Ban and Ginji find themselves looking for a rare violin and an even rarer painting in the second volume of The Get Backers. This action/comedy show continues to deliver a good amount of action and humor in each episode in addition to telling entertaining stories. The show has a good amount of charm that really makes it enjoyable to watch.

In case you didn't catch the first volume, the Get Backers are a pair of young guys, Ban and Ginji, who run a business retrieving stolen or lost objects. Business isn't very good right now. They live in their car, and have run up a huge tab at a local restaurant. Even giving their lowly standing, they are quite good at their job. Once they take on a job, these goofy guys always recover the object they are sent after.

Part of the reason for this amazing success rate is that both members of the team have superpowers. Ginji is a human electric eel, who can generate a powerful electric charge with his hands, and Ban has a 'jag-on' the ability to create a powerful illusion for up to a minute. With these powers, and a stubborn streak that doesn't allow them to give up, the Get Backers are able to recover just about anything.

This volume departs from the formula that was set in the earlier shows. These are all continued stories, with the ample five episodes on this disc presenting two complete tales. In the first, a three parter, the Get Backers are hired by a young blind violinist to recover her stolen Stradivarius. She knows who has it, another musician with ties to the underworld. The only thing they have to do is find a way onto his guarded compound, figure out which instrument they are after, and get past the Yakuza guards without being killed. The fact that the thief has hired some super-powered protection makes that job just that more difficult.

This is a fun story that has a good amount of humor and gives some more hints to Ginji's background and his time leading a street gang. A couple of new characters are introduced, Shido, one of Ginji's old lieutenants being the most interesting. He has the power to talk with animals and command them, in addition to being able to mimic their abilities. He's an interesting character, and one that I hope they incorporate into the show.

The second story, a two parter, has the boys looking for a stolen Vincent Van Gogh painting. Or is it? It's Van Gogh's thirteenth sunflower painting, historians had previously thought he had only painted twelve. If authentic, it would be worth a fortune. But it has been stolen from its gallery by the mysterious thief, who only steals unauthenticated paintings my old masters. This villain has teamed up with Ban's old flame, Himiko, and the pair certainly can give the Get Backers a run for their money.

This show continues to grow on me. There is a good amount of humor mixed with some fun action scenes. The show continues to evolve with each story line, making the series seem fresh. This set of shows has the team facing other super-powered humans with longer story arcs. They aren't afraid to add new supporting characters either, something that usually only occurs in the first three or four episodes of most series. A fun show that is certainly worth checking out.

This DVD presents episodes 6-10 on a single DVD that comes in an Amaray case with an insert listing the titles of the episodes and the extras.

Audio:

This DVD offers the choice of the original Japanese in stereo, or a 5.1 English dub. I viewed the show with both soundtracks, and they were both very good. Both were clear and had good range. The 5.1 dub was more dynamic than the Japanese track, with a little more strength to the bass. The English voice actors did a good job, putting feeling into the characters without making them sound goofy like some dubs. The rear speakers are used to good effect.

Video:

The anamorphic widescreen image looked very good. The colors were bright and the image was sharp. There were some digital defects with aliasing in the background being the most noticeable. Fine lines tend to shimmer when the camera pans over them, and there was some cross colorization in the few black and white scenes. These weren't distracting and this is still a good looking DVD.

Extras:

There were a good number of extras included with this DVD. In addition to clean opening and closing animation, there was also an half interview with English Voice Actors Jason Liebrecht (Ban), Deanna Shoemaker (Himiko), Katherine Catmull (Clayman), Matt Hislope (Kazuki), and Omar Gallaga (Shido) which were a little standard but still pretty interesting.

There were commentaries for episodes six and nine with Lowell Bartholomee (English ADR director,) Dan Deitz (English ADR script writer.) The commentaries are sedate, which is a good thing. As I've mentioned before, I really get tired of the 'party' atmosphere that many group anime commentaries have.

Final Thoughts:

The Get Backers is a fun, light show that has a lot of action, a good amount of humor, and a little mystery. Given the premise of the show, I was expecting a fairly formalistic show, but it hasn't fallen into that trap. The show keeps adding new characters and changing the focus for an episode or two that keeps it feeling fresh. A fun entertaining disc. Highly Recommended.