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R2 DVD Reviews
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Written by maehara
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Monday, 30 May 2005 03:11 |
 It all goes a bit pear-shaped for Eclair and Lumiere in this volume of Kiddy Grade,
as their careers with GOTT come to an abrupt and potentially lethal
end. Eclair's past returns to haunt her - literally - Armbrust
and Eclipse show their treacherous sides, and Lumiere has to decide
whether to help her friend or not...
10 - Rebirth / Slave
Eclair's beginning to have some disturbing
memories - they're hers, but not hers, and what she's remembering is
disturbing. A war, the destruction of a planet, her own involvement in
trying to stop it - and GOTT's involvement in making it happen. Eclair
realises that the drugs she's been given by GOTT have been suppressing
the memories she had of her former life, and know she wants to know who
she really is. Before she has a chance to investigate further, she's
sent on a mission to Pelia with Lumiere and Armbrust, where Un-oa and
A-ou are having problems with some other ES-members. But throughout
the mission, Eclair has to struggle with the 'other' Eclair inside
her...
11 - Set / Free
There are protests against the
Nouvlesse on planet Aure, but rather than sort out the problem
themselves, the Nouvlesse who run the planet have found a way to have
the protesters tagged as 'economic terrorists', meaning GOTT gets to do
the dirty work. Elair & Lumiere are assigned to the job, with
Armbrust tagging along as usual. Once down on the planet's surface,
Eclair's not impressed when she finds the Nouvlesse are treating the
planet's workers as little more than slaves - and they want her to use
force to break up the protests. While she's initially able to follow
her orders without harming anyone, the Nouvlesse's actions during
another large protest tests Eclair's loyalty to breaking point...
12 - Frozen / Life
Eclair
and Lumiere have been expelled from GOTT, and a purge order issued
against them, meaning the two girls are on the run. With the GOTT
Purge Squad on their tail, they head for the remote colony station of
LAV-78, but GOTT's operatives seem to have reached the station ahead of
them, but even faced with the possibility of large loss of life, Eclair
and Lumiere refuse to surrender, forcing the troops sent after them to
use the 'D-Command' - modifying the nanotechnology that gives the girls
their powers in a potentially lethal way - but help comes just when it
seems defeat is inevitable...
This volume is where Kiddy Grade breaks away from the
standalone stories and lets its overall story finally kick in, as
Eclair and Lumiere rebel against the monster that GOTT seems to have
become, and against Eclipse's manipulation of them. It all makes
for a very watchable set of episodes, even if a lot of the why's are
still unexplained. Eclipse has been firmly painted as one of the
'bad guys', while Armbrust is still as indecipherable as ever - he's
working for himself more than anyone, and you never know what he's
going to do next. These episodes are really about Eclair, though,
and how she comes to deal with what she can remember of hre past &
her decision to take a stand against what she sees to be wrong.
There are still a few twists and turns to come before it really becomes clear where Kiddy Grade
is going - if I remember things correctly, be prepared to be horribly
confused at several points over the next few volumes - but things are
really beginning to pick up. Good stuff.
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