The first major animated release from Korea starts its second half with this volume.  Bastof Syndrome Volume Four has more battles in the Lemon Game and more mystery, but it still doesn't engage the viewer.

In this volume things don't get any closer to being resolved, and some mysteries grow deeper.  The Lemon Game is still being played, and the things that happen in the virtual reality arena are still effecting the real world.  Moderato is obsessed with finding out more about Dr. Pluto, a genius who died years ago.  As he digs around, he finds that Dr. Pluto's last project was the PX-1, an artificial robot.

After playing the Game, Pseudo, followed by Mint and Bebefau, goes to Dr. Pluto's old house, which is now abandoned (because all large houses are vacated after the owner dies.)  The mayor, who is somehow connected to Dr. Pluto, has been watching the house, and sends his men to scare the kids off.

Teal is also having visions involving Dr. Pluto, and his daughter, a girl who was crippled at a young age.  She follows an old hallway under the convent where she lives and finds the room where, according to her visions, Dr. Pluto created the PX-1.  The same room that Bebefau discovered while searching the Doctor's house.
 
This volume still doesn't manage to capture my interest.  The dues ex machina endings that most of the battles have, and the seemingly random events that pass as plot development leave me less than excited.

The main problem is that the story has too many threads, and I don't find any of them interesting.  They plop the viewer in the middle of a world without any explanation, and then they pile on vague statements that don't make any sense.  In this volume, for example, when Pseudo is losing a difficult battle, it is revealed that he's fighting in a Lemon Hall.  Oh, how obvious.  Yeah, a Lemon Hall.  Too bad they never say what in the Sam Hill a Lemon Hall is.
 
There are some really dumb aspects to the show too.  In one episode Moderato threatens to destroy the game if the kids don't start following orders.  What?!!?!  This game has been causing damage in the real world and almost caused a nuclear reactor to meltdown.  Why wouldn't Moderato destroy it if he could.  Then there's Pseudo's VR battle suit.  The suit, which is just a computer program in a VR arena, becomes damaged in a battle and can't be 'fixed.'  The computer program can't be restored to its original state.  Right.
 
When all is said and done, this program doesn't cover anything new, and what it does cover has been done better in other series.

Audio:

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 character's 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 other volumes, this DVD only has mediocre video quality. The full frame image had a good 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.

Extras:

This DVD includes a clean opening and closing, and a series of trailers.

Final Thoughts:

I had high hopes for this series.  Since this was the first major animated release from Korea, I was hoping that this show would be more original and creative.  As it is, this show seems to be mysterious for the sake of being mysterious.  There is nothing wrong with that necessarily, but this show doesn't spend enough time on character development and comes across as a unintelligible mish-mash.   With the show more than half finished, there should be more to hold the viewers interest.  Skip it.