The second volume of Knight Hunters Eternity seems to fall off quite a bit in quality. Maybe it's the fact that it has been a while since I saw the first volume, but the series really didn't do much for me this time around.

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. In the first volume, members of Vice infiltrate a private school, Koua, which an unusually high number of students have been committing suicide. Once there they discover the nefarious plans of an unknown mastermind to mold the students into evil rulers.

As this volume opens, Vice is in the finishing process of gaining control of Koua. They discover the hidden Z Class rooms, only to find that all of these students have been killed. Though they gain control of the school, they haven't caught the enemy behind this plan yet, they've only managed to push them into the shadows more deeply. Vice also discovers that the strange events that have been happening are not limited to Japan, and that some international schools have Z classes too. It is obvious that this plot runs deeper than they expected.

While I enjoyed the first volume, this installment doesn't really make things clearer like I was hoping. The plot just get more and more convoluted and confusing. The narrative leaps from place to place, and it is easy to get lost. I could live with that, but the dialog has really started to get on my nerves. There is a lot of purple prose throughout these shows, and it is laughably bad most of the time. Lines like "My love, you must kill me, or I will KILL YOU!" evoke laughter rather than a feeling of suspense.

There is a lot of angst and melodrama in the series too, too much for my tastes. It seems like everyone in Vice has seen their parents killed, or experienced some other atrocity and consequently they go around brooding all of the time. A little of this can add mystery and make characters feel more real, but they go way over the top in this show and turn it into a melodrama.

The animation is not that great either. 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.

This DVD contains four episodes in the series on a single sided DVD packaged in a black plastic keepcase.

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 on this DVD include a 4-minute outtake reel, and a clean closing. In addition there is a 25-minute roundtable discussion with the four Japanese voice actors who give life to the members of Vice. This was pretty funny in parts and worth watching.

Final Thoughts:

This show has become too melodramatic and confusing for my tastes. Everyone in the cast spend a lot of their time brooding and worrying about the past and the future. When they aren't doing that, they are spouting insipid dialog that is laughably bad. While the mystery is still intriguing, it has become more convoluted as the story progresses rather than becoming more clear. I'm hoping that the last volume wraps things up nicely, but I'm not expecting it. Rent It.