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Gravion Zwei Vol. 2 - Esoteric Truths v2
Some surprising revelations about Sandman and the nature of the Zeravire are brought to light in the second volume of Gravion Zwei. Will these be enough to save this otherwise tepid series?
The volume starts off with Eiji, Toga, and the rest of the Gran Knights going to an amusement park. There has been some signs of Zeravire activity in the park, so the group goes to investigate. Everything seems fine, until the people attending the park start being transformed into Zeravire. What seems to be a simple battle actually turns out to be an elaborate trap, one that may effect the Gran Knights permanently.
Things get worse in the next episode. One of the Gran Knights is really spying for the army, and when she's gotten all of the data she needs on the Gran Kaiser, the spy leaves. The spy leaves a little present for the other knights though: a pass card to a sealed off section of the castle. When they enter this forbidden area, the discover the truth about Sandman's past, and why he has such impressive technology.
With the group in disarray, the Zeravire attack with their deadliest creature yet. Fighting with two of the Gran Knights gone, the team is working at a great disadvantage. The Zeravire have learned from their past losses though, and attack the Gran Kaiser when it is the weakest. This is a battle that the team can't win without making the supreme sacrifice.
The army's new mass produced weapon, the Gran Trooper, comes on-line, and just in time. With the Gran Kaiser temporarily out of commission they are the Earth's only line of defense. Can these new pilots stand up to the threat of the Zeravire?
This show would have been a lot better if they had spread all of the plot developments in volume across the earlier shows. As it is, by the time they actually start to develop the plot, half way through the second season, it's a case of too little too late. There were way too many throw-away fluff episodes in the series that by the time they started actually developing the story, I didn't really care any more.
Even with the plot advancing, this isn't the greatest show. There are too many silly plot twists and deus ex machina endings. One good example of this, with out giving anything away, is when a character who has been in the show since the beginning is revealed not to be a man, but a woman. A woman with DDD breasts that no one seems to have noticed. What a crock.
The DVD:
Audio:
Like most anime that is put out nowadays, this disc offers the choice of a stereo Japanese track with optional English subtitles or an English dub in 5.1. I alternated between tracks as I watched the show, and I had a slight preference for the original language track, but thought the English dub was fine. The English track was a little more full, but it wasn't as powerful as I was hoping. They didn't make full use of the subwoofer channel during the fight scenes. The English track did have more punch than the Japanese track did, just not as much as I was expecting. Both tracks sounded fine, with no distortion or other defects.
Video:
Like the previous series, the video was presented with a 1.33:1 aspect ration and looked pretty good. The image was still fairly soft, but the colors were bright and accurate. There were only a few instances of aliasing, a digital artifact that usually plagues animation, but no other major defects. A nice looking DVD.
Extras:
This disc includes a clean opening and closing, a series of character profiles and art for both the maids and the Zeravire and design sketches. There is an art gallery of images from the episodes on this disc too. The biggest extra is a 16 minute interview with the English voice cast: Inside the Actor's Head. This time they talk about why they became actors and how they got into voice acting.
Final Thoughts:
This volume picked up the pace of the series quite a bit. A lot was revealed about Sandman and the Gravion, it was found that the Gran Knights had a traitor in their midst, and at least one character isn't going to be in the next volume. Despite all of this, the show still isn't that good. They rely too much on deus ex machina endings and twists that often don't make sense. One of the better volumes in the series, but this still rates as a rental.
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