Children's anime often leaves something to be desired for the serious otaku. This is mostly due to poor scripts with no plot, repetitive animations and irritating voiceovers. Personally, I have never been able to get into DBZ, Pokemon or YuGiOh but figured I'd give DICE a shot when it was offered to me. This show is produced in house by Bandai for a North American release and everything for the series from marketing and broadcasting to a line of toys is handled by them. With that in mind the episodes comes off feeling like 25 minute commercials for it's own merchandise.

DICE borrows a little bit of magic from other notable shows like Transformers, Voltron and Power Rangers but can't seem to capitalize on their success. The final product comes off as a hollow attempt to emulate something else and thus loses any of its identity. The only audience that this show is going to hold passing interest for is the under ten crowd and even then there is still better anime out there.

The basic premise here is that there is a team of teenage kids who live up in space and respond when there is a crisis. They are a group of DICE (DNA Integrated Cybernetic Enterprises) known as Unit F-99 and go around saving one world or person after another. There are quite a few characters that the show focuses on but most of the screen time is eaten up by a spiky redhead named Jet. Each of these kids also possess unique abilities and vehicles that transform into mechanical dinosaurs.

As the group springs into action they whip out something that looks like a remote control and morph into a cybernetic warrior. When in this battle suit they can also control a vehicle that is custom designed for them. For instance Jet can hop onto a motorbike that when the going gets tough can turn into a metallic velociraptor. Each team member brings something different to the table but as I said before the show seems more concerned with being a vibrant infomercial aimed at pushing toys and games onto kids.

The first volume of DICE features the troop tackling a few challenges and the action gets under way very quickly. In the five episodes that make their way onto this disc you'll see the team save a planet from certain doom, fight off space pirates, delivery a little boy his medicine, stop a meteor and save a ship. Shows like this typically follow the same pattern. There is a crisis, the team responds and pulls through at the last second. Everyone lives happily every after. The only problem is that there isn't really a discernable enemy of the team so there's really no personal conflict or feeling of triumph.

DICE is also riddled with a lot of low quality issues. The voice acting is abysmal and the scripts are even worse when it comes right down to it. The show also makes up some of its own words and spits them out whenever necessary (even though they don't make sense). I understand it's a kid's show and you don't want to challenge them too much, but come on! The base stories on this volume themselves aren't really that bad it's just that the dialogue is so poorly written. Many of these episodes also pour on the sap in an effort to evoke emotion from you but since it's poorly executed its laughably bad.

This is also the style of show that repeats animation constantly. Every time one of the DICE team members morphs into a cyber suit or transforms their vehicle we get treated to the same cuts over and over again. Aside from that the animation is also pretty low quality with some still shots and motion that doesn't look too fluid. There are some times when it looks very nice but those are few and far between.

In the end DICE feels uninspired, dull and like a cheap attempt at capturing the success of several shows before it. The Power Rangers aspect comes in when the team morphs into their cybernetic suits, the Transformers comparison happens when their rides "libertize" into dinosaurs and the team based nature of the show rips off other shows with the same concept. There just isn't enough that DICE can call its own and in the end it feels as if the franchise is a blatant attempt at creating a cash-cow. This is definitely a show that is designed for the much younger crowd and they may enjoy it somewhat. Older (as in over ten) viewers will probably not find it worth their time unless they're craving some older style Saturday cartoon fare.

DICE is presented on DVD with the 1.33:1 full frame ratio that it originally airs with. The quality of this release is very good with clean lines, sharp colors and next to no grain or compression artifacts. I did notice a little bit of aliasing at some points but it wasn't that prominent. Despite the repeat and sometimes sloppy animations the show looks very nice and is vibrant enough to keep the kids happy.

Since the show is geared towards the American audience the only language available here is the original English. The track is presented with Dolby Digital 2.0 audio and sounds like you'd expect a stereo release to. Everything is front channel with very little directionality used and the quality is pretty clean and free of flaws. The music, sound effects and voiceovers for this show leave a lot to be desired though but children may enjoy it more. There are no subtitles available for this release which is kind of disappointing.

The only extra that is present on this disc is a preview for the PlayStation 2 version of the DICE videogame. Again it is just proof that this show is more of a marketing ploy than an attempt to create an original and interesting concept.

DICE is definitely a show that is aimed towards a much younger audience. The concept is very unoriginal, the characters are one-dimensional and the show has some rather low quality. I find it hard to imagine that the target child audience would even be able to hold much interest in the series considering that there is just much better material on the market right now. If you have a kid that's looking for something new to watch you may want to give this one a rental to see if they get into it. Otherwise you're probably better off skipping it all together. Skip It

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