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R2 DVD Reviews
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Written by maehara
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Monday, 24 October 2005 00:00 |
 Bakur... err, Burst Angel hits DVD, and seems
to have been spruced up a little along the way. For shows with a
cute female cast, that can never be a bad thing. The one thing
they couldn't really change was the lack of any real depth - this
series personifies GONZO's "style over substance" reputation - but sometimes all you want from a show is to have fun watching it...
1 - Hell Silently Approaches
The far future, and it's not a friendly place. Partly due to a recent
law that lifted restrictions on citizens carrying heavy weapons, the
crime rate is rising out-of-control - and the number of arrests made is
falling. In the midst of this, Tachibana Kyouhei, a trainee chef, takes
a job to cook for 4 girls who live in an armoured trailer. They're not
your normal girls, either - mercenaries, making a good living out of
the chaos around them. Kyouhei's first day working for them doesn't go
well - when the girls accept a mission to recover a data disc, he's
taken hostage by the rival gang...
2 - The Heartless Gunfighter
While Kyouhei manages to escape from his captors, Meg's not so lucky -
she's taken captive by an enemy cybot, along with the data disc the
girls were trying to retrieve. Time for a rescue operation, and
Kyouhei's drafted in to help - payback for the help he got from Meg
earlier. Seems she's being held in Shibuya, the most lawless part of
town where life is very definitely cheap, but Jo seems to have some
influence here...
3 - City Where the Beast Howls
Kyouhei claims to have quit his job working for the girls, calling it
'abnormal' - and who can blame him. Getting away from them is easier
said than done, though, and it's not long before he's back in the
truck's kitchen. Meg & Jo, meanwhile, are out an a capture mission
- but their plans take an unexpected turn when their target, Wong, is
picked up by RAPT instead. Things don't get any easier when they tail
RAPT's ambulance to an abandoned industrial complex...
4 - The Brothers Die at Dawn
Meg's trapped on board the train that's carrying Wong's body - along
with his twin brother Liang, who's convinced Meg & Jo were involved
in Wong's capture. Amy manages to get a trace on the train & the
direction it's heading, but it will be a while before the truck can
catch up, so Meg's left having to do some fast talking to convince
Liang she's not one of the bad guys. After convicing him she's not a
threat, Liang explains what's been happening - it seems RAPT have been
using his brother for some illicit drug experiments. The results with
Wong have been different than expected - different enough that just
about every underground group that knows about him wants to get hold of
him...
When I first saw Burst Angel back when it was airing on Japenese
TV, my first thoughts were "Oooh, bad CGI!". Fortunately, GONZO
seem to have made use of the DVD release to spruce things up a bit, and
while it still suffers from low framerates in places it's a lot easier
to watch. Meg, meanwhile, is still a dead ringer for Eclair (Kiddy Grade),
and seems to be a good bit more.. nipply.. than she used to be.
It's as if GONZO have realised the weakness in the show's story and
gone out of their way to keep the fanservice ramped up enough to keep
the guys watching.
Works for me....
The characters' personalities fit the usual
stereotypes, so at first glance there's really nothing original here to
be worth bothering with. In these cases, it's time to take a look at
how well it's all executed to see if it's worth watching - in other
words, is it fun to watch? Well, yes - so far at least.
Kyouhei's a waste of screen space at the moment
(although apparently bigger things are planned for him), but the girls
are an interesting enough bunch. Storywise, while these first
four
episodes have been pretty superficial - it's really 2 two-part stories,
but they seem to stand on their own and there's not much sign of
greater things yet.
Overall, then, this is another one of those shows with superficially
no redeeming qualities, but that manages to simply be fun to watch. Nothing ground-breaking, but worth a look.
Watch Episode One | Watch the Trailer |
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