"For a hapless young cadet, boot camp is no picnic, and Misaki is as hapless as they get. With the help of friends Luxandra, Kiri, and Suzanna, however, she advances in her training. Pretty normal, right? Wrong. Luxandra should be dead. Suzanna should be discharged. Misaki herself should have vanished in the exodus from the Watcher's Nest outpost. And the mysterious life form known as the Ghoul still keeps popping up. It's up to Lieutenant Commander Ertiana and the rest of the survivors from Watcher's Nest to find out why everything on Earth is back to normal…when everything else in the universe is anything but. Get ready for a high-octane, faster-than-light ride through space and time in Misaki Chronicles!"

The English dub voice actors were Kira Vincent Davis as Misaki Kureha, Christine Auten as Luxandra Frail, Emily Carter-Essex as Suzanna Bluestein, Jessica Boone as Kiri Marialante, and Shelley Calenme Black as Lyar Von Ertiana with Director Hiroshi Negishi being the original director and David Del Rio on the dubbed version. The story is set in the year 2315 with the first four characters as cadets in a space program of sorts. Misaki is the hapless misfit who has neither the physical stamina, intelligence, or other skills needed to succeed in the program while the others are exceptionally competent. The ultimate goal of the training is to prove worthy of wearing something called Rampart Armor that allows them to fight beings called Ghouls. The Ghouls are extremely powerful beings that are shown in computer generated graphics (CGI) that seemed ill fitting to the otherwise colorful style of animation.

The initial gimmick of this follow up series is that the cast is fighting the Ghouls not just in the interdimensional portals but back in time during moments where critical events take place. If you've followed the series to this point, you'll know that the events ending the series previously had lots of action taking place by the space station called Watcher's Nest. Well, what had originally happened seems to have been at least partially undone by use of meddling in the time lines. This causes some distress since the temporal barrier shows Earth is in a bubble separating it from the rest of the Universe, with some of the story taking place in 2317, some in 2315 and some in 2316. Essentially, other than the bouncing around in the form of flashbacks, the story is split up into different paths that made it somewhat more difficult to keep up with.

The big story overall in the first five volumes involved Lieutenant Commander Ertiana trying to figure out the question of "what went wrong?" If you've watched the various episodes of Star Trek that dealt with time travel or the old Sliders show where multiple Earths were presented as side by side, you'll have a better ability to conceptualize what's going on. At this point in the game, having seen the previous series will definitely be an asset though I got the impression that the fan service (the lead females are gifted with breasts the size of their heads, actively bouncing breasts at that) elements were down played a lot from earlier material. As Ertiana searches for clues, the girls engage in training exercises, usually proving Masaki as being the deadweight of the team. Still, I got the impression that Misaki was the lynchpin for solving the issues involved and placed in the team for better reasons than as a tribute to her wildly famous father who was lost in a previous mission.

My only suggestion for this one is to get the previous show first and watch it or you'll be as out of luck as I was. Further, try this as a Rent It since the pretty animation elements were weakened by the CGI (which didn't mesh very well here) and the need for the viewer to see the earlier material was simply too evident from the first episode all the way through the volume. Time travel and all the possibilities that come with it are tricky to do properly and this wasn't the strongest entry in the history of science fiction. In all, you could do worse but the exposition needed to make this work well enough, bogged down the show (was it Earth that was locked in time or the rest of the Universe?).

Picture: Misaki Chronicles 1: Second Chances was a pretty show with a 1.85:1 ratio anamorphic widescreen image that was usually well handled. The anime style used for the characters was right up there with most modern releases or perhaps even slightly better but the over use of CGI lowered the quality for me more than a little. The limited amount of actual movement by the characters came off as looking like the show was low budget but I don't think it was. The transfer onto the DVD was well done with no compression artifacts but there was some minor pattern noise at times that you'll see if you pay attention.

Sound: The audio was presented with the usual choices of the original Japanese 2.0 Dolby Digital or the redone English language dub offering a 5.1 Surround track. The vocals seemed better in the original language track but the special effects and music were enhanced on the dubbed track. This has been almost standard practice with ADV Film dubs since they seem to be on the ball at taking care of business. None of the dub vocalists were bad enough to stand out in my mind and fans of either way of handling vocals will be satisfied at the outcome. In terms of separation between the channels, the dub was far better but the amount of use they got was minimal and primarily limited to the action sequences.

Extras: When getting five episodes on a DVD release by ADV Films, you really can't expect a lot of extras outside of the usual trailers, clean openings and closings, and artwork. This DVD also had a double sided DVD cover and a mini-manga story line that was too tiny for me to read easily but still a nice attempt to offer up something extra where it wasn't expected.

Final Thoughts: Misaki Chronicles 1: Second Chances was a pretty show with some heady ideas about time travel but the need to be familiar with the previous volumes in the story limited my enjoyment of the show too much to really get into this one. The battle sequences were flawed by the CGI effects and I found it difficult to truly enjoy the potential of the material here. Perhaps if there had been a text feature or paper insert describing whatever you needed to know from before, I'd have appreciated it more but such was not the case here. Still, it had some interesting moments for me, even if learning the personalities of the characters was tough given the flashback format employed to tell the story.

If you enjoy anime, take a look at some of the recommendations by DVDTalk's twisted cast of reviewers in their Best Of Anime 2003, Best Of Anime 2004, and Best of Anime 2005 articles or their regular column Anime Talk.