The episodes are:
14) Top Secret: This entire episode is a recap of the show to date. If you haven't seen the previous volumes, this is a good place to start. I haven't seen the earlier shows but this really helped me get a feel for the series. It explains how the invaders had caused a lot of destruction a long time ago and the country built a giant robot to protect itself. After the threat ended, the robot was signed off to a private corporation to lower expenses. When the invaders returned, many years later, the corporation ended up applying corporate accounting principles and liability strategies in repelling the monsters which leads to a number of amusing situations.

15) We Are All Alive: This episode details the problems the crew face with a new company president and military liaison. If the crew thought the business leanings of the program were bad, they quickly see the writing on the wall when an opportunist is put in charge of the military portion of their work.

16) Always Sunny In The Soul: This episode shows how narrow minded the liaison is with regard to the mission of the Terrestrial Defense Corporation, Public Relations Unit 2 (ie: the focus of the series). He blindly prevents them from addressing a serious threat by one of the monsters and they show their devotion to the spirit of the program rather than policy. Of course this causes them all consequences in the end.

17) I'd Like To Sleep As If Dreaming: Due to their insubordination, the new company president and military liaison disband the crew and replace them with military trained pilots. The staff decides to take the opportunity to go on vacation and find a huge monster sleeping near Kyoto. In a sub-plot, a religious leader who uses the Dai-Guard's success as a means to boost his popularity, attempts to force the sleeping monster into fighting the Dai-Guard nearly prove disastrous.

Picture: The picture was presented in full frame and looked great. The anime style was fairly solid and enjoyable to watch.

Sound: The audio gives a choice of either 2.0 English or Japanese with subtitles. Both were crisp and clear with no problems that I detected (and I watched it twice). The English dub was a bit different from the subtitles but was also well acted.

Extras: The extras were a bit light. There was a clean opening and closing sequence. That's where the beginning and ending scenes are shown without the credits. There was a 33 page section of sketches. There was a section with the original Japanese TV spots and a section of trailers from ADV's recent releases.

Final Thoughts: I'm putting volumes 1-3 on my "to get" list right now. I've seen a lot of similar shows, with admittedly similar lead characters, but this one succeeds on several levels. There's enough action that the younger audience will be entertained but also enough here to think about that adults will appreciate it too. Anyone ever working for a jerk boss, in a corporation or in a government agency will have a lot to sit up and cheer about. I really appreciated the opening episode explaining what happened here too although I'm sure I would be less inclined were I to have bought the first 3 dvds in the series.

I really liked this one and think ADV did a great job with it. While there are series with more action in them and there are series with more advanced animation styles, this one had the right blend to keep it interesting for the young and old alike. The series aired in Japan in 1999 and I can only hope that ADV finds more shows like it for future release. Good work!