The Dark Axis creates the "Doom-Boom," Zero returns to his home world, Lacroa, and the Gundams find themselves lost in the "dark hole."  All this and more in the latest volume of S.D. Gundam Force!

S.D.Gundam Force is a series aimed at younger children with small sized Gundam robots protecting the city of Neotopia form the evil Dark Axis.  This is not to be confused with the other Gundam series.  This show has no connection with them, though the name implies that they do.

The shows on this DVD are:

Episode 10 - Gundam Triple Attack:  Shute has to write an essay on friendship, and has a hard time explaining the concept to the robots.  Meanwhile, the Dark Axis has come up with a new attack, the "Dark Axis Rainbow Doom-Boom."  This lethal move involves all three Axis members attacking at once.  When they try it out on the Gundam Force, the heroes find out what it means to be a friend.
 
This is one of the funnier episodes in the series.  It had my boys rolling on the floor with laughter, especially when the Zako soldiers impersonated the various members of Gundam force.   Even I, jaded critic that I am, found myself smiling.  An enjoyable, if silly, episode.

Episode 11 - The Mystery of Lacroa part 1: Arrival:  Bell Wood has fixed the dimensional transporter and is running some tests on it.  Though the first trails run smoothly, something happens and the machine goes haywire. The three Gundams and Shute are sucked in and sent to another dimension.  They find that they are in LaCroa, the world that Zero fled from to escape the Dark Axis.  Here they find everything turned to stone, except for three brave kids who are guarding the "Spirit Egg" the one thing that could save their world.  But the Gundams have their hands full when Tallgeese, an unstopable Gundam working for the Dark Axis attacks.

Episode 12 - The Mystery of Lacroa part 2: Trapped:  The heroes are trapped in the "Dark Hole" a deep pit where magic will not work.  Separated in the dark, they have to fight their own fears and some dangerous creatures to survive.

It is terribly unfortunate that they didn't put the whole three-part "Mystery of Lacroa" mini-series on this disc.  This was the most interesting story line so far.  Tallgeese was not a stupid villain as the other Dark Axis members are, and the goofiness was kept to a minimum.  There was a coherent plot and some questions that have been lingering for a while are answered.  But this DVD ends in the middle of the story.  With only three episodes on the disc, it would have been easy to fit another one on.
 
As I mentioned in my reviews of the previous volumes, this show is aimed at a preteen audience.  Because of this, I didn't enjoy the series nearly as much as other Gundam shows.  My two young sons found it hilarious and entertaining.  They found the idiotic Zaku and foolish Gouf always good for a laugh, and enjoyed the story lines.  I found the comedy rather juvenile and the stories very predictable, but then again the show wasn't aimed at me.  Lines that I found humorous in a campy way ("Your hatred is as mother's milk to me and your moans of terror, music to my ears.") my children didn't bat an eye at.

I was very disappointed they didn't finish the "Mystery of Lacroa" storyline on this disc.  While I usually don't mind if a story is broken up like this, the show is aimed at youths who are less likely to buy every disc as it comes out.  With only a scant three shows on the DVD as it is, not putting the end of the story on was poor planning.

There is only an English language dub on this disc, with no subtitles.  Granted this is a kid's show, but an original language audio track would have been desirable.  The audio quality from the two-channel mix was fine, though it was hard to understand Zaku at times, especially when he was talking fast.  This is more of a fault with the voice actor doing the dub rather than with the DVD itself.

Video:

This show was presented full frame, as it was shown on TV.   The video quality was about average.  The colors were bright and clear, but the were a significant number of digital artifacts.  There was a large amount of aliasing (diagonal lines having a stair step appearance rather than being straight) and horizontal lines would shimmer as they moved.  Finer lines on the Gundam's armor would appear and disappear while you were watching them.  There was also some banding in the backgrounds.  Though these didn't cause the show to look really bad, I did find them distracting.   My children didn't notice this so it didn't interfere with their enjoyment of the show.  With only three half hour episodes and one audio track on each disc, they should have done a better job of mastering the disc.

The Extras:

Unfortunately, there are no extras on this DVD, not even trailers.

Final Thoughts:

In a way, this was the best DVD from this series so far, and also the worst.  On the plus side, the stories are picking up a bit, with the first episode being pretty funny, and then the show getting serious with the Lacroa storyline. But the fact that they didn't put the final Lacroa story on this DVD was a big mistake.  Now children, who are the target audience, won't be able to enjoy the DVD as a stand-alone disc, as they could with the others.  My children were justifiably disappointed that the disc ended in the middle of a story. I'd say rent it, but only if you plan on getting the next disc in the set too.