The adventures of the Earth's Defense Family comes to an end with the third volume of The Daichis.  This volume is a little different from the previous two, with the show becoming more serious.  Instead of just fighting amongst themselves, Seiko is thinking about having an affair and though Mamoru realizes it, he's not willing to say or do anything about it.  Though these serious shows aren't as funny as the earlier ones, the program is still pretty entertaining.

The Daichi's are the most unlikely of heroes, a dysfunctional family that can barely talk to each other, much less work together as a team.  Seiko and Mamoru, the mother and father, have been having problems for a while and only seem to scream at each other.   He's a spineless computer programer who has his head in the clouds, and she's headstrong go-getter who is only interested in how much money the family can bring home.  The children are no better.  Their son, Dai, is a juvenile delinquent who runs through the halls at school lifting up girls dresses to expose their panties, and Nozomi is a virtual slave, doing all the cooking and cleaning.  When they get selected by the Galactic Federation to be the Earth's defenders, and get the chance to earn some serious bucks in the deal, who can resist to call to glory?

The family gets  9.8 million yen (about $100,000) for each invading alien that they successfully repel, and they have some very awesome power-ups that allow them to vanquish the most heinous aliens.  There is one little problem though.  Every time they use one of their weapons or technological devices, the cost is deducted from their earnings. After three battles they end up owing 99 million yen!   If they quit now, they'll have to pay the balance by doing hard labor on the planet Siberia for 100 years.  So now they are trapped into fighting, but they can't use their weapons if they ever want to get out of debt.

The Daichi's are having even more problems than usual in this DVD.  Not only are the monsters popping up on a regular basis, but defending the Earth is really affecting their lives.  Battling aliens is a full time job, but it's not paying the bills.  The Mamoru and Seiko still have to go to work and the kids have to go to school, but when a giant lobster attacks Australia, they have to drop what ever they are doing.  This can be a major inconvenience and is really starting to wear on the family.  They are fighting more than usual and Seiko is even thinking about having an affair.  But these things have to wait when a giant mechanical dog appears downtown.  There's only one group who can take him on, whether they want to or not.
 
The second show on the disc is pretty weird.  After Mamoru returned from work wearing a bath robe, Dai and Nozomi are both hoping that their father will grow a backbone and confront their mother about her extramarital activities.  He's still too wimpy to say anything, but Nozomi and her mother get into a fight about it anyway.  They transform, as does Dai for good measure, and for some strange reason the three of them get trapped in a closed universe.  It's up to their worthless father to figure a why to save them all.  Most of the episode is taken up by Mamoru crying in the bathroom and Seiko berating her husband.

The tone of the series changed with this volume.  It became much more serious.  The episodes weren't as funny as they used to be, and the focus turned to Seiko and her temptation to have an affair.  She also starts to be a little cruel instead of just bossy and insensitive.  Not only does she contemplate having an affair, but she denies knowing her own son when her boyfriend asks who Dai is.  She misses the birthday party her family throws for her to get drunk with another guy, and says some pretty mean things to her daughter.  Seiko was a humorous character in the earlier episodes, but she becomes really unappealing in this disc.
 
I still enjoyed these episodes though.  The battles with the invading monsters were pretty entertaining, and the jokes and gags that they did include were pretty funny.  I just wish they had stuck to the pattern of the earlier shows.

The show doesn't really wrap up as much as just end, which is too bad.  There were still a lot of questions that are left unanswered at the end of it all.  The series had a lot of potential, and it could have easily gone on twice as long without getting boring.

Audio:

Unlike many recent releases, the English dub was in stereo surround sound, not 5.1.  The original Japanese track is also pro logic surround.  I viewed the disc with both soundtracks, and I enjoyed them equally.  This would have sounded better in 5.1 since there is a lot of loud dynamic fight scenes, but the supplied audio tracks were sufficient.  There was a fair amount of dynamic range, and audio defects were nonexistent.  A good sounding disc.

Video:

The was a great looking disc.  The colors on this full frame image were very bright and dynamic.  The blacks of space were deep and solid, and the sky was bright blue.  The image was only marred by some light aliasing, which was fairly minor.  A excellent looking DVD.

Extras:

This disc was really packed with extras.  There is an alternate scene for episode 12 with last about 20 seconds, but the real exciting bonus is another episode.  This is an alternate to episode 11.  Not a different version, but another story that could go in place of show #11.  I have no idea why they didn't include this in the series, but for some reason they didn't.

There is also a collection of commercials for the show and some Geneon previews.

Final Thoughts:

This volume took a more serious tone than the earlier installments.  The shows weren't as funny, but they were still entertaining for the most part.  The show still has a lot of energy and excitement even if some of the exposition slows the show down a bit.  Recommended.