Mecha shows have always been a popular genre within anime, and it's easy to see why:  Giant robots are cool.  From Robotech to the various Gundam series to Neon Genesis there have been a lot of excellent mecha programs to keep otaku happy.  Unfortunately, like anything else, there's a good amount of lousy mecha programs too.  Zegapain, a recent release from Sunrise, (the studio that brought up Gundam, Cowboy Bebop, Planetes, Inu Yasha, and many others) falls in between the two extremes.  While it's not a bad show, this series about a young high school boy who finds out he can pilot mecha and has to save the world doesn't do a lot to separate it from all the other mecha shows out there.

Kyo Sogoru is a normal, average high school student.  He's an avid swimmer and trying desperately to get more people to join the swim team so the club doesn't get shut down, but besides that there's nothing to separate him from all the other kids at his school.  That is until one day when he sees a gorgeous girl standing on the high dive.  Smelling a new recruit for the swim team, Kyo runs over to the pool just as the girl dives in.  Inexplicably, she's not in the pool though, and no one else saw her.

Later that day a strange light starts shining in his apartment and when he investigates he sees the girl again.  Her name is Shizuno Misaki and she needs his help to save the world.  She transports him to another world, similar to our own but filled with ruined cities.  Kyo finds himself inside a mecha and is surprised that he instinctively knows how to use it.  He battles a squad of robots and wins the day, and thinks he's just playing a new video game.  Especially when the student body president and vice president turn up at the command center after the battle.

He's not in a game, of course.  But after the combat he's sent back to his own world, but things are a little different.  He's astounded to see Misaki at his school as a new transfer student, and everyone is playing a new on-line game called Pain Zega, a battle simulator that is very similar to what he went through.

Kyo is called to fight in the other world several times, but he thinks of it as a game.  After all, he's not even fighting in the real world.  Or is he?  What if the place where he fights in his mecha is the real world and his school life is the thing that's only an illusion?

This show gets off to a really slow start.  Yeah there are several combat scenes, but the plot really drags.  Kyo is dumb as a box of rocks in these early installments and has all the curiosity of a sea slug.  He doesn't even think to ask Misaki why he was chosen or question her about this alternate world for three episodes.  In addition, the show has a very familiar ring to it.  Gee, a boy who is a natural mecha pilot turns out to be humanity's only hope.  How often have we seen that before?

Having said that, the show is not all that bad once it gets moving.  Right around the fourth episode Kyo starts to question which world is really real, and some other things happen that kicks the show up a notch.  The nature of the enemy and what has really been happening in the alternate world still isn't clear, and that mystery will keep viewers watching.

On the production side the show looks pretty good too.  The CGI mecha craft look cool and they move well.  The only thing I disliked is the fact that they reused some animation a couple of times.  Hopefully this won't become a big problem.

This first disc comes in two styles; the regular DVD release and a limited edition version that has a box that will hold all six volumes of the series.  The box is really cool and more than your average slipcase.  It has a lid on the top that, once removed, allows the rests of the case separate in half, folding down on either side to reveal slots for the six DVDs.  It looks really nice.

Audio:

I was a little disappointed in the sound.  Not because of any defects or flaws, but because there was only a stereo soundtrack offered in both the original Japanese and the English dub.  This is a show where a 5.1 track would really be impressive.  There are mecha fights in half destroyed cities, swords slicing robots in half, and giant beam cannons.  All of these sound a little anemic in the stereo mix and more than once I wished that my subwoofer was getting a workout.  Since this show aired in 2006, I'm really surprised that it wasn't recorded in surround sound.  Oh well.  Aside from that gripe the show sounds fine.  There's some use made of the front soundstage and audio defects are not a problem.

Video:

The 1.78:1 anamorphic image looks very good overall.  The colors are solid and the lines are tight.  The only real problem is that there is some posterization in several scenes.  This occurs when colors are changing from one hue to another and the transition isn't even and smooth.  You can see bands of one tone then a band of another tone instead of a smooth even gradient.  Aliasing and blocking weren't a problem however.

Extras:

This disc also has a textless opening and closing as well as a clean prologue sequence.

Final Thoughts:

This show has some potential.  Though it was slow to start, once the plot got rolling, the program became more interesting.  It could turn out to be a pretty solid show, though it's too early to tell, even with the ample five episodes that this volume contains.  It'll be interesting to see if the series can keep the momentum up.  I'm thinking it will.   Recommended.