Three friends in a band have dreams of making it big some day.  But when their chance comes, one of them gets caught in the middle of an age old battle between rival factions of mystical forces.  That's the set up in Aquarian Age, ADV's newest release.

Kyota is in a band with his friends Shingo and Junichi.  They've been together for a while, but never had really had much success.  Then, after playing a New Year's Eve bash, the group gets scouted by an agent from Cosmopop, a recording company.

This is just what the band has always hoped for, but something's not right.  Kyota starts having visions of magical girls fighting above the city.  Girls that might be fighting over Kyota.  Their fights look like brief flashes of lights to other people, but Kyota can see what's really going on, even though he doesn't understand it.

It seem that different factions are fighting, and Kyota's semi-girlfriend Yoriko, is involved with one of them.  More than involved, she is destined to be the leader of the mystical faction as soon as her powers emerge, something she doesn't want to happen.  While Yoriko's interest in Kyota is romantic by nature, other people have more sinister plans for the young musician.  The agent that scouted him, and a superstar model who hits on him both want to use the singer for their own purposes.  How does Kyota fit into this ancient battle?

I enjoyed watching this show.  There are several mysteries that are intriguing and keep the viewers interest.  Who are these invisible girls who keep fighting?  Who is the talent scout really, and why does she have such an interest Kyota?  On the down side, the plot does advance rather slowly, especially when you take into account the fact that there are only three DVDs in this series.  Though  the big questions are posed in the first episode, by the end of the fifth show more questions have popped up than are answered.  It will be interesting to see how they manage to explain what is going on and wrap the story in the next two discs.

The animation in the show is very good.  The characters and backgrounds are full of detail and the animation flows smoothly.  The few instances where CGI animation was used, it meshed well with the more traditional cell-type animation.  A good looking show with an interesting story.

This DVD contains the first five episodes from the series in a clear Amaray case with a reversible cover.  Included in the case is an ad for the Aquarian Age trading card game, and an eight page booklet that has comments by the creative staff about the show.

Audio:

Like most anime that is put out nowadays, this disc offers the choice of a stereo Japanese track with optional English subtitles or an English dub in 5.1. I alternated between tracks as I watched the show, and I had a slight preference for the original language track, but thought the English dub was fine. The English track was a more full, but the Japanese track wasn't flat at all.  Both tracks sounded fine, with no distortion or other defects.

Video:

This show was presented in letter boxed format, which is, unfortunately, not anamorphically enhanced.   Even so, it looks very good.  The lines are nice and sharp, and the colors are vivid and even.  Digital defects are practically nonexistent.  Even aliasing, something that usually plagues animation, was very minimal.  A very good looking DVD.

Extras:

This disc features a clean opening and closing, a Japanese promo trailer for the show, and a five minute reel of production sketches.  There is also an eleven minute short, Behind the Anime: Aquarian Age, that has short interviews with the voice cast where they talk about the audition process.

Final Thoughts:

I liked this show and I'm looking forward to the next two DVDs.  The program has a good amount of mystery which makes me want to see how it will all turn out.  While I was hoping that the plot would advance at a faster pace, I'm content to let the show develop at its own pace.  A show that's worth seeing.  Recommended.