The third volume of Divergence Eve wraps up the series, and none too soon.  Though it had promise, this series just fails.  The main characters are women who look like they have basketballs strapped to their chests, and the dialog is filled with irritating technical terms that the writers made up, and the story is purposefully confusing in an attempt to make the show seem deep and meaningful.   When all was said and done, I felt that I'd wasted a lot of time watching this series.

Out in the deepest reaches of space lies the space station Watcher's Nest.  Here the Ghoul, monsters from another dimension that are trying to invade Earth's dimension.  These giant beings can only enter our space though the wormhole at Watchers Nest, which soon turns this station into the first front in a war.

Four young female cadets are transferred to the deep space outpost of Watcher's Nest for advanced military training.  Three of them are fully qualified and at the top of their class, but one, Misaki, isn't sure why she's there.  Misaki hasn't had as much training as the others, and her test grades are pretty lousy, but for some unknown reason she was chosen for this elite assignment.  They don't know why they are training so diligently though, or what they are training for since the war, and the existence of the Ghoul is a closely guarded secret.

As the series comes to a conclusion, the field that have held the Ghoul at bay (mostly) has failed, and another well timed attack could wipe out the entire Watcher's Nest.  This is the moment that LeBlanc, a senior officer on the Nest has been waiting and planning for.  He makes a power play using all of the people around him like pawns, masterfully manipulating the rest of the crew to achieve his own goals.

Of course it will come as no surprise to people who have made it this far (especially since they gave it away in the first episode) that Misaki is the only person who has a chance of fending off the Ghoul.  Her special genetic code makes her the one who has to face the ultimate battle, and LeBlanc knows this and uses it for his own ends.

One good thing that happens is that just about everything does get explained.  At one point a character sits down and puts together all the pieces that have been hinted at through the course of the series.  Unfortunately by the time this happens, I had grown tired of the game and didn't really care.

Overall this wasn't a series that I enjoyed watching.  There was just too much wrong with it.  The way they told the story, presenting the first episode last without explanation and then going back to the beginning, all the while hinting at secret things that had happened in the past didn't make the show interesting but annoying.  They carried the technique too far and instead of being drawn in by the mystery, there were so many mysterious things that I didn't care.  The show was trying to be deep by spouting some philosophical mumbo-jumbo every couple of shows, but the mammoth bouncing breasts that every female had made the show anything but deep and philosophical.  If I had to find a saving grace in this series, it is that they never refer to Misaki as "The Chosen One."  Aside from avoiding that cliche, there really wasn't a lot that I liked about the show.

Audio:

The show offers the choice of a 5.1 English dub, or the original Japanese audio track in stereo.  I alternated tracks while watching the show, and they were both very good.  The English voice actors did a great job (though one of the cadets has a horrid accent) and they were able to match their speech to the mouth movements very well.  There was a good amount of surround effects, especially during the (few) battle scenes.  The Japanese track didn't have the punch that the 5.1 had, but it too made use of the soundstage.  Hiss and other audio defects were nonexistent.  A nice sounding disc.

Video:

The anamorphic widescreen transfer looked pretty good.  The colors were nice and bright, and the lines were tight, though there was some aliasing in several scenes.  Still, this is a minor complaint; aside from that, it looked very nice.

Extras:

This disc includes a clean opening and closing, a Japanese promo spot, and a mini-manga; eight comic book pages with the dialog printed to the left side so the print is large enough to read.  There is also a commentary track with Christine Auten (Luxandra) and Sandra Krasa (the ADR Director.)

Final Thoughts:

Ultimately this could have been an interesting, though not great, series.  There is a semi-solid story lurking under all the fan service and endless technobabble, but the non-linear storytelling style makes the show too much of an effort to watch, and the payoff at the end isn't worth the trouble.  This is one that you should just skip.