Otaku who have been following My-Zhime - My-Otome will definitely want to pick up the final volume.  While some anime series have a hard time wrapping everything up in a satisfactory manner, this series has no such problems.  Things look desperate as Arika and the Queen lead a rag-tag team of Otome in an attempt to recapture the capital.  There's a lot of action, some interesting revelations and a surprise or two in volume seven of My-Zhime - My-Otome.

Series background:

The planet Earl has lost most of the technological knowledge that they once had.  One of the few pieces of advanced tech that they still have access to are nanobots that can enhance a woman's strength and abilities, but only virgin women.  The women who are injected with these devices are Otome, and act as both servants and bodyguards to the royalty of the planet.  If they ever have sex their bodies will reject the nano-machines however.

14-year-old Arika Yumemiya has traveled through vast deserts to the capital city of the Windbloom Kingdom in search of her mother, who she knew was an Otome.  Arika has a mysterious past, she hardly knew her mother and was raised by her grandmother, and there may be more to the young girl than meets the eye.   Arriving at the capital Arika meets Nina, a top Otome candidate.  Nina is aggravated by the rural Arika but when the new girl spots someone running from guards they both go to her rescue.

It turns out that the girl they saw was none other than Mashiro Blan de Windbloom, the soon to be crowned heir to the throne.  Mashiro isn't grateful that Arika and Nina saved her life.  After all, that's their job.  The princess is a spoiled brat of the first degree, partially because she's been pampered all her life, but also because of the rumors about her, rumors that she's not be the real princess.  Nearly 14 years ago there was an invasion.  The king and queen were killed, and the infant princess was missing.  As soon as the invasion was repelled, a minister produced a baby girl that he said was the princess...but was she really?

Based on her performance saving the queen, Arika is granted admission to Garderobe Academy where Otome are trained, an honor that many aspire to but few achieve.  Getting special treatment doesn't endear her to many of her new classmates however, and the fact that she doesn't have the money to pay the exorbitant tuition sets her apart from the others too.  It seems that passing her classes won't be the only things that Arika has to worry about.

In later volumes the series takes a look at the bigger picture and the political mechanizations of a few groups.  Things come to a head when the Garderobe Academy and the capital city of Windbloom are invaded by The Schwartz lead by Nagi, a young but crafty boy who has great plans.  Many of the students at Windbloom are given Otome powers in exchange for their loyalty, and Arika and the Queen find themselves among a group of people scraping out a meager existence in the desert, Windbloom's enemy the Aswad.

This volume:

This disc contains the final three episodes in the series.  While I'm usually disappointed in anime releases that only contain three programs, these are so exciting and fun that I didn't notice the short running time.

As the volume opens the various forces on the planet Earl are forming alliances and aligning themselves with one side or the other.  Countries are banding together, fearful of what Nagi has planned next.  His idea of having the Otome battle each other to the death so that mankind will be forced to fight their wars on their own looks like it will come to pass and the other sovereigns are getting nervous.

A band of Otome launch an attack against the capital in an attempt to get their school and city back, and that starts the war.  With the battle lines drawn everyone jumps in to support their side.

These three episodes chronicle this last grand battle.  On one side is Nina, who has been tricked by Nagi into operating the Harmonium, a weapon that nearly destroyed the planet in the last big war, and on the other is Arika and many of her Otome classmates.  The battle is fierce and exciting, but the episodes aren't all action.  They take time out to focus on the main supporting characters, and some people that I had forgotten about make an appearance too.  The show manages to strike a good balance between all-out mayhem and making sure that the plot still moves at a good clip.

Without giving anything away, the show ends very nicely.  The various plot lines are all resolved and the fate of most of the supporting characters is chronicled.  Some anime shows have a hard time wrapping everything up, but this isn't one of them.  A great conclusion to a very nice show. The DVD:

Audio:

This series offers viewers the option of a listening to the show in the original Japanese with optional subtitles or to an English dub, both in stereo.  I alternated audio tracks and the Japanese one is superior.  I'm not a person who thumbs their nose at all dubs, some recent English dubs have been fantastic, but this one has some characters with phony accents that sound really bad.  They are minor characters, granted, but we shouldn't have to put up with something like that at all.  Aside from that, both tracks sounded fine.  There were no dropouts, distortion or background noise that I could hear.

Video:

The full frame image looked very good.  The colors were bright and solid and the lines were tight.  On the digital side things also looked fine.  There was just a touch of aliasing in the background, but it was much less than your average anime disc.  Cross colorization, blocking, bleeding were all absent.  Overall I was very happy with this disc's visuals.

Extras:

Bandai includes a short bonus scene with this disc:  My-Otome vs. My-Hime.  This humorous mini-episode has the leads of My-Otome and My-Hime arguing over who will be the lead in the next series.  The supporting characters all jump in too, stating why they should have the lead part.  It only lasts a couple of minutes, but it's pretty funny.

Final Thoughts:

This was a very good series.  With a nice story arc and some likable characters it's just the type of show I enjoy watching.  While there weren't too many huge surprises in the series, it did play out nicely.  If you're looking for a fun show with good characters and some enjoyable action, you could do worse than this.  Highly Recommended.