Kousuke Ueki is a typical middle school student.  Until he meets Mr. K one evening that is.  This unusual man offer Ueki his choice of powers, and the young man chooses (drum roll please....) the ability to turn garbage into trees.  Not what I would have picked, but okay.  With this power Ueki has to battle the 99 other middle school kids who have also been given powers.  The winner of this tournament will gain the talent of blank, and the 'sponsor' who granted the child the power he used to win will become the Celestial King.

Each battle between 'powered' kids will go on until one of them is knocked unconscious.  When that happens the fight is over and the person who was defeated loses their power.  That sounds fine, but there's a down side to this power to: if anyone uses it to harm someone who isn't in the tournament, they loose a talent.  These talents can be anything.  Ueki loses the talent "to be liked by girls" at the beginning.  He only starts with 11 talents all together and when they all disappear, so does poor Ueki.

Helping Ueki in this trial is a fellow middle school student, Ai Mori.  Her favorite pastime is to 'meddle', so following Ueki around warning him to be on the lookout for other people with powers is just up her alley.

The four episodes on this first disc set up the premise and then it pretty much takes off.  No time for much characterization or background story, just enough time to get into a fight.  The show is obviously aimed at younger viewers, and it's best not to think about the stories too closely.  In the opening episode, Ueki forced to use his power before the tournament begins when a doctor tries to kill him and two acquaintances because one of them smeared dog crap on his car.  Yep, the doctor chains the trio together, puts them in front of a river, and has a henchman drive his car into them.  The fact that the car would go into the river, or that it's not really smart to kill someone in broad daylight in the middle of a city is apparently lost on the physician.  This is the type of show where you can't worry about little things like that though.  Things just happen and you have to go with it.

The bizarre powers that the kids have are pretty fun, and one of the better aspects of the show.  One kid can turning cloth into metal, but only while he holds his breath, and anther can transmute water into fire, but only when the water is in his mouth.  As odd as those sound, they don't play up the strangeness that much.  That's just another thing you have to accept.  This isn't a comedy which is too bad because it might succeed a bit better if it were.

Audio:

Viewers have the choice of either the original Japanese audio track or an English dub, both in stereo.  The English dub was a little heavy handed in the effects department.  In the very first episode they added some heavy echos to the voices in one scene which made it hard to understand what was being said.  It also sounded pretty stupid.  Because of that, I enjoyed the original language track a lot more.  Both audio options sounded good though, with nice range and clear dialog.  There wasn't any hiss of background noise.

Video:

The full frame picture looked very good.  The image is clean and clear, and the lines are tight.  This is a colorful show with a wide range of shades present.  The colors are strong and bright and add a lot to the show's look.  Digital defects are nearly absent, with only some very minor aliasing in the background.  Overall this is a very nice looking disc.

Extras:
 
The only extra included with this disc is a clean opening.

Final Thoughts:

This is another kid's action show.  Like Yu Gi Oh and it's ilk, there's not a lot of plot or character development in the program.  It's about fighting and that's about it.  It's not the worst thing out there, but there isn't anything particularly great about this show to raise it above being mediocre.  While my two sons (aged 10 and 13) enjoyed the show it's not one that they'll want to watch over and over.  This one would be a good rental.