Luckily the second volume of Galactic Railways didn't fall into that trap.  The five shows on this disc are all strong stories they manage to advance the plot or reveal key details about a characters history.  Created in honor of the 50th anniversary of influential comic artist Leiji Matsumoto's first published work, this series is shaping up to be much stronger than I was expecting.

Series recap:

Manabu Yuuki is the son of a Captain in the SPD, Space Defense Force, the organization that protects and guards the millions of miles of interstellar space routes that the galactic trains travel across.  Manabu's father, Wataru, is the Captain of Big One, the pride of the SDF fleet.  Wataru sacrifices his life to save his crew and the passengers of a train while Manabu and his brother Mamoru look on.  A few years later Mamoru comes of age and joins the SPD, only to die in the line of duty like his father.

When Manabu reaches maturity, he feels that it's his duty to join up with the SPD also to see the universe and help his fellow man.  Over the strenuous objections of his mother, Manabu ships out.

As luck would have it, he is assigned to Sirius Platoon, a fighting unit that sees a lot of action and uses his father's old command: Big One.  In the platoon with him are Louis, an attractive new rookie, and Bruce, the old hand who doesn't approve of the newcomer.

Manabu is a little different from the other members of the SDF.  He doesn't want to see anyone die, so he'll readily attempt some dangerous plan in a hostage situation.  On top of that, the only weapon he carries is his father's old sidearm which no longer functions.  This causes some tension between Manabu and his fellow SDF officers, but his optimistic outlook wins them over.

Volume 2:

The disc starts off with a two-part story.  A train is totally destroyed by a powerful bomb.  Everyone is sure that a terrorist group is responsible, but no one takes responsibility.  When a second train explodes in the center of an interstellar train station killing all hands, the SDF send out the whole fleet to track down the culprit.  But was that the terrorist's plan all along?

The other three episodes on the disc are all stand alone tales which are very good.  First a grumpy old mechanic gives Manabu a hard time while he's assigned to learn something about the inner workings of an engine.  But when Big One is on a rescue mission and gets in trouble of their own, it's up to Manabu and the mechanic to use an antique engine to complete the mission.

While taking a well earned rest and getting some R&R on a planet, Sirius platoon discovers that a local legend is real.  Bruce is visited by Salye, a young boy who can fly and steals memories that people don't want.  Bruce gets the memory of his previous partner taken away, and while it makes him a nicer person, he's not the Bruce that he used to be.

This volume wraps up with an excellent show.  Four convicts that were being transported to jail have escaped on a space train station.  It's up to Sirius platoon to recapture them.  One of the criminals has a weapon though, and though Manabu vowed to never use a gun, he might be put in a position where that would be the only way to save an innocent life.

This was another good volume.  All of the stories were interesting and had a lot of heart to them.  The episode about Salye even worked for me.  The idea of a fairy-type person who steals unwanted memories is pretty stupid, but they used it to give Bruce's background.  This explained a lot about his personality and why he's so hard on Manabu.

The last episode was easily my favorite though.  There was a lot of action, and the ending was very suspenseful.  It showed how Manabu is growing and evolving because of this time with the SDF, and also showed how he's effecting the other members of his team.

Though I still dislike the idea of steam powered space trains, I've learned to overlook the silliness of that concept.  It's a good thing too, because this is turning out to be a very entertaining show.

This volume contains episodes 6-10 in a clear keepcase with a reversible cover.  While I was happy to see five shows put on this disc, one thing that mars it is the non-skipable trailer that FUNimation included before the menu.  You can't fast forward or chapter skip past it, which is pretty irritating.

Audio:

This program offers the choice of a Japanese track in stereo or and English dub in both stereo and 5.1.  I alternated tracks while viewing the show, and all three were very good. While I wish that the original language track was in 5.1 also, I couldn't complain about the sound quality. The dialog was clean, and there was no distortion or other audio problems. The English 5.1 track had a bit more punch to it, and used the soundstage a bit more. The voice actors were very good. I was quite impressed. There were not any stupid accents or phony sounding voices. While I prefer the Japanese track, I enjoyed the English dub as well.

Video:

The anamorphic widescreen video image is very good.  The colors are bright and solid and the lines are tight.  There is a good level of detail with even small items being crisp and clear.  Digital defects are nonexistent with even aliasing being absent. This is a very good looking show.

Extras:

This disc has a commentary track with the ADR Director and some of the cast over the first episode on this disc.  This was a good commentary for an anime disc.  It wasn't one of those 'party' tracks where everyone just jokes around.  They talk about the style of the show, and give their opinions about the main characters motivations and personality.

In addition to all of this there are text character biographies, textless opening and closings, and a series of trailers.

The most interesting bonus item was Mr. Stain.  This 7-minute CGI short was pretty amusing.  The series is going to be released in 2006, and this is a great way to get the word out about it.

Final Thoughts:

This show definitely avoided the second volume blues that many anime shows suffer from.  The episodes contained on this disc are all very good and really entertaining.  If the fact that this show is part of  Leiji Matsumoto's vast outerspace saga has made you hesitate to buy this, it shouldn't.  You don't have to know anything about his previous work to enjoy this series.  I'm looking forward to the next volume already.  A high Recommendation.