Series background:

Kousuke Ueki is your typical middle school student until he encounters an odd man named Mr. K one evening. This unusual person, out of the blue, offers Ueki his choice of super-powers. Out of all the myriad of abilities that are offered, the young man chooses (drum roll please....) the power 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 super-human abilities. (And just about all of them are as odd as Ueki's. One person has the ability to turn cloth into steel, but only while he's holding his breath. Another can turn water into fire, but only if the water is in his mouth.) 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 'power users' 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. Even with Ai on his side, will a slacker like Ueki be able to beat all of the other power users?

This volume:

In the previous volume Ueki fought the odds-on favorite to win the whole tournament, Robert Haydn. That battle wasn't finished, but Robert was incredibly powerful and way out of Ueki's league. Now Ueki learns that Haydn has surrounded himself with the strongest and most ruthless power-users around. They are known as Robert's Ten, and they are gunning for Ueki.

The first one of Robert's Ten to find the happy-go-lucky kid is known as the Black Shadow. He has the ability to turn mere shadows into solid clay golems. The bigger the shadow, the larger the golem. Ueki thinks that he's found a way to defeat this opponent, but he underestimate the Black Shadow. He's not limited to creating only one clay monster, he can create a whole army of them, and they can look like anything he can imagine.

There's no rest for the weary either, because as soon as the battle with the Black Shadow is over, Ueki has to fight the White Shadow. This power user is even more powerful and can turn shadows into metal robots. These are no wind-up toy robots either, but mechanical creations with sharp teeth that can chew through Ueki's trees.

Having proven himself against Robert's Ten, something unexpected happens; Ueki is asked to join the group. He's shown that he has the power and they can use a good fighter on their side. Against Ai's wishes and to her great surprise, Ueki decides that he will join and accepts the offer. When he and Ai are alone, he confides in her that he's only joining so he can take the group down from within. But even with Ueki's talent and determination, it will be hard for him to defeat nine other power users, especially ones hand picked by Robert Haydn.

This was the most enjoyable volume so far. The plot takes a slight twist with Ueki joining Robert's Ten and there are a few other minor wrinkles that give the show a bit more depth. We learn about Ueki's family and there are some revelations about his life and origin that are unexpected. We also get to see what happens to Mr. K. I'm glad they haven't written him out yet.

That's not to say that it's a great series yet. Ueki's sense of fair play is astoundingly moronic. After the Black Shadow has nearly killed him, it looks like Ueki is going to loose for sure. Then the sun goes behind some clouds and the shadows disappear. Instead of seizing his chance, the young power user waits until the sun comes back before he starts to fight again. After all, it wouldn't be fair to win if your opponent couldn't use his power. Yeah, right. The morality is just a bit to preachy, but luckily it doesn't permeate the show.

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 closing and some trailers.

Final Thoughts:

This series is starting to pick up quite a bit. While it's still a kid's show with all of the messages and lessons that they usually have, the plot has taken some interesting turns and it's starting to progress more than your typical battle-of-the-week show. There are still some silly parts that will make people roll their eyes, but this series is head and shoulders above other kid's shows like Saint Seiya and Goemon. If you want to start a show that you're children will like too, this is a good candidate. A weak recommendation.