I missed the first Knight Hunters series when Media Blasters released it in early 2002, so I wasn't too sure if I was going to be lost in this series or not.  I didn't go into it with high expectation for that reason but was pleasantly surprised.  Knight Hunters: Eternity turned out to be an interesting show with a fairly detailed mystery.  Most of the complaints I had early in the show were erased by the time the fifth episode was over.

Night Hunters concerns an organization called Vice.  The opening describes them as "vigilantes who hunt down criminals who hide in the shadows ensconced in the dark world.  They are devoted to putting an end to those who had skillfully evaded the arms of justice."  This group is lead by the mysterious Persia, a man who gives the group instructions over the phone in Charlie's Angels fashion.  As the series begins, there has been a rash of terrorism in Japan.  Four of the terrorists killed themselves rather than being captured, and the only clue is that all four attended the same private school, Koua.  So the four members of Vice infiltrate the school.  One member, Aya, is hired as a teacher, while another, Sena, enrolls as a student.

Sena arrives just in time to see a student jump to his death.  It seems that there has been a rash of suicides, all students who have been recently demoted from the elite S class.  This S class is so powerful that they even rank over the instructors.  The leader, a freshman named Toto, has the power to fire teachers he doesn't like.  Digging into the school, Vice finds out that the S class is training its members to be evil rulers who eliminate anyone that shows weakness.  The members of S class rule the other students with an iron hand,   But when a friend of Sena's is promoted to S class and can't cut it, her life is in serious danger.  But Toto and his S class aren't the one's pulling the strings.  Can Vice discover who the head of the organization is and eliminate him?

I haven't seen the first season of this series, but had no trouble understanding the program.  Though the show doesn't recap origin of Vice is, it doesn't really matter.  The series starts right off with the mystery of students killing themselves and keeps going strong from there.  I was pleasantly surprised by the way the mystery deepened as the show went on, with each revelation raising more questions and problems.  Though the plot dragged in places, the dull parts never lasted for long, and the multiple surprises in the fifth episode made up for any deficiencies that the early ones had.

One thing that was below par was the animation style.  Several corners were cut when they animated this show, with a lot of scenes consisting of a pan across a still frame, or zooming in on a static image.  The fight scenes mostly consisted of still frames of people attacking with lines in the background to denote action.  I was hoping for a little bit more.

The show was also more violent than I was expecting given the 13 and up rating.  There were shots of people's heads smashed on the ground as a result of jumping from a building, and a scene where someone kills themself by stabbing a sword into their stomach.   This wasn't necessarily gratuitous or bad, just a little more than I'd think was appropriate for the rating.

This DVD contains the first five episodes in the series on a single sided DVD packaged in a Amray case.

Audio:

This disc offers both the original Japanese language stereo track and an English dub, also in stereo.  I viewed the show in both languages, and I preferred the Japanese track over the English one, but only slightly.  The English dub was actually very good, with the voices matching the lip movements pretty accurately.  There were no phony accents or overacting, something that occurs much too often in anime dubs.

Both audio tracks were clear without any hum or distortion.   While the fight scenes were not as forceful as I would have liked, the disk still sounded very good.

Video:

The full frame image is overall very good.  The lines are tight and clean and the colors are not faded.  There is a fair amount of aliasing with diagonal lines having a stair step effect and fine lines often shimmer.   This never gets distracting, but it is fairly prevalent.

Extras:

The extras are a little sparse on this DVD, but I can forgive that since there are five episodes included on this volume.  There was a 2 ½ minute outtake reel, and a clean opening.  In addition there are trailers for I'll CKBC, Mirage of Blaze, Weathering Continent and Eight Clouds Rising.

Final Thoughts:

I was a little apprehensive about this show since I haven't seen the original series yet, but I had no problem enjoying it.  The mystery unfolded in a satisfying manner with some things being revealed and other aspects getting more mysterious.  Thought the animation was not the most elaborate ever filmed, it wasn't so cheap as to hurt the story.  Overall, an intriguing series that has me looking forward to the next two volumes.  This rates on the high side of Recommended.