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R4 DVD Reviews
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Written by maehara
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Monday, 08 August 2005 12:54 |
 DNAngel's back, and so are Hiwatari and Krad -
and they're as determined as ever to make life difficult for Daisuke
and Dark. While vengence is definitely in the air, so is love -
between With and a rabbit, and just maybe between Daisuke and...
Riku?! At least she's a lot less self-centered than her sister...
9 - A Little Romance
While Daisuke's out doing some sunset sketches he runs into Riku, and
he gets dragged along by her to do some window shopping. Since
With's hiding in his bag at the time, he's not too keen on dragging out
the trip for too long, but when they stop by a petshop that has a
rabbit in the window, With sticks his head out and suffers from a bad
case of love at first sight. When Daisuke refuses to take With to
see the object of his affections, With goes into sulk mode - it seems
Daisuke hasn't quite managed to put two and two together, and it takes
Riku to explain to him what With's after. Hoping to cheer With
up, the two of them go to the petshop to see if they can buy the rabbit
- but she's already been sold. To make matters worse, With's
missing as well. Meanwhile, Dark's beginning to notice that
there's a little chemistry between Daisuke and Riku...
10 - Portrait of a Musician
Risa, Daisuke and his gransfather go to pay their respects to a famous
violinist who died recently - Daiki had known him when he was younger,
and kinder. As his fame grew, Ehlrich Vandembagu became more and
more obsessed with his music and less tolerant of the people around him
- and it seems his violin may have been to blame. Ehlrich left it
to Daiki in his will, but when he and Daisuke collect it, Daisuke feels
a strange aura from it and his soul is drawn into the past to witness
Vandembagu's first encounter with the violin and his grandfather's
attempts to steal it. Dark's left in the present trying to
retrieve Daisuke's soul, but if he can't bring him back quickly Daisuke
will be locked in the past forever...
11 - The Temple of Neptune
The police are out in force after Dark announces he's going to steal the Horn of
Neptune, promising as usual that they have the perfect system in place
to make sure he isn't able to carry out the theft. The Horn
lies in a submerged offshore temple - getting down there is easy
enough, but with divers patrolling the temple and any number of traps
set it's no easy job to get the Horn and get out - especially since
Hiwatari is back, and waiting for him. Meanwhile, Risa's ongoing
urge to meet Dark again leads her to another entrance to the temple -
and straight into trouble...
12 - With Rutile...
Hiwatari's adoptive father is growing impatient with his son's
inability to capture Dark, and has taken to 'acquiring' some artefacts
of his own to help drawk out Hiwatari's power - in this case, the
Rutile of Grief, a ring of great power. Meanwhile, Daisuke's
father Kosuke has returned home, bringing with him a replica of the
Rutile and a reminder that he - or Dark - will soon have to steal
it. That night, Dark swings into action once more, but with the
Rutile of Grief giving Hiwatari the power to use Krad's abilities, he's
quickly captured, but the replica Rutile that Daisuke's father gave him
soon turns out to be more powerful than it appears...
Whenever I see a good Daisuke x Riku scene, I'm mentally standing and
cheering them on - she's by far the better of the Harada twins, and if
Daisuke doesn't get a move on and change his allegiances, then there's
no justice in the world. Of course, such things are almost a
diversion from the main events surrounding Dark and Hiwatari, but given
that Daisuke's power to change to and from Dark are dependent on his
photo of the girl of his dreams, I can't help but wonder if his
feelings for Elder Harada are going to start causing problems - as is
hinted in one scene here where his pictures of Risa becomes
superimposed with his thoughts of Riku. Curious to see how that
works out.
As for Dark... It's strange. I like Dark, and the scenes where
he's out stealing whatever the objet d'art of the week is - but I have
very little time for Hiwatari and Krad, whose scenes descend a little
too much into angsty areas for my liking. Kiwatari plays a large
part in episodes 11 and 12 here, which pretty much spoiled my interest
in them. Risa's involvement in episode 11 also felt a bit
contrived, and was used as much to remind us that she's obsessed with
Dark as anything else.
All of which means that this volume of DNAngel is a bit
of a mixed bunch - certainly not bad, but not quite as good as the
first two volumes were. Still worth watching, though.
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