The first Korean created animation show to premire in the US continues with the second volume of Bastof Syndrome.  The mysteries deepen and the subplots become more intertwined, but the show still doesn't get intriguing.  It continues to be vague and obtuse just for the sake of being mysterious.

As this volume starts, there have been rumors floating around town of the Bastof Syndrome popping up.  The mayor of Xenon is quite worried about it, since this is a bad omen.  (I have no idea what this means either, and I've watched the shows.)

Pseudo logs into the Lemon Game and finds himself outside a nuclear reactor.  He's attacked by an enemy and pursues his opponent into the building.  Out in the real world, the Mayor and his staff find that a nuclear reactor is starting to overload, and try to shut it down, but find that access to the computer system that he needs to access is locked.  Apparently someone named Pluto has put a password on the system, and they can't break into it.  Back in the game, the fighting near the reactor threatens to cause it to melt down.  With the Lemon Game merging with reality more and more, losing this battle could cause the city to be irradiated.

As if that wasn't enough to cause people to worry, after the battle the Bastof Emblem forms over the reactor.  This is the same emblem that started appearing just before the Lemon Game vanished nine years ago, and it causes much anxiety in certain circles.

To add to everyone's problems, a female hacker is broadcasting the Lemon Game on pirate TV.  It's the hottest show on the air, but Moderato, the game's programer, definitely doesn't want people watching and tries to find the person who has hacked into his server.

In this volume the mysteries deepen but there are no clues or explanations for any of the things that have been going on.   It is hard to stay interested in the show when the plot doesn't seem to advance.  It just seems to go on with no purpose.  Yes, there is the mystery of the virtual reality game merging with reality, but no one seems to really worry about that.  Moderato seems more interested in the fact that someone is hacking into his server than the fact that the game he created is influencing reality.  Why is no one concerned about that?  They don't even seem to find it odd or unusual.  Why doesn't Moderato just shut the game down if it has almost caused a nuclear disaster?

Nothing is explained in this show which gets a little tiring.  Who is Pluto?  Why does the mayor want his seals removed? What are the seals on?  I also wondered why no one every asked "What is the Bastof Syndrome that everyone is worrying about?"  There are many questions, but no answers to anything after 10 episodes of this show.  I was hopping that there would have been some progress.

The battles were also not that interesting since the most difficult problems or lopsided battles were always solved with some techno-babble mumbo jumbo that just works in the nick of time.  During one tricky battle Moderato exclaims:  "I'll download an identical game space environment bomb and then have Bebefau log into the new space!"   Yea, why didn't I think of that?  Since just about every fight ends with some deus ex machina last-minute save, you know how all the battles will ultimately be resolved.

This show is presented with the original Korean language track in stereo and an English 5.1 dub.  I preferred the Korean audio track, though the English dub was fairly good.  The English actors did a good job of matching the lip movements and giving the characters emotion.  The voices of the children are a little high in pitch, but not the annoying squeaky voices that are the norm for English dubs.  Both audio tracks made use of the front sound stage, though the 5.1 English track didn't do much with the rear channels and didn't have the punch I was expecting.

Video:

Like the first volume, this DVD only has mediocre video quality.  The full frame image had a significant amount of aliasing.  Whenever the camera moves, which is often, the lines shimmer and shake.  This became distracting and annoying after a short time.  There is also a good amount of blocking in several scenes too.

These digital artifacts marred an otherwise good looking show.  The colors are bright and there is a nice palate used for the show.  The image is a little soft, but only slightly.  It is too bad the encoding job wasn't better.

The Extras:

This DVD includes a clean opening and closing, and trailers for Gravion, Megazone 23, Magical Play, Angelic Layer, Nuku Nuku TV, and the remastered Robotech.

Final Thoughts:

This show still hasn't captured my interest.  The mysteries don't intrigue me since they just go on and on without any hint that they'll ever be resolved, and the battles are all very similar.  I was really hoping that things would develop further in this set of shows, but though the plot goes on, we aren't any closer to any answers than we were in the first episode.  This DVD is worth a rental.