The Movie:
The fourth volume of Galactic Railways goes down a notch in quality
from the previous discs. While the earlier episodes in this series
toyed with melodramatic elements, most of the shows on this volume fully
embrace it. There's just a bit too many people pining for their lost
love and not enough action that had previously made the show so entertaining.
While it's not a bad set of shows, it didn't have the charm of the other
volumes.
Series recap:
Manabu Yuuki is the son of a Captain in the SPD, Space Defense Force,
the organization that protects and guards the millions of miles of interstellar
space routes that the galactic trains travel across. Manabu's father,
Wataru, is the Captain of Big One, the pride of the SDF fleet. Wataru
sacrifices his life to save his crew and the passengers of a train while
Manabu and his brother Mamoru look on. A few years later Mamoru comes
of age and joins the SPD, only to die in the line of duty like his father.
When Manabu reaches maturity, he feels that it's his duty to join up
with the SPD also to see the universe and help his fellow man. Over
the strenuous objections of his mother, Manabu ships out.
As luck would have it, he is assigned to Sirius Platoon, a fighting
unit that sees a lot of action and uses his father's old command: Big One.
In the platoon with him are Louis, an attractive new rookie, and Bruce,
the old hand who doesn't approve of the newcomer.
Manabu is a little different from the other members of the SDF.
He doesn't want to see anyone die, so he'll readily attempt some dangerous
plan in a hostage situation. On top of that, the only weapon he carries
is his father's old sidearm which no longer functions. This causes
some tension between Manabu and his fellow SDF officers, but his optimistic
outlook wins them over.
Volume 4:
There are four stand alone episodes on this volume. While they
are generally entertaining, some of the episodes are a little too melodramatic
and a bit sappy.
The disc starts off with an action packed episode where Big One has
to assist in the protection of space station from a meteor swarm.
Of course their plan is thrown awry when a comet is discovered in the middle
of the meteor shower that is composed of material that is too dense to
destroy.
The next episode is a rather insipid affair. A very rich and rather
unattractive man has trouble finding a women who will care for him, and
not his money. When the train he's on crashes onto a world with a
corrosive atmosphere, the SDF comes to the rescue. In the corse of
being saved though, the man finds someone who really does love him: Big
One's medical robot, Yuki.
An old flame of David's pops up in the next show. She's a treasure
hunter out to steal a priceless jewel from a restricted planet and David
has to go after her. This is another sappy "love conquers all" show
with an ending that was really poor.
The disc ends with the best show on the disc though. An alien
is loose in the SDF headquarters and Manabu is nearly killed trying to
capture it. His partner Bruce thinks that Manabu's injuries are his
fault, that he's cursed to have partners die on him. He has to face
his own demons as well as learn to rely on his teammates if he's going
to survive.
These shows were just a bit too melodramatic overall. There was
too much unrequited love and people moaning about their feelings which
really brought the show down. Hopefully this is just an anomaly and
the future volumes won't rate so high on the sappy scale.
The DVD:
This volume contains episodes 15-18 in a clear keepcase with a two sided
cover. As with the other discs, the one thing that mars the presentation
is the non-skipable trailer that FUNimation included before the menu.
You can't fast forward or chapter skip past it, which is pretty irritating.
Audio:
This program offers the choice of a Japanese track in stereo or and
English dub in both stereo and 5.1. I alternated tracks while viewing
the show, and all three were very good. While I wish that the original
language track was in 5.1 also, I couldn't complain about the sound quality.
The dialog was clean, and there was no distortion or other audio problems.
The English 5.1 track had a bit more punch to it, and used the soundstage
a bit more. The voice actors were very good. I was quite impressed. There
were not any stupid accents or phony sounding voices. While I prefer the
Japanese track, I enjoyed the English dub as well.
Video:
The anamorphic widescreen video image is very good. The colors
are bright and solid and the lines are tight. There is a good level
of detail with even small items being crisp and clear. Digital defects
are nonexistent with even aliasing being absent. This is a very good looking
show.
Extras:
The most interesting bonus item was another episode of Mr. Stain
in Junk Alley. "Ca-ra-ku-ta" is the title of the show included
on this disc. This 7-minute CGI short is pretty amusing, and I'm looking
forward to seeing more. The series is going to be released in 2006,
and this is a great way to get the word out about it.
There is also a clean opening and closing as well as a commentary by
the ADR and English voice actors.
Final Thoughts:
This has been a fun series so far, but with volume of the show is just
too melodramatic for my tastes. There is still some good action sequences
and the last episode was exciting but overall this didn't measure up to
the previous volumes. Even so, this disc is still Recommended.
The stories are still good and if you can look past the sappy bits, it's
enjoyable.
Buy: