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 Twenty Three: The Final Plan:
After a robbery goes wrong, Dr. Guilty (that's really his name, I swear), kidnaps Ling Ling and uses a megamaton to attack Goriki. The mad doctor has a plan to destroy the city, using a large missile and Ling Ling's body after he is mortally wounded. Like much of the series, the music forecasts the events but can even Goriki survive the kind of punishment handed him by the combination of his mechanical rival and the missile?

Episode Twenty Four: The Approaching Demon's Shadow:
Ling Ling is in the hospital recovering from her wounds and Goriki is nearly completely destroyed as well. On top of all that, something wrong is in the air and everyone from Narutaki, to Le Bled, to the Red Scorpion, knows it. Anyone with a connection to the famous detective is being hurt by mysterious circumstances. In the final moments of the episode, the Knight Phantom takes credit for the events that have transpired and tells Narutaki that the entire city will be destroyed.

Episode Twenty Five: And Then, There Were None:
Narutaki's entire support network gone, the Knight Phantom makes it clear that he will not rest until he gets revenge on the detective after beating him up. The secrets of the detective's past come to light and the masked bandit will only accept his surrender, nothing else, or the city will be blown up with everyone in it. Narutaki gets assistance from an unexpected source but in the end, it only delays the confrontation until the last episode.

Episode Twenty Six: The Imperial Capital Is Waiting For You:
The Phantom Knight's plans to blow up Steam City get ever closer and Narutaki is running on empty after his recent fights. The Knight's plan is foolproof and even if the villain dies, he wins due to a device strapped to his chest. Will Narutaki willingly submit to a painful death or will help again arrive from yet another unexpected source?

I liked this last DVD better than most of the series to date put together. 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. I'm even going to rate this one a Recommended since the way the threads all tied into one another were handled so well and the fact that Goriki wasn't used as a crutch nearly as much as other shows have done in recent years.

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 the comprehensive map included as a paper insert. I would have enjoyed using it while keeping track of several earlier episodes and the fact that it was in color was icing on the cake. The comments on the DVD by Meijyu Maeda (Art Director for episode 4), Makoto Uno (series prop director), Toshiyuki Kouno (another art director), Kenji Hashimoto (mech designer for the show), and Akio Takami (character designer), were also very interesting to read. I wish there had been more such comments placed on the DVD or in paper inserts as the show progressed. 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 for Steam Detectives, Saint Seiya, Full Metal Panic, Super Gals!, Final Fantasy Unlimited, Saiyuki, and Slayers Great.

Final Thoughts: If the earlier volumes had shown as much planning and care as this one, I'd have been championing it all over the place (well, at least online) as far better than it had been previously. It's worth the rating I gave it although I think special effort was made to make sure it went out with a splash. If you like retro anime, check it out.

For more decent choices in anime, check out: DVDTalk's Best Of Anime