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R2 DVD Reviews
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Written by maehara
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Thursday, 20 July 2006 00:00 |
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Page 1 of 2  Most people's first reaction to seeing Divergence Eve goes roughly along the lines of "Oh my God! The breasts!!". It has to be said that the character designs do leave a little bit to be desired - if these girls were real, they'd have serious back problems - but underneath the surface there's a serious science-fiction story that's trying hard to get out. If you can get around the visuals, it's worth giving it a chance...
1 - MISSION 2
December 24, 2317, and Misaki Kureha is preparing for what could be her final mission. Based at Watcher's Nest, a giant space station on the far reaches of mankind's domain and home to some 10 million people, she and her colleagues have been fighting the Ghoul - mysterious creatures that emanate from a planetoid that forms the core of Watcher's Nest and whose existence is a closely guarded secret. Now it seems Misaki may be the key to ending the Ghoul threat, but at significant personal cost...
2 - Quantum Barrier
October 12, 2317 - the final day of Earth-based training for Misaki and her classmates, although quite how Misaki passed the training course will forever remain a mystery. Her first assignment is to Watcher's Nest - a two-minute faster-than-light trip, but a huge distance from home. It's normally a routine flight, but on this trip something else seems to hitch a ride. On Watcher's Nest, the command crew have detected the appearance of the Ghoul and are taking steps to stop it from materialising in our own universe - but their countermeasures carry the risk of forever trapping those on board Misaki's shuttlecraft in a parallel universe...
3 - Necromancer
Having arrived at Watcher's Nest, training continues for Misaki and the others - and it's no surprise to most that Misaki carries on from where she left off on Earth in racking up some impressively bad training scores. It's something that quickly catches the attention of Lieutenant Lyar Von Ertiana, who'll soon have to choose one of the newly-arrived cadets to fill her own position, and who truly isn't impressed with Misaki's apparent lack of potential - but a target practice session reveals that Misaki may have hidden talents. Later, a training flight in her Rampart Armour goes wrong with the RA's booster rockets malfunction, leaving Misaki trapped in the Core and surrounded by hostile RA's...
4 - Specular
An off-duty day give the girls a chance to finally explore Watcher's Nest - and given the size of the station, there's a lot to see. While out and about they hear of areas of the city that have been closed off - officially, it's because of unexplained explosions that have caused serious damage, but the true reason is that they're areas where Ghouls have materialised within the station. As luck would have it, Misaki's about the see the effects of the appearance of a Ghoul first-hand...
5 - Seraphim
The latest shuttle from Earth has brought Bernard Firestar to the station. He's a reporter, come to investigate Lyar's Seraphim group - so naturally she's been assigned to take care of him. Equally naturally, she's not happy with that, especially as Bernard seems to know more about what's been going on at Watcher's Nest than a civilian should. Later, a Ghoul materialises during a training flight, leading to the cadets being ordered to abandon their training shuttle - but the Ghoul appears aboard their ship before the girls or Bernard, who had been observing the mission, can escape...
To start with, we've got a fairly large cast to keep track of - Watcher's Nest has gathered more than its fair share of military personnel over the years thanks to the Ghoul threat, and they all seem to want to get a look-in. The station's resident military first, then: there's Wolfgang Woerne, the 40-year-old German Commander of the station, and a man with an alcohol problem who keeps pretty much to the command centre and leaves the dirty work to others. His second-in-command is Jean-Luc leBlanc, the French Lieutenant-Commander who's at least as concerned with how good he looks as anything else - definitely a bit of a narcissist. Lyar von Ertiana, another German, is the lieutenant in charge of Seraphim, the military unit assigned to deal directly with the Ghoul - although she's due for promotion and is currently looking for a replacement, who'll come from the new group of trainees. American Luke Walker is Watcher's Nest's training commander, Kotoko-01 is a very young-looking support android, while Prim Snowlight is an Ensign who seems to know more about Misaki's history and abilities than anyone else - strange given her low rank, but there you go.
The four new recruits are Misaki herself, Luxandra Frail (a Mexican who's seriously afraid of needles), Suzanna Bluestein (the incredibly good-looking Brit) and Kiri Marialte, a go-getting New Zealander. Divergence Eve thankfully puts a short bio of each character in the opening credits - if you're curious, check page 2 of the review for a look, as a speedy finger on the pause buttom is required to see them from the DVD. With the introductions out of the way, let's move quickly onwards...
If you feel somewhat confused by episode 1, don't be - it slots in between episodes 12 & 13 in the storyline where it would be part 2 of a three-parter, and feels a little out-of-place here as a result. I'm not convinced that was a good idea, as it does spoil a little where the story is heading while at the same time giving you a lot to deal with that, at this stage, doesn't really make much sense. After episode 2, though, things begin to start slotting into place and it becomes much easier to follow events and enjoy the ride.
The Ghoul use an anomaly at the core of the planetoid that Watcher's Nest is built around as a gateway from their own universe to our own - that's what has made it significant enough to merit a settlement the size of Watcher's Nest, but the Ghoul are more of a problem than expected. Parallel universes are also the key to FTL travel in the Divergence Eve setting, so they aren't something that can be done without - but with Ghoul appearances becoming more and more frequent, something has to be done, and that's where Seraphim comes in - and where Misaki, with some very unusual latent abilities that haven't yet been fully explained, looks set to make herself useful. During episode 2, it's shown that she's able to kill a Ghoul with her bare hands after herself "transforming" into something that seems more Ghoul than human, although she's not aware herself of what she's done.
At this stage of the series, Misaki and the others are still meant to be unaware that the Ghoul exist - which is a problem when Misaki sees them in the Core. Prim seems to know more about Misaki's abilities than she's letting on, even to Lyar - she'll admit to her having Precognition at this stage, but the cat's eyes effect and the way she dealt with the Ghoul hand-to-hand seem to imply there's more to her than that - but what? The plot thickens...
Part action, part mystery, with some fanservice that doesn't quite work for many people (those breasts are just too big), Divergence Eve is certainly intriguing, and the CG animation used for shots of Watcher's Nest and other scenes is extremely good. There's a fair bit of "hard" SF about the story, but personally I think that's no bad thing - there's been very little in the way of really good SF in recent years, and the more the merrier. Certainly not a classic, but definitely intriguing and worth a look...
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