Gilgamesh reaches the halfway point with volume three, and the series is still going strong.  Some mysteries are starting to become a little clearer, while some new perplexing situations crop up.  The story is still interesting, but the poor designs and animation make it hard to whole-heartedly recommend this title.

Series Background:

Fifteen years ago the Heaven's Gate project, a scientific organization with unknown goals and methods was about to be shut down.  A lone scientist who was working on the project and also lobbied for its termination, Dr. Madoka, enters the inner core of the project and sets off a reaction that has global implications.  A wave of energy races across the planet and alters the sky, making it shimmer and reflect lite, blocking out most of the sun, and making computers and other technological equipment useless.  This happened on October 10th, or X - X in roman numerals and it's now referred to as Twin X.

Now, fifteen years later, the "Sheltering Sky" as it is called is still encircling the Earth and technology still doesn't work.  Two orphans, Kiyoko and Tatsuya, are trying to stay ahead of debt collectors and find enough food to eat in this bleak future.  Running to avoid being caught by some bad men they owe money to, the pair hide in a house were they meet some interesting children who have amazing powers.  These young adults, known as Gilgamesh, fend off the hoods easily, but then they are attacked by a second group of teens called the Orga.  After a pitched battle with no clear winner, the leader of the Orga, the mysterious Countess of Werdenberg asks Kiyoko and Tatsuya to join her cause in fighting Gilgamesh.  When they refuse, she buys their contract from the debt collectors and in effects owns them.  The Countess says that the members of Gilgamesh are evil, but they say the same about her.  Could these two groups be interested in these kids because they are the children of the infamous Dr. Madoka?

As Tatsuya discovers that he has special powers just like the Orga, Kiyoko finds out that she doesn't.  The Countess has no use for the powerless sister who is starting to cause trouble, so she kicks her out of the Hotel Providence  the she and the other Orga live.  Kiyoko still has to pay back the money that the Countess paid for her though, and the monthly payments will keep her in poverty for the rest of her life.

This volume:

The disc opens up in the middle of a battle.  The Orga are visiting a large tower that is the site of an interesting experiment.  They have created a computer with vacuum tubes, and have come up with a way of getting rid of the Sheltering Sky.  Gilgamesh doesn't want the project to succeed, and have come to stop it, and Tatsuya goes into battle for the first time.

After the fighting, the kids have some time off and start to get curious about some of the things that are going on.   The spotted a picture of the Countess with Tatsuya's father taken years before he was born, and were surprised that she never mentioned that she knew him.  Using their powers the teens sneak into a sealed library and discovers some interesting things, but before they can complete their search they are spotted by some very serious watch dogs.

In a filler episode that answers a couple of questions yet raises some more, Tatsuya spends the day with his sister has gotten a job repairing pianos.  Or has she?

The volume ends on a high note.  The Countess and the Orga attend a "living funeral", a ceremony where an old man bids farewell to his friends before his death.  This is a very powerful person, the man who started Heaven's Gate and knows a lot about what has been happening in the world.  It appears that the Orga aren't the only group that is fighting Gilgamesh too.

The story is your basic good vs evil tale with a twist.  You don't know who the good guys are.  They are doing a very good job keeping you guessing.  Every time you think you know what is really going on, something else happens that changes your opinions.  They aren't just stringing viewers along either, some things get clearer as the series progresses, but not everything.  That makes it a lot of fun to watch.

While I have been enjoying the series, but there are some serious problems with it.  I still have a hard time with the character designs.  They are just awful.  The people look like the fan art in the back of Shonen Jump, not a professionally animated show.  The faces look almost grotesque with eyes that are way too big and often not positioned correctly.  I thought I'd get used to it by now, but I haven't.

The animation is also very crude.  The movements are jerky and not fluid.  The characters don't move realistically and it is distracting.  I think the animators are trying to be stylish, but they only succeed in being annoying.   It's a good thing that the story is interesting or this would be painful to watch.

Audio:

This disc offers the option of the original language soundtrack in stereo or an English dub in 5.1.  I alternated between the tracks with every episode, and thought they were both very good.  I preferred the Japanese track, but only slightly.  The English 5.1 dub made very good use of the rear channels, for example it had the children's psychic voices echoing from behind the viewer which was very effective.  There were no distortions or other audio defects in either track.  A solid sounding disc.

Video:

The anamorphic widescreen image looks pretty good overall.  The color palate consists of mainly  blacks, whites and greys and these are reproduced faithfully.  The lines are a little on the soft side, but not too much so.  The level of detail was fair and the contrast was good.  Digital defects are nonexistent, even aliasing doesn't show up.

Extras:

There were a good number of extras on this disc.  The disc starts out with a clean opening and closing, two galleries of production art and character art, as well as some previews.

Whispers & Sex & Slices of Violence is a really cool 36-minute presentation that ADV screened at the Alamo Drafthouse to celebrate the half-way point in the show.  This was a very good overview of the series, with some newly dubbed video welcoming the guests to the party, and then interviews with the voice talent where they talk about the show.  Their comments are illustrated with clips from the show.  This was fun, though they do show clips from future episodes that give some plot points away.

Finally there are two "tables" labeled "02: History" and "04: Future."  These are two minute reels of clips that show scenes from the earlier and later episodes respectively.  I didn't find these very interesting, and the future one gave away some plot points.

Final Thoughts:

As the series goes on the horrible animation and odd character designs really start to wear thin.  It really detracts from the show, constantly reminding the viewer that they are watching a cartoon.  The story has been progressing nicely, and the various mysteries are still interesting, but in spite of the animation rather than because of it.  This volume gets a light recommendation.