Galaxy Angel started off as an amusing if a bit too silly and shallow show that was fun to watch.  Then came a second season, and a third, and a fourth and a sequel, and then another sequel, and soon it turned into one of those franchises that has overstayed its welcome.  Now Bandai has released a one-shot OVA that is little more than a glorified ad for yet another upcoming Galaxy Angel series:  Galaxy Angel S.  While it's mildly amusing in some parts, the throw away stories that are not part of any continuity will likely leave viewers thinking "is that all there is?"

If you're not familiar with the Galaxy Angel franchise, then this disc isn't for you.  With only half an hour to tell two stories, they don't waste any time with backgrounds or establishing characters.  When you see Milfeulle grab a live hand grenade in the first half-episode to save her comrades, if you don't giggle and think "this'll end badly" then this show's not for you.

In the first half the Angel Brigade is trapped.  Rebels (possibly aliens...it's not really clear) have attacked, breached the defenses, and have pretty much taken over.  The Angels are the only ones left, and they know that there's no chance for reinforcements.  Instead of surrendering though, they decide to go out fighting.  That's when a grenade flies over their defensive wall.  Milfeulle takes it, runs, and then....she wakes up.  Everything is back to normal.  No rebels, no grenade.  The only thing is that no one can see or hear her.  The rest of the troop is reminiscing and she listens in and gets mad when they don't talk about her.  The twist ending was nice, if not totally unexpected.

The second half, totally ignoring the events in the first part, has Lt. Col. Volcott is transferred to the Twin Star Brigage, a pair of rather hard to handle kids.  They make fun of Volcott's mustache and don't listen to what he says, which drives the poor guy nearly crazy.  The episode ends in the middle of a scene too.  Get it?  You'll be in suspense forever since it's never going to be finished!  If you had to stop reading while you caught your breath, then you'll love this disc.  Otherwise...probably not so much.

That's about it.  Each story had its moments, but neither was really funny.  Both were very short and there just wasn't enough time to really set up a good series of gags.  It felt like these were ideas that never made it into the earlier series, and someone decided to throw them together and release them.

Audio:

Like most anime DVDs, this disc lets you watch the show in the original Japanese with optional subtitles or with an English dub, both in stereo.  In switched back and forth and found that I enjoyed both sound tracks.  I have a slight preference for the Japanese, but only a slight one.  The English voice actors did a good job.  They managed to match their dialog to the mouth movements, and didn't use any phony accents.

In both languages, there was some use of the front soundstage, mainly with sound effects.  The sound quality was very good, with a nice full rounded sound, especially during the opening song.  There was a good amount of bass present, and the dialog was clear and crisp.  No evidence of hiss or hums.  A nice quality sound track.

Video:

The video quality was also top-notch for this DVD. The colors are bright and the lines are crisp.  There was only a slight hint of aliasing and other digital artifacts present.  Hardly worth mentioning.  The fine lines on the characters did not shimmer and disappear like they do on some discs.  I was very happy with the look of this show.

Extras:

There's a fair number of extras include on this disc, but none of them are really exciting.  First off is a pair of promos for the show, one for TV Tokyo and one for TV Osaka.  Then there's an audio drama based on the series (in Japanese with English subtitles) that lasts about 20 minutes.  Things are wrapped up with "A talk with Milfeulle, Mint and Chitose."  In this staged and scripted discussion, the new voice actress on the series runs into two of the actresses who voice the more established characters and asks them about the show.  *Yawn.*  They were trying to be cute but they giggled too much and never really discussed anything of interest.  (Unless talking about Milfeulle's favorite food gets you excited.)

Final Thoughts:

All in all this was just too short.  There wasn't enough of a show to really get into the spirit of things, and the extras were pretty lame.  With only one half hour episode on the disc, and not one of the better episodes either, it's hard to recommend buying this.  It would make a good rental, but only for established fans of the franchise.