The second volume of My-Zhime - My-Otome has been released and it manages to avoid the sophomore slump that afflicts many anime titles.  This volume is just as fun and exciting as the first, and it also develops the plot nicely.  This time around Arika finds out that she might get expelled before she even starts classes when one of her uniforms turns up for sale in a shop, and the girl gets in even deeper trouble when she explores a hidden passage with the princess  A solid program that shows no signs of slowing down.

Series background:

The planet Earl has lost most of the technological knowledge that they once had.  One of the few pieces of advanced tech that they still have are nanobots that can enhance a woman's strength and abilities, but only virgin women.  The women who are injected with these devices are Otome, and act as both servants and bodyguards to the royalty of the planet.

14-year-old Arika Yumemiya has traveled through vast deserts to the capital city of the Windbloom Kingdom in search of her mother, who she knew was an Otome.  Arika has a mysterious past, she hardly knew her mother and was raised by her grandmother, and there may be more to the young girl than meets the eye.   Arriving at the capital Arika meets Nina, a top Otome candidate.  Nina is aggravated by the rural Arika but when the new girl spots someone running from guards they both go to her rescue.

It turns out that the girl they saw was none other than Mashiro Blan de Windbloom, the soon to be crowned heir to the throne.  Mashiro isn't grateful that Arika and Nina saved her life.  After all, that's their job.  The princess is a spoiled brat of the first degree, partially because she's been pampered all her life, but also because of the rumors about her, rumors that she's not be the real princess.  Nearly 14 years ago there was an invasion.  The king and queen were killed, and the infant princess was missing.  As soon as the invasion was repelled, a minister produced a baby girl that he said was the princess...but was she really?

Based on her performance saving the queen, Arika is granted admission to Garderobe Academy where Otome are trained, an honor that many aspire to but few achieve.  Getting special treatment doesn't endear her to many of her new classmates however, and the fact that she doesn't have the money to pay the exorbitant tuition sets her apart from the others too.  It seems that passing her classes won't be the only things that Arika has to worry about.

This volume:

It's time for Arika's first day of class, but things get off to a horrible start.  One of her uniforms has turned up for sale at a shop in town that caters to Otome fans.  A genuine Otome outfit is very hard to come by and goes for a small fortune.  Suspicion immediately falls on Arika.  Did she sell her uniform to get tuition money?  Together with her few friends, the young girl has to find out the truth before she's expelled.  Arika also finds out that she has a sponsor.  Someone who claims that Arika's mother helped her years ago wants to return the favor by paying for the young girl's school fees.  All this unknown person wants in return is for Arika to write her one letter a week.
 
In the next episode Shiho, an upperclassman that dislikes the cheerful and bubbly Arika, has a plan to get back at her and friends.  She places some small, mysterious, nearly invisible creatures into the pool just before swimming lessons, but things get out of hand when the animals unite and form a giant monster.

Arika gets into more trouble when she and Princess Mashiro stumble upon a secret passage.  Hidden in the depths of the castle is a bizarre organ that causes an Otome's image to appear when played.  This projection gives a curious message to the two girls and then disappears.  Unfortunately before they can decipher the riddle a monster attacks and Arika has to become pledged to Mashiro in order to access her powers.  Defeating the monster is easy, but canceling the pledge, something both parties desperately want, is another matter altogether.
 
Like the first disc, these shows were a lot of fun.  The first couple of episodes were mainly padding, but they helped flesh out the world that Arika lives in and gives the show a three dimensional feel.  The events in the last pair look like they'll have long term consequences in the show too, which is good.

Audio:

This series offers viewers the option of a listening to the show in the original Japanese with optional subtitles or to an English dub, both in stereo.  I alternated audio tracks and the Japanese one is superior.  I'm not a person who thumbs their nose at all dubs, some recent English dubs have been fantastic, but this one has some characters with phony accents that sound really bad.  They are minor characters, granted, but we shouldn't have to put up with something like that at all.  Aside from that, both tracks sounded fine.  There were no dropouts, distortion or background noise that I could hear.

Video:

The full frame image looked very good.  The colors were bright and solid and the lines were tight.  On the digital side things also looked fine.  There was just a touch of aliasing in the background, but it was much less than your average anime disc.  Cross colorization, blocking, bleeding were all absent.  Overall I was very happy with this disc's visuals.

Extras:

Bandai included anohter omake episodes with this disc.  Omake are short animated features or mini-episodes that are usually included as a DVD bonus in Japan.  This time the episode expands upon a scene from one of the episodes in a humorous way.  There's also a textless opening and trailers to three other Bandai anime titles.

Final Thoughts:

This disc was just as strong as the first one.  The show doesn't suffer from the dreaded sophomore slump even though there were two stand alone episodes included in this volume.  Arika is becoming an interesting character but the world that they are in is even more engaging.  This series gets a very strong recommendation.