The second half of Texhnolyze kicks off, and at the end of this volume things are about as clear as they were at the end of the first.

Now that the Organo are in control of the underground city of Lukuss things should be quite, but they aren't.  The city is still a battleground, with various factions within the Organo still struggling for dominance and other groups trying to gain an upper hand over the Organo.  People are killed left and right, and we find out that the young Seer, Ran,  has foretold everything that was going to happen.

Ichise learns something disturbing about his future from the seer and it effects him deeply, and he also finds out that the Doctor isn't as altruistic as she originally seemed.  While the series progresses at the same pace throughout this volume, there are some interesting that occur in the last episode that lead me to believe that things will start moving more rapidly from here on out.

This is a good series, it has high production values and it's obvious that the story has been given a lot of thought, but it just isn't pulling me in the way I thought it would.  While I still enjoy the show, I am having a hard time understanding the characters motivations and the way this world works still isn't clear.  With the series half over, I was hoping that there would be less head scratching at this point, but as the series progresses there are more questions raised than answers given.  The revelation that there is yet another underground city hidden out in the desert adds more mystery but it is still hard to see where the series is going.  As the series progresses from mystery to mystery, introducing new characters and killing off older ones, I'm starting to wonder if things are going to be cleared up in the end.  Though even if they aren't, the ride is an enjoyable one.

Audio:

This DVD gives you a choice of a Japanese or English audio track, both in stereo, with optional English subtitles. I listened to half of the disc in each language. While I preferred the sound of the Japanese voice actors, I thought the English talent did a very good job. They made sure that the dialog matched the lip movements, and didn't try to go for any fake accents to make the characters sound unique.

The sound quality was very good, though I was hoping for a 5.1 mix for this series. There was some use made of the front soundstage at appropriate moments, and the dialog was clear and easy to hear. There wasn't any unwanted noise or hisses in the soundtrack, and the subtle sounds that were used throughout made this a nice sounding DVD.

Video:

The anamorphic widescreen video looked pretty good. The lines were a little soft, being slightly blurred, but this seemed to fit with the the transfer was very good. There were very few instances of compression artifacts. The colors were usually darker earth tones that reproduced well, and the contrast was very good. The image quality on this DVD goes well with the intricate and densely populated visuals.

Extras:

This disc contains a 2 1/2 minute trailer for the series, and 10 minutes of outtakes.  These latter were pretty funny, made even more so by the serious aspect of the show itself.  Well worth a view.  There are also trailers for New Getter Robo, The Gregory Horror Show and Requiem from Darkness.

Final Thoughts:

Though I was hoping that the story would have grown a little less opaque by this point in time, Texhnolyze is still an interesting show.  There are a few questions answered but many more raised in this volume.  If you've been keeping up with the series so far, you should continue.  Some interesting events take place at the end of this volume, which will hopefully leading up to an interesting last couple of discs.   Recommended.