Captain Herlock and the crew of the Arcadia continue their battle with the ancient Noo in this latest volume of the newest Herlock series.  Some gaps are filled in and mysteries are revealed, but there is still a lot to happen before the series wraps up.

At the end of the last volume, Kei was wounded saving Tadashi.  She's in very critical condition and gets whisked off to the Arcadia while Tadashi, wracked by guilt, is captured.  He is taken into a mine where there is a mysterious gate that has special meaning for the Noo.  As the ancient evil force, and the people they have taken over, start a ceremony, a miner who was searching in the depths for a missing comrade is discovered.  It turns out to be Maji the one time chief engineer for the Arcadia.  Maji and Tadashi are forced to fight to the death, but are saved at just in the mick of time by Herlock who was psychically summoned to the cavern.  He battles the Noo again, but this time it tries to take over his body.  The Noo should know better after their last defeat at Herlock's hands.

Back on board the ship, a partial translation of the hieroglyphs that were found has been completed, and they reveal some interesting details.  It seems that the Earth is still where it always was, but the Noo's cannon has caused the elementary particles that form the planet have both an up and a down spin at the same time.  (I know, it makes no sense.)  This has cause the planet to vanish.  Creating another cannon to reverse the effect is too complicated, so the crew of the Arcadia decides to take over the Noo's ship and use their weapon to return the Earth to its rightful place.  Unfortunately that is something that is easier said than done.
There were some interesting revelations in this triad of shows.  We find out what really happened in the hourglass nebula to release the Noo, and learn a little more about their nature and when they ruled.  But while I enjoy watching the series, it doesn't really grab me and bring me into the universe that has been created.  I always find the most interesting stories are the 'David verses Goliath' type, where a much weaker opponent faces an impossible challenge.  A lot of mecha shows are like that where a young child has the fate of his world placed upon his shoulders.  This show is almost the opposite.  While the Noo are an incredible power, Herlock and his crew are their equals if not superiors.  Though the Noo have been able to take over the entire solar system with no trouble at all, Herlock confounds them.  He is never worried or scared, and doesn't ever get into a position were he acts like he's in danger.  Even James Bond acts worried when he's captured in every movie, but Herlock doesn't have any such humanity, and that make it hard to relate to him.  He seems to be immune from every type of attack that the Noo can deliver, and that takes a lot of the suspense out of the show.

Audio:

The audio tracks for both the original Japanese and the English dub were in DD 5.1.  There were optional subtitles for the dialog or just for the signs if you were listening to the dub.

I viewed this DVD with both the Japanese and English soundtracks.  There was good use made of the soundstage, with a lot of effects and dialog coming from on speaker.  The English dub was very good, with very good acting from the talent.  There were not any phony accents (a pet peeve of mine) and the dialog matched the mouth movement.  The sound quality was good, with a nice range.  A nice sounding DVD.

Video:
 

The image was very blurry on this DVD. See the enlargement on the right.

Unfortunately, the picture quality of this disc is only a little bit better than the first two volumes, which looked awful.  I was very surprised at the low quality of this transfer.  The picture was not very good, especially for a recent show as this one was.  There were a large number of digital artifacts, especially aliasing.  There was also the problem of smaller objects shimmering when the camera was moving over them.  This is a result of poor encoding, and it was very prevalent.  These errors became distracting.

If that wasn't bad enough, the full frame picture was very soft, almost making it look like it was out of focus (though not quite that bad.)  The lines were blurred and not sharp and clear like they should be.

The picture was also dark, though much better than the first volume.  Details were lost in the shadows, and in dark rooms.  This show would have looked much better had it been just a little brighter.  This show deserved better.

The Extras:

In addition to a textless closing, there are previews for Gungrave, Demon Lord Dante, and Patlabor WXIII.

Final Thoughts:

The pace picked up with this volume and the plot is starting to progress nicely.  While I enjoyed watching the show, I was never really captivated by it.  Herlock's superiority just makes him a dull character in my view.  Even Superman had Kryptonite, but Herlock doesn't seem to have any weaknesses at all.  It the first two volumes really appealed to you, you'll like this one too.  But if you enjoyed the earlier volumes but were hoping the series gets better, like I was, you'll be disappointed to find that it doesn't.  Rent it.