The fourth volume of Galactic Railways goes down a notch in quality from the previous discs. While the earlier episodes in this series toyed with melodramatic elements, most of the shows on this volume fully embrace it. There's just a bit too many people pining for their lost love and not enough action that had previously made the show so entertaining. While it's not a bad set of shows, it didn't have the charm of the other volumes.

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 4:

There are four stand alone episodes on this volume. While they are generally entertaining, some of the episodes are a little too melodramatic and a bit sappy.

The disc starts off with an action packed episode where Big One has to assist in the protection of space station from a meteor swarm. Of course their plan is thrown awry when a comet is discovered in the middle of the meteor shower that is composed of material that is too dense to destroy.

The next episode is a rather insipid affair. A very rich and rather unattractive man has trouble finding a women who will care for him, and not his money. When the train he's on crashes onto a world with a corrosive atmosphere, the SDF comes to the rescue. In the corse of being saved though, the man finds someone who really does love him: Big One's medical robot, Yuki.

An old flame of David's pops up in the next show. She's a treasure hunter out to steal a priceless jewel from a restricted planet and David has to go after her. This is another sappy "love conquers all" show with an ending that was really poor.

The disc ends with the best show on the disc though. An alien is loose in the SDF headquarters and Manabu is nearly killed trying to capture it. His partner Bruce thinks that Manabu's injuries are his fault, that he's cursed to have partners die on him. He has to face his own demons as well as learn to rely on his teammates if he's going to survive.

These shows were just a bit too melodramatic overall. There was too much unrequited love and people moaning about their feelings which really brought the show down. Hopefully this is just an anomaly and the future volumes won't rate so high on the sappy scale.

This volume contains episodes 15-18 in a clear keepcase with a two sided cover. As with the other discs, the one thing that mars the presentation 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:

The most interesting bonus item was another episode of Mr. Stain in Junk Alley. "Ca-ra-ku-ta" is the title of the show included on this disc. This 7-minute CGI short is pretty amusing, and I'm looking forward to seeing more. The series is going to be released in 2006, and this is a great way to get the word out about it.

There is also a clean opening and closing as well as a commentary by the ADR and English voice actors.

Final Thoughts:

This has been a fun series so far, but with volume of the show is just too melodramatic for my tastes. There is still some good action sequences and the last episode was exciting but overall this didn't measure up to the previous volumes. Even so, this disc is still Recommended. The stories are still good and if you can look past the sappy bits, it's enjoyable.