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R2 DVD Reviews
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Written by maehara
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Monday, 21 August 2006 00:00 |
 The end of the Osaka arc and a little insight into the pasts of Meg and Jo are served up by this volume of Burst Angel, with a continuing theme of people turning into hideous monsters. Eeek. The problem is, once Takane leaves the scene there isn't really anything in the remaining episodes that really catches the attention. Burst? Lethargic pop, more like...
13 - Bloody Battle! Naniwa Hoodlums / Showdown in Osaka
And Meg's been kidnapped again. Shocku! With Iriki having come into the open about being on the side of the terrorists and threatening to kill Meg if Sei and the others get involved, the gang pull back and look for a less obvious way to tackle the problem. First order of business: a few more upgrades for Jango to make sure he's up to the job. Takane, meanwhile, is feeling ever so betrayed, and is determined to have her revenge on Iriki, while he's doing what all would-be evil overlords seem to have a burning desire for: explaining the gory details of his plan to Meg before putting it into action....
14 - Wild Kids
In Meg's younger days, she was the "big sister" to a group of homeless kids, doing their best to make ends meet in a city where no-one really cared about them. One day, the youngster of the group Shirley spotted another girl floating in a river and, despite Meg's instructions to ignore anyone who wasn't a friend, brought her back to the old school bus they used as a home. The new girl? Jo. And it seems that someone - or something - is out to get her...
15 - An Ocean, Swimsuits, and a Sea Monster / Slingin' Oil
Tokyo has a new tourist attraction - Tokyo Treasure Island, an artificial island and leisure resort aimed at giving Toyko's residents plenty of opportunities to enjoy themselves, and naturally Sei and co aren't about to miss the opportunity. And so, much fun was had by all (except general-dogsbody Kyohei) - until a fire following a tanker accident leaves the gang trapped on the island with a very angry giant squid...
16 - War Demon of the Haunted Realm / The Man with No Name
The gang's latest target is a known killer and rapist, and for some reason Sei's given the job of bringing him in to Jo and Meg. I wonder what the odds of a kidnap-and-rescue situation are. "Hopefully low" is the answer, as Jo's being distracted from the mission by a flood of memories from her past, but true to form Meg finds herself captured by the bad guy within minutes of the episode's start. While Jo's able to pull herself together to finish this job - and rescue Meg once more - it seems now that every time she goes into action, she begins to have flashbacks. Just what is going on with her? And what is it about her past that she'd rather not remember? No time to find out, as another unidentified cybot comes looking for her - and it isn't friendly...
It's hard to miss the fact that Meg's breasts seem to have tripled in size since I last saw them, so I'll just mention it here and get them out of my system. I really am beginning to wonder what the point of Meg is - she's useless in a fight, causes more problems than she solves, and may as well walk into every mission with a big "kidnap me!!" sign strung around her neck. As a plot device, that's really beginning to wear thin.
Jo's past is covered here in a way that asks more questions than it answers, and shows us that whatever has been going on that's creating the mutations the girls keep encountering, has been going on for some time - and that Jo may somehow have been involved in the project. Curious. The little tidbits of information you get in episode 14 make it well worth watching, but the disc pretty much goes downhill from there.
Episode 15 is an excuse for fanservice and some dodgy swimwear, episode 16 covers some more interesting territory with Jo again but in such a surreal way it's hard to keep the interest up. The best episode on the disc is the first one, simply because it sticks to what Burst Angel is good at - girls-with-guns action. And Takane kicks much ass.
Overall then, definitely a step down from previous Burst Angel volumes - which weren't exactly the pinnacle of the anime artform anyway. Even the "mindless fun" factor seems to have gone on holiday for most of this disc. These episodes have their moments and there are some tie-ins with the underlying story, but for the most part there's not much here to recommend.
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