take refuge. Meanwhile two of Éclair`s puppets are having an identity crisis with Armbrust`s guidance. When they rebel against Éclair`s orders, she demands their elimination. The execution is interrupted by the two strangers, who remove their masks to reveal…

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. The episodes in this disc are set on Aineias, so we don`t see anything we haven`t seen before, but the animation in these episodes excel in terms of action, with some of the combat sequences in Phantasm/Reborn particularly memorable.

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

Blink and you`ll miss the extras. 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 too.

Conclusion

Kiddy Grade maintains the quality of the previous disc with these further three episodes. The pieces are beginning to fall into place regarding Éclair`s past, as we learn of the why she lost her memory, and just how close the two friends are. Look/Back is also a nice recap of all that has come before, neatly placed 16 episodes into the run, and also used as something of a plot point, rather than just a simple flashback. It`s a nice gentle episode that slows things down and lightens the mood between Break/Down`s destructive climax and the darker mood of Phantasm/Reborn. At the end of Break/Down, with Eclipse deposed and Éclair in charge, there was a hint that all was not right, and Phantasm/Reborn continues with that theme, showing an unsavoury change in Éclair`s personality as she runs GOTT with an iron fist. It`s pretty obvious that the new recruits she gathers for the ES are clones of her and Lumiere, but in a mirror to events in previous episodes, two of the recruits begin to have problems taking her irrational orders. It`s a nice, intelligent character touch that adds dimension to the story.

This rebellion is continued in the final episode on the disc. Unmasked/Face sees Éclair try desperately to hang on to her power, acting more and more irrationally, until she pushes too far. Ok, as a plot twist, this one was telegraphed four episodes ago. I think that the storytellers could have trusted the viewers and have left the character shift ambiguous, instead of holding our hand through the plot twist. But that said, it`s still well done, and when the two strangers are unmasked, I still felt a little relieved that `all was right with the world again`.

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 deepens as the new head, Éclair is acting irrationally and out of character. The characters are well rounded and enjoyable to watch. This sixth disc contains three more exciting episodes, with a little variety as Look/Back supplied some much-needed exposition first. 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. Just two more instalments to go.