The show tells the story of a young man, Show Zama, whom forces from another dimension abduct. Apparently, some people on Earth have powerful auras that allow them to make use of a special kind of technology that powers a form of mech-robot. Otherwise, the dimension is medieval in terms of how things work and a major war is about to start, hence the need for additional pilots. As the series progressed, the lead character finds he's working for the wrong side and switches over to fight with the rebellion. This does not, of course, sit well with the people that brought him there to fight for them. In Aura Battler Dunbine 5, the show continued to show some growth of the lead characters as their personal situations changed. The major development in this set of episodes was how Elmelie was found to be lacking in terms of preparedness in helping fight the good fight. Here's a brief breakdown of the 4 episodes included on this sixth DVD.

Episode Twenty Two: Soldier: Elmelie Luft:
Now that Elmelie has joined the rebellion, she feels obligated to prove her worth as a soldier, using a battler to assist her lover, Neal, and crew. Needless to say, her abilities to follow orders are not exactly all that great since she's been raised since birth as a Princess and some of the crew don't trust her due to her ties to their enemy.

Episode Twenty Three: Musty's Pursuit:
In a bit of political posturing, Musty tries to recapture Elmelie in order to get back in the good graces of her allies. With some new pilots, the attempt is made but due to Show and the others, the attempt seems to fail but there's still some hope left in the form of a returned pilot.

Episode Twenty Four: Attack Vs. Attack:
Neal tries to destroy a battler factory in order to stop the overwhelming numbers of battlers they are meeting in their attempt to fight Drake's forces. A new breed of battler protects the factory though and even Show's abilities are tested to the max when he ends up fighting his newly recovered former friend, Todd.

Episode Twenty Five: Joint War:
Bern and Todd join forces in an attempt to reclaim their honor and Elmelie. The new battlers take their toll as Neal orders his troops to retreat since the new machines are more than his forces can handle. Show joins in the battle with a desperate attempt to protect Elmelie, who is piloting a losing battler against the enemy trying to destroy it (not knowing it contains her).

I have mixed feelings about this volume since it presented an arc of shows that all were tied together reasonably well but very little happened of note since the major theme centered on spoiled Elmelie getting her first taste of battle in a battler. If you've liked the series to this point, you're almost sure to like this one so I'm rating it as Recommended but it had similar limitations to earlier volumes. If you like older anime shows, you'll probably enjoy this one although it wasn't the best set of episodes released to date.

Picture: The picture was presented in 1.33:1 ratio full frame color. There were some scratches on the print but considering it's age, that's not a big problem. I didn't notice any artifacts and some of the colors were washed out at times, but ADV did a good job with what they had to work with. This is a problem common to older anime and should be expected although I give ADV credit for cleaning it up a bit more than other companies probably would have, given the likelihood of limited sales.

Sound: The sound was presented in Dolby Digital mono with a choice of either the original Japanese track with English subtitles, an English dub, and the dub with song subtitles. It was a decent audio track for its age but I think the original Japanese track had a distinctive edge over the newer dub track for a host of reasons. It seems like ADV Films spent some time trying to improve the original story but fell slightly shorter than I'd have expected of them.

Extras: There was a paper insert that provided a summary of the story so far. This is a good idea since not everyone buys the volumes in the order they come out (for a number of reasons) and the best way to keep someone interested is if they can identify with the characters and events going on. There were also some trailers to shows like Kino's Journey, Final Fantasy Unlimited, Saint Seiya, Steam Detectives, Full Metal Panic, andOrphen 2: Revenge, a clean opening and closing sequence, and a photogallery included on the DVD.

Final Thoughts: I think this was pretty good for the series but the older anime of yesteryear rarely holds up as well as we'd like so I think fans should get it and those who have yet to see the show, start with the first volumes of the series first. Like most soap operas, it had a lot of filler material yet it was better than Volume 5 so check it out if you get a deal on it.

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