The Show:
The sixth volume of E's Otherwise brings the series to a close,
thankfully. Though the main plots are resolved and a lot of the mysteries
are answered, it's a case of too little too late. The series was
too aimless and disjointed to really get involved with, and the characters
weren't very interesting.
Series recap:
In the future, the whole world is controlled by 12 large corporations.
Even governments are under the thumb of these powerful conglomerates.
One of them, Ashurum, has been collecting people with psychic ability,
called E's, to form a fighting group. Their latest acquisition is
Kai, a quiet young man who is a pacifist at heart. Ashurum has created
this group in order to protect other psychics, who are feared and hunted
throughout the world. Or so they claim. While that's a good
story to tell the young E's, Ashurum is only using the psychics for their
own ends.
In the first volume, Kai and the other E's are ordered to attack the
city of Gald in order to route out some rebels. During the attack
Kai gets knocked out and separated from the rest of the group. He's
found, wounded, by Yuuki, a sort-of private eye who takes on jobs other
people turn down, and his young friend Oska. They nurse him back
to health and Kai decides to stay with them. He's never been in the
outside world and it's new and exciting. So Kai and Yuuki team up
and start taking on some real tough assignments. But Ashurum hasn't
forgotten about Kai, and they want him back at any cost.
Added to this is the problem with Oska. This cheerful and innocent
girl is discovered to be a psychic too though her powers aren't well defined.
Ashrum and the resistance both want to use her powers to further their
own ends, and Yuuki isn't sure which way he should turn.
Volume Six:
Gaul is a battlefield once again as the disc opens. Ashrum has
finally decided to take the city over, and they launch an all out attack
and everyone has to take a side.
With Ashrum finally playing their cards, some things become clearer.
The giant corporation isn't just collecting psychics for defense, but for
a more grandiose plan that would impact the whole world. Kai's sister
plays an important part in their plans, but the young psychic doesn't want
his sister used as a puppet and attacks Ashrum's headquarters.
Kai's rival, Shen-Long, also discovers some secrets. He finds
out that Ashrum has been routinely re-writing the memories of the psychics
under their control. That explains his sister's recent change in
personality, and he burst into the medical center to rescue her.
The two enemies find out that they have to work together if they are to
have any chance of achieving either of their goals.
When all was said and done, this series wasn't horrible, but it wasn't
good either. The series has a hard time finding its voice and what
story it wanted to tell. Looking back on it, much of the second and
third discs didn't have anything to do with the main plot.
The characters are one dimensional, and the dialog is a bit hokey too.
Though the series did have its moments, these were few and far between.
When the last episode ended the main thing that I felt was relief that
I didn't have to sit through another disc.
The DVD:
This disc contains four episodes, down from five on the first two discs,
in a white keepcase. There isn't an insert.
Audio:
Like most anime that ADV puts 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:
The full frame video quality for this DVD was good. There is some
aliasing in the background and some of the fine lines shimmer, but this
is a minor issue. The colors are bright and the lines are tight.
A very nice DVD.
Extras:
Extras on this disc include a non-credit opening and closing, an art
gallery of production sketches, and some text actor profiles for the English
dub cast.
There was also a 5-minute featurette Trash Talk: Inside the Actor's Mind, which is pretty horrid. They tried to make this interview with Christopher Patton a comedy, but if failed miserably. Sorry guys, but this just fell flat.
Final Thoughts:
This series lost me after the first couple of volumes, and it really
never won me back. They continually changed the focus of the show,
which was confusing, and the one they finally picked wasn't that interesting.
The characters didn't seem real, and the show just never grabbed me.
While it wasn't a struggle to watch the show, it wasn't a program that
I looked forward to. This is a lesser series, but one that might
not make a bad rental.
Buy: