The eighth volume of Stellvia brings the series to a close as the cosmic rift races towards the Earth.  The fate of humanity hangs in the ability of Shima and Kota to pilot their spacecraft.  Though Kota is ready, Shima is doubting her abilities once again.  In this final volume there's a lot of action and suspense, making it one of the better volumes in the second half of the series.

Series Synopsis:

In the your 2167, the Earth was hit by a very powerful electromagnetic wave created by a supernova 20 light years away.  The wave had catastrophic effects, and life on Earth was almost extinguished.  But the survivors rebuilt civilization, and now, 189 year later, a second wave of particles traveling only 10% as fast as the electromagnetic radiation, but potentially much more dangerous and damaging, has reached Earth.  All of Earth's technology and manpower has gone toward erecting a shield to protect it from the second wave.  The system is successful, and humanity is saved.

Now however, there are mysterious objects that have attacked outermost space station.  Not only are there hostile aliens to worry about, but a cosmic fracture has appeared in space, and it's heading towards the solar system.  Yet another mission, dubbed Genesis, is planned to seal the rift but there is very little chance for its success.  Will these young pilots be able to save humanity for a second time in the span of a year?
 
This volume:

The Genesis mission is mankind's only hope for sealing the cosmic rift, but there isn't much chance for it working.  The key to the project are the ships Halcion and Infinity.  They are going to be piloted by Shima and Kota, but it isn't going to be easy.  Both ships are difficult to fly since the pilot has to coordinate an immense amount of information.  Kota is doing fine, but Shima is having a lot of trouble with her part.  Kota wants to take over some of her duties, but Shima won't let him.  She's determined to pull her own weight.

As the fracture nears the solar system the Stellvia, along with other space stations move to Pluto's orbit.  There they set up a series of gravity lenses that will be used to seal the rift.  Though all nonessential personal have been evacuated off of the space stations, several of Shima and Kota's friends have stowed away.  They figure if their school is going save the world, they want to be there to see it.

At the outskirts of the solar system, things start well but soon go awry.  The lenses get set up, but the cosmic fracture changes course slightly which causes the mission time table to be significantly accelerated.  The Infinity and Halcion have to launch before they are really ready, which seriously affects their ability to complete the mission.

The ending of this series was pretty good.  They started to accent the action elements of the show instead of focusing on the teenage angst like the last volume did.  There were enough spanners thrown into the works to create a good amount of suspense and tension.  The cliffhanger ending to the penultimate episode was really good too.  It's just too bad that the earlier episodes couldn't have had a bit more action like these shows.

This disc contains the final four episodes in the series, and comes in a clear keepcase with reversible cover.

Audio:

The DVD includes stereo soundtracks in both English and Japanese.  Both tracks sounded very good, with a good amount of range and crisp sound.  I enjoyed the English dub just as well as the original soundtrack.  The English voice actors did a good job and didn't give the young girls high pitched voices.  Well, not all of them.  The soundstage was used effectively in both tracks, with some nice panning of the sound effects.  A nice solid sounding disc.

Video:

The full frame video looked very nice.  There is a lot of color in the show and they were reproduced very well.  The atmosphere of the Earth as seen from space looked great with no blocking in the clouds or haze, and no significant banding.  A very nice looking show.

Extras:

This disc was bare.  The only extras on this disc were a few previews for other Geneon series.

Final Thoughts:

The final episodes of this series harken back to the earlier volumes when there was more action and suspense.  The later half of the series was a little on the slow side, with too many episodes taken up with teens moping around worrying about if someone likes them or not.  This final volume makes up for a lot of that with some good action scenes and a climax that was worth waiting for.  Though this series had some weak moments, when all was said and done, it was well worth watching.  Recommended.