"Mars is now almost entirely covered in water. Humanity exists in large city-ships that float through the open seas. But life is hard for those who live on Mars - the economy is in bad shape, work is scarce, and food is expensive and highly prized. Gram and his friends try to do the best they can, but the work keeps drying up.
Some have taken to a life of piracy to combat the corruption in the government; one such group is the pirates of the feared Ship of Aurora. And the Earth government, which rules Mars, has dispatched a new team of military pilots to combat them. In their specialized mecha called Round Bucklers, they must make the seas of Mars safe for humanity.
Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, Gram finds himself on the run with the most notorious pirates on Mars. But here's the thing- he's starting to like them!

Rather than flesh out the scenario early on, the series seems to be willing to let the audience fill in many of the blanks as to how Mars became a water world and colonized by mankind. Whatever the case, the primary factions shown in the first five episodes were the local Mars government, the ruling Earthers, and the pirates like those on the Aurora (who are tied to a rebel leader of sorts but this relationship isn't completely explained by the end of the DVD). The lead protagonist is Gram, a man in his early twenties who scrapes by on whatever work he can get. His problem is that he gets pissed off easily and those around him aren't as willing to forgive his sins when there are dozens who'll replace him at the drop of a hat. He acts as guardian to a couple of kids and after turning down a creepy guy wanting to break into Gram's last place of employment, finds his charge more than willing to take the job. Needless to say, this leads Gram into a life of crime with circumstances putting him at the helm of a powerful mechanized robot (Round Buckler) and working for the most notorious pirates on Mars in their submarine. As time progresses, he finds out the government propaganda about the pirates to be as accurate as it was about the bright future of Mars so he joins them in their quest to plunder for the masses.

On the other side of the coin is the governmental forces that seek to prevent the pirates from stealing everything not nailed down. One of the troops is a life long friend of Gram and upon seeing him listed as one of the criminals in a warehouse burglary, she takes it personally and tries to apprehend him now that she's assigned to Mars. On the face of it, he's just another thug in her eyes since the supplies the pirates have stolen are desperately needed on the watery world of Mars (water is often considered a virtual universal solvent and the main supply stolen was tons of desiccant needed to prevent the moisture from eating away at the infrastructure of the floating city it was stolen from). Neither side is pure and noble, making their actions all the more interesting as the characters live their lives, fight their battles, and engage in a series of battles for what they believe in."

If you've been following the series to this point, you know the principle characters as being the Aurora & crew, Gram Rivers, Earth Lt Vestamona, pirate captain Kubernes, and a number of secondary characters. Gram owns a pendant that along with an ancient artifact reveals the location (in general terms) of a highly coveted treasure on Mars and everyone is after him. The opposing forces fight by means of large mechanized robots called Round Bucklers that are piloted by skilled individuals and the government forces will do anything to stop the pirates from achieving their goals. This time, Gram is in mourning over the loss of a close friend (no spoilers here) and it impacts his ability to assist the crew. Kubernes ends up fighting other pirates for a change, with a surprise character at the helm of his ship, and the crew of the Aurora embarks on a mission to raid the famous Library of Mars (the most complete archive of information on the planet, stored on a supposedly lightly guarded city ship) in order to figure out the location of the caverns shown to then by the artifacts in their possession. Needless to say, things turn sour when the crew is trapped inside the library with hordes of round bucklers trying to protect the library from the invasion, leading to all sorts of problems. The second half of the volume dealt with some of the crew, led by second in command Yagami, trying to mutiny in order to gain bigger pieces of the treasure. Ester is the only one who can save the day but does she know the whole story? Lastly, having figured out the exact geographic location of the treasure, the crew makes a pit stop at a small city-ship for supplies and repairs, running into one of Elizabeth's closest friends in the world, a doctor that she hasn't seen in a very long time. Is he in cahoots with the Earth forces or is someone else pulling the strings? Given the return to the action and better writing, I thought a rating of Recommended was once again warranted for the series, hoping it all finished up as nicely with the final two volumes.

Picture: Mars Daybreak V4 was presented in the original 1.33:1 ratio full frame color it was shot in by director Kunihiro Mori for release on Japanese broadcast television. The colors were properly muted for the undersea action, the depressed areas properly dirty as if to convey the underlying economic times, and the elite offices of the provisional government and other factions looked pristine (trying to subtlety push the notion that the upper levels of society have it much better than the rest of us). The animation was the current combination of traditional anime and CGI with decent, if unremarkable, results. The character and setting designs were nicely handled; looking a bit different than the usual offerings you'll see in shows by other companies (this was another collaboration between Emotion and Bones as distributed domestically by Bandai). There were no compression artifacts and I don't think anime fans will be unhappy with the majority of the visuals here.

Sound: The audio was presented with the usual choice of the original 2.0 Dolby Digital Japanese stereo track or the newly made 2.0 Dolby Digital stereo English dub. I liked the vocals of the dub better this time even if a couple of background characters didn't seem to fit all that well. In terms of the sound effects and music, both seemed about equal to me with limited separation between the tracks and a dynamic range less pleasing than some of the other modern releases I've listened to lately. In all though, it was well enough handled that no one should complain too loudly (as some extremists tend to do).

Extras: The only extras on the DVD were a set of trailers.

Final Thoughts: Mars Daybreak V4 had no decent extras, only four episodes, and wasn't the best of the batch but the storylines were better written than the last set and I enjoyed how some of the more creative episodes of recent memory were deployed here. The characters were given some opportunities to shine and the dub was nearly as good as the original language track in my estimation. In all, I wanted to see what happened to the crew, always a good sign, considering what took place in these four episodes, leading me to think favorably on the remaining two volumes of the series as a result. There was decent replay value and I think Bandai will have a good series to release as a single boxed set based on the initial four volumes.

If you enjoy anime, take a look at some of the recommendations by DVD Talk's twisted cast of reviewers in their Best Of Anime 2003, Best Of Anime 2004, and Best of Anime 2005 articles or their regular column Anime Talk.