The show is about a ten-year-old boy who has a genius aptitude for solving crimes in a turn of the last century setting much like London. The boy, Narutaki, carries a powerful handgun but relies more on his wits and skills to survive various villains who seek to end his career. He is helped by a remote controlled robot, Goriki, that resembles a large mech-robot in a number of other series and is powered by steam, much like the robots in Sakura Wars, except no one need pilot Goriki internally. The style of the anime is much more retro than most current releases on DVD and some people will like that more than I did. To me, this style often looks cheap and made on a low budget but it had a few bright moments in the included five episodes on this DVD.

The only power source of the time is coal and thus the city is powered by steam derived from the fossil fuel. Most technology is based on steam power and there are cars and such but nothing very advanced otherwise. The young boy, his butler, nurse, and robot fight a number of super powered bad guys and their own robots in a number of situations. It has its own style and I think it's worth checking out but it seemed like an acquired taste. Here's a breakdown of the episodes:

Episode Nineteen: Pale Crimson Memories:
The Crimson Scorpion, fresh off her last heist, plans to steal a valuable gem but mysteriously changes her mind for something more precious at the last moment. She announces her plans and this confounds Narutaki since that seemingly makes it easier for him to thwart her plans. Needless to say, his plan to catch her runs into a few snags and when all is said and done, his mission is superceded by a larger goal.

Episode Twenty: Goodbye Young Detective:
Narutaki becomes the target of a villain, Justice, that kidnaps and kills detectives. He is assigned help from police headquarters but Justice is very powerful and the weak, young detective seems unable to protect himself as those around him seem to suffer the consequences. In the end, he finds out the motivations of his opponent but will that be enough for him to protect himself and his new female companion?

Episode Twenty One: Le Bled's Invitation:
Narutaki investigates Le Bled's latest scheme, with the villain using an opera star and performing troupe to concoct some kind of harm to the masses. Le Bled eventually offers Narutaki an invitation to his opera, promising him the answers he's been seeking before his (Le Bled's) illness strikes him down.

Episode Twenty Two: Rivals, Eternally:
Narutaki accepts Le Bled's challenge with each of them forcing the other to accept various conditions. As the opera continues, Le Bled's history is unveiled, as are his motives. Accepting his fate to his medical condition, Le Bled hopes to clear his conscious before departing this mortal coil. In the end, Narutaki comes to Le Bled's side in order to clarify their relationship even as the authorities try to arrest him for his many crimes.

The show never really built up enough steam to interest me on more than a couple of cylinders. I liked the last two episodes and thought they'd have served better earlier in the series but the first two weren't all that great. I'm going to suggest fans take a look at Volume 1 before this one and if you like that volume, check out the series as a whole. It has some interesting ideas but seems geared for a much younger audience than the 15+ rating ADV gave it.

Picture: The picture was presented in the original 1.33:1 ratio full frame that it was shot in. It had a lot of static shots with limited movement going on and much of the actual movement of the characters was done by using stationary pictures and moving the camera. In all, not the best style of anime to interest me although the colors were muted to fit the story setting and the picture mostly devoid of artifacts.

Sound: The audio was presented with a choice of a 5.1 Dolby Digital English track or the original 2.0 stereo Japanese track with optional English subtitles. I thought the English track was better this time and displayed more separation between the channels. The music was well done here and I think it warrants a bit of attention by fans.

Extras: The best extra for me was either the comments by the scriptwriter, Toshihisa Arakawa, on the DVD (in text format) or the Director, Yasushi Murayama, interview on the paper insert. Each added some detail to the show and filled in some of the gaps on the development of the characters used throughout the series. The other extras were the usual clean opening, clean closing, sketches and trailers.

Final Thoughts: Like Volume 4, there was enough substance to suggest this one as a Rent It for fans of the genre but it wasn't really all that endearing to me since the characters were two dimensional, the writing somewhat lacking and the anime style itself not really up to current standards. It would make a decent gift for a younger audience but older fans may want to watch this one while enjoying some form of stimulant 9in order to make it more interesting).