 The Vampire may have the ambition referred to in the title, but he's
not having much luck at making his plans come to fruition. With one
enemy getting more frustrated as time goes by, and another enemy
seeming now to be a friend, this disc is something of a mixed bag for
Daiskue & J...
(Note: that's the R1 cover shown - at time of writing Madman hadn't
posted the R4 cover on their site, and my scanner's on the fritz.
Artwork for the R4 is the same, with the Madman logo & rating added)
5 - Doll
Claire Leonelli's schemeing again - this plan begins with the seizure
of a child belonging to one of his debtors. Seems the child is really a
machine, and with the help of some reprogramming Claire plans to use
him to discredit J - after all, a machine seen attacking a child would
have to be deactivated, right? Meanwhile, J doesn't seem to be quite
himself, and a decree from his political masters that he shouldn't be
used doesn't help matters...
6 - Money
Trading scam time, and Claire's behind it - natch. By playing on the
natural desire of people to make as much money as possible, he's
hoping to make a killing. Meanwhile, there's a rumour around about an
impending delivery of explosives, and Daisuke's on the case - but is
the rumour all it seems to be?
7 - Circulation
Down into the sewers for Daisuke as he goes in search of his lost
pendant. While there he discovers that there's a whole other world
Underground. Shame some of his Overground enemies seem to be hanging
out down there, along with an unexpected new friend...
8 - Brother
In case you missed it, Daisuke's boss is also his brother - and quite
the bishonen, too. However, he & Daisuke really don't seem to get
along... Daisuke sees some uncomfortable comparisons when he meets Kia,
a young blues guitar player who has family problems of his own - and
drastic plans to solve them...
I really don't like Claire Leonelli - kinda Dilandau from Escaflowne
taken to the next level & one of anime's more annoying characters .
And I wouldn't have thought that the futures market in tomatoes would
be open to making that much of a killing (although they explain how the
market works really well - I guess that counts as their educational
segment...). That's about all the criticism I can give, though - apart
from that, this is a reasonable bunch of episodes. Personal favourite
is Daiskue's trip Underground, & I'm hoping we see more of that
later.
So. Generally a 50/50 split between Vampire episodes, and episodes
that look at relationships in general, and it's a good combination. It
provides anough variety that the show doesn't feel stuck in a rut,
although it's maybe going to get a bit harder to keep track of all the
side characters if they keep introducing them as this rate. ^^; Highly
recommended. |
