Super Robot Wars continues with volume six, and the action is just as fast and intense and the previous few volumes. With the Hagwane through the defenses in Earth orbit, the super-ship starts for its real objective: The Divine Crusaders' headquarters on the heavily fortified Aidoneus Island. It won't be an easy battle by any measure. Even though the plot is paper thin and the collection of supporting characters grows with every volume this is still a fun action-packed mecha show.

Series background:

In the future the earth is a very different place. After being hit by two giant meteors and going through a series of wars, the Earth Federation Government united all the peoples of Earth under one flag and restored the peace.

Then the third meteor struck, but this one was different. Inside was a cache of alien technology and proof that invaders were coming to take over. The technology that was discovered was harnessed by the EOTI (Extra Over Technology Institute) Organization and used to create mecha, called Personal Troopers, in order to defend Earth.

Ryusei Date is a teenager who is crazy about Personal Troopers and is very good at the popular game Burning PT where opponents fight mecha in a virtual reality world. Little does he suspect but Burning PT is actually a training ground to find likely Trooper pilots. When aliens attack just after a PT tournament, the government sends out an unmanned Trooper that Date climbs in and uses to defend his girlfriend. Of course playing in virtual reality and real life are two different things, but with his life on the line, Date doesn't have a lot of time to adjust to the differences.

Quickly pushed through training, Date is made part of a team that includes the experienced pilot Raidiese Branstein and team leader Aya Kobayashi, who is insecure in her ability to lead the small fighting group. Though they fail in their first full-scale training exercise, the group is put on active duty since the situation on Earth is getting pretty bad.

The EOTI Organization has decided that the Earth Government's peace talks with the aliens are actually the powers that be selling out Earth for the sake of their own skins. The EOTI has renamed themselves the Divine Crusaders (DC) and with their new, very advanced flying PT are determined to take over control of Earth. The Earth Space Stations and Moon colonies quickly align with the DC, which leaves the Earth Federation Army fighting a war on several fronts. Out gunned and out numbered, they really only have one chance left: the Noah-class space ship Hagwane. Armed to the teeth and able to function in the air, water, or in space, the Hagwane is loaded with the latest PT craft, including a few experimental models that can fly.

This volume:

The big battle in space over, the Hagwane heads towards its real objective: DC headquarters located on Aidoneus Island. Of course that won't be an easy target. Heavily defended and fortified it would be folly to attack it with only one ship; but the Hagwane has a secret weapon, the Trontium Buster Cannon.

Getting within the cannon's range is difficult, though, as the DC is able to fill the sky with their PTs. The Hagwane launches their manned combat suits and the result is an epic battle.

Getting through the defenses of Aidoneus Island isn't the only task however. When Date and his companions finally land on the island they discover another test: The Commander-in-chief of the DC, Bain Zoldark and his enormous mecha the Valsion! Before the battle starts, Bain explains just why he started the DC: he discovered that the rulers of Earth were planning on selling out to the aliens. In exchange for their lives and riches, the Federation Government was planning on turning Earth over to the extraterrestrial invaders! The Federation fighters aren't sure whether to believe this or not: could Bain be making this up to throw them off their game? After all, this is the decisive battle of this war; the outcome will determine who will rule Earth space, for the present at least.

The final episode on this disc is a bit of a filler show. After the hectic battles of the past few weeks, the Hagwane heads to Africa where some DC resistance is still fighting. ON the way there, they encounter the princess of a small country who has an unusual power.

As far as mecha shows go, this one is a winner. It's exciting and filled with cool battles and the powered suit designs are very good. It does have some problems; the cast is too large and it's easy to get characters confused, they have a tendency to pull new weapons and strategies out of thin air, and there isn't much of a plot. This is easy to overlook however. It's mecha show and not meant to be deep and meaningful.

The battles continue to be fun and exciting. With all of the PTs being computer created, they can spin and zip past the camera with greater speed than conventional animation could realistically create. The mecha really move at a fast rate in the fights, flashing past the camera in the blink of an eye, and that makes the show a lot of fun.

Audio:

Once again Bandai Visual has released a disc without an English dub. For the amount they are asking, you wouldn't think it would be too much to provide an English soundtrack for those who prefer watching dubbed anime. As it is the original Japanese audio is only in stereo but it sounds pretty good. The track had a fairly wide dynamic range and the impacts when two mecha were fighting had a fair amount of bass. Of course a multi-channel mix with a dedicated subwoofer track would make the fights more exciting, but you take what you can get. Overall this is a nice sounding disc.

Video:

The video quality of the 1.78:1 anamorphic image was very good, much better than the OVA that was released earlier. The image was pretty sharp with lines being tight and well defined. The colors were bright and solid and the blacks were deep. With only two episodes on the disc compression artifacts weren't a problem.

Extras:

Zip. Nada. Ziltch. Nothing. Just an 8-page insert. For the amount that they're charging for this disc, I was expecting something more.

Final Thoughts:

People who are looking for a dynamic show need look no further. This anime has some great fights which are animated with some very good CGI. While I'm still enjoying the show, the cast of characters is becoming a bit large and unwieldy and the plot, which seemed to be fairly detailed in previous volume, is only being used as an excuse to show more fights. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's only too bad that these discs are so expensive. There's a lot fans who will reasonably pass this series up because of that. Recommended.