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.

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 viewers under the age of ten 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 has 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 Spike drives a hoverjet that can change into a mechanical beast called Ramphorhyncus. Spike's vehicle also has the ability to handle space travel which can come in handy from time to time.

In the last volume of DICE the show slipped into the old pattern of adventure of the week and strayed away from the plot that was introduced back in volume three. Even though the disc was entitled "The Phantom Knight", he only appeared in one episode. There was no character development to speak of and some easily forgettable characters like a wrinkled old lady who happens to be an ex-gangster and a fishy traitor that lives beneath the ocean.

The fifth volume keeps the horrible rollercoaster that is DICE moving forward with the same bad dialogue, repeat animations and laughably bad storylines. The first couple of episodes are easily avoidable adventures that have nothing to really do with anything, though we learn a little bit about Robert and Jet's past in one of them. There're some more mentions of Heron and a mysterious ritual that is interrupted by the Phantom Knight. Overall this is another poor collection of episodes that are symbolic of the terrible nature of this show.

It's amazing to me how much bad voice acting is present in this show. Voiceovers are just so awkward and wooden at times that no matter how lively the show may look it can't be helped. I understand that it's a kid show and you don't want to challenge them too much but even children will probably find the show boring thanks to the dull atmosphere and downtrodden dialect.

In the end DICE feels uninspired, boring and like a cheap attempt to 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 many repeat and sloppy animations the show looks very nice (if not a little unoriginal) 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 the same preview for the PlayStation 2 version of the DICE videogame that we saw on all of the previous volumes. You'd think the team that puts this disc together would have gotten bored of this by now. I mean five discs in a row with the exact same preview? Yeesh!

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 moments. I find it hard to imagine that the target younger 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 might get into it (which for your sake I hope doesn't happen). Skip It

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