The latest incarnation of the Burn Up franchise, Burn Up Scramble, ends with this third volume.  A bit different from the other discs, these four episodes contain an extended story, rather than just stand alone episodes.  I found this much more interesting than the stand alone shows.  They tended to all blend together.  Unfortunately there just wasn't anything original in this show, and even a longer story arc can't save it.

In case you haven't seen the previous volumes, this series takes place in the year 2023 when crime is becoming increasingly sophisticated.  The underworld has high tech weapons that the police can't compete with.  To fight these tougher than average villains, the police has create a special elite squad that is authorised to take "excessive action."  Known as The Warriors this group consists of only three young ladies, but they can sure get the job done.

Rio is the fighter, a tall, young, buxom, gorgeous blond who is always short of cash and can't seem to get a date (which places this show firmly in the realm of fantasy.)  Her backup comes in the form of Maya, a quite young girl who is a crack marksman.  The crew is rounded out with Lilica, a psychic.  She can read a persons thoughts and past by touching them and is the communications expert.  Together they take on the villains that the regular police can't handle.

The four volumes that make up this disc form a short story arc, which was a bit surprising after the previous stand alone episodes.  The disc starts off with the Warriors going undercover on a luxury cruise ship.  An international drug lord, Dragon Tail,  is supposed to be making a deal in person aboard the ship, and the girls are there to make sure he's caught in the act.  Things take an unexpected turn though when Dragon Tail starts coming on to Rio.  She goes out to dinner with him and ends up in his room afterwards.  Dragon Tail doesn't have romance on his mind though, but murder.  He's been hired to take out the Warriors, and he just might be able to do it.

Still wondering who's trying to kill them, or even knows about their existence, the Warriors go back to work.  But during their next mission they Rio and Maya are attacked by two woman in armored suits who take them out in nothing flat and put the two fighters in the hospital, nearly killing them.  These woman aren't ordinary criminals though, they are the Warriors replacements!  These surgically enhanced fighters are stronger, faster, and better trained.  They are also are ruthless killers, taking out the criminals as well as innocent civilians.  These new Warriors have the blessing of the highest levels in the police department, and they also have orders to capture Rio and Maya for use in medical experiments.  Outgunned and out classed, can the original Warriors don't stand a chance against their new counterparts, or do they?

The last episode in the series is an extended epilog.  It shows the fallout from the previous story and how it affects the main characters.  It also sets things up for a sequel, of course.

While I enjoyed the longer story arc more than the stand alone episodes, this last disc wasn't enough to save the series.  The girls-with-guns thing has been done a lot, and this show is almost a parody of the genre.  There is a lot of fan service that isn't very titillating and just distracts from the story.  When Rio throws off her dress before starting a fight so she can battle in her underwear it's really hard to suspend your disbelief.

When all is said and done, this show just isn't that great.  The fan service doesn't work, the scripts are predictable, and the humor just isn't funny.  I never really cared about any of the characters.  They weren't real people, but a couple of personality traits grafted onto an animated shell.  (Tough chick who's always poor, quite girl who's a gun nut, weird psychic girl whose also a klutz.  It was as if they took a list of characteristics and selected one from column A and one from column B for each character.  Of course the supporting characters only had one trait....)  Watching this show I really had the feeling that I'd seen it all before.  There really isn't much to set this apart from all of the other girls-with-guns shows.

Audio:

Both the original Japanese track and the English dub were presented in two channel surround sound.  I listened to both tracks and thought that they were both good.  The dub cast did a good job with their characters and didn't rely on fake accents or silly voices.  They also managed to do a good job matching up the mouth movements.  Neither track had any significant hiss or dropouts.

Video:

The full frame video was a little soft.  The lines were slightly indistinct and hazy.  Fine lines also had a tendency to shimmer, but this was minor.  Other than this the disc looked good.  The colors were bright and the detail was fine.

Extras:

This disc has a 45-second reel of commercials that were broadcast in Japan to promote the series, a line art gallery, and an interview with the three women who voice the main characters in the Japanese soundtrack.  This last bit was fun, running about 8 minutes.  The interview was done before the show aired to build up interest, so there are no spoilers.

Final Thoughts:

I often look forward to the last volume of a series to see how the story wraps up.   I was looking forward to this just to get it over with.  It wasn't a horrible show, there just wasn't too much to it.  I did like this volume more than the other one in the series that I saw because of the longer storyline, but that wasn't enough to actually make the show good.  If you haven't seen many girls-with-guns shows, this isn't a bad example of the genre, but if you've seen a couple of them already you won't find anything new here.  Rent it.