AnimeVision

2 - Maia's Longest Day (Part 2)
Maia wakes up in the office of Nereids (the company of bounty hunters who shot her previously), where Rena has plans to make use of her to catch some criminals she's been after. Maia's naturally reluctant to play along, until Rena makes her an offer she can't refuse - there's a job & place to live on the line for her.  Rena's plan goes wrong, leaving Maia in the hands of the gangster she was meant to help catch.  Rena initally doesn't plan to do anything to get Maia back, until the gangster involved threatens to turn the incident into some bad publicity for Nereids.  Worried about getting a bad rap, Rena finally secides to take action, and somehow, following her rescue, Maia manages to end up working for Nereids...

3 - There's No Business Like Nereids Business?
Maia's new job isn't going too well - she's getting all the menial stuff, and even then isn't coping too well with it.  So when a new job comes in - track down a large amount of stolen money, within a week - no-one's more surprised than Maia when she's given the job, especially when Shizuka's the one who volunteered to take it.  Maia's first clue to the identity of the thief comes when she finds a rent-defaulter she's been chasing has left - with just the amount of money they're looking for.  Once they know that, tracking him down isn't too hard, but events start to run out of hand...

4 - Chaka Chaka Bang Bang
Introducing Gloria, who's something of a rival to Rena.  A false call-out brings the Nereids girls to a rich suburb of town, where Gloria has set a trap for Rena.  Seems she owes Gloria some money, and she's not leaving until she gets it back.  Her being a member of staff ('leader', even) only makes it more difficult to get rid of her.  Just to really ruin Maia's day, Gloria decides the rookie could use some company for a while, and tags along with her.  Meanwhile, a case of mistaken identity leads to Rena being kidnapped by a group who were really after Gloria...

Pretty much all set-up in these first few episodes - with a full 26-episode series to play with, Daphne's producers decided to take things slowly and give the Nereids crowd a proper introduction.  Except for the branch manager, who always seems to get a bad rap.  A word to the wise, though - before you assume that this is going to be a simple girls-with-guns show, take a while to think about just how Maia managed to fail the Ocean Agency entrance exams - while I haven't seen past episode 5 myself, I have it on good authority that some seemingly throw-away scenes in the opening two-parter to point to events later in the series.  You now know as much as I do. :)

Knowing something bigger is going on (even if I don't know what) does make the apparently standalone, shallow nature of these episodes a little bit harder to deal with, though.  Girls-with-guns is fun and all, but it's not exactly original, and even their combat costumes (which have got to take the award for "Skimpiest Outfit in a Non-Hentai Show") don't quite raise the interest level past 'midly curious'.  The characters are interesting, if sterotyped, and the show is set in a world not unlike Agent Aika's (where water plays a greater part than it does in today's world), but there's nothing mind-blowing yet.

I'll keep watching, of course, as I want to see how things turn out - Daphne is alleged to have one of the better ending in recent times - but as an introductory disc, this could have done a little better.  Try before you buy.