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R2 DVD Reviews
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Thursday, 27 November 2008 00:00 |
 When Daphne in the Brilliant Blue first appeared on the fansub circuit, there were a few comparisions to Stellvia thrown around, the big difference being a space theme versus a waterworld one (and on that note, it's criminal that Stellvia hasn't had a UK release yet). While I loved Stellvia from the start, though, Daphne had a harder time selling itself to me, but now that MVM are bringing it to the UK, it's got another chance. Let's see what happens...
1 - Maia's Longest Day (Part I)
Meet Maia Mizuki, 15 years old and in the middle of a practical exam that will help to determine her future. The task is to recover an item from a undersea wreck in the quickest possible time, and it's part of her attempts to join the Ocean Agency - her dream job, and something she's been working towards for a while. While waiting for her test results, she's caught up in some sort of bounty-hunter chase - it's her first contact with bounty-hunter Rena, who'll soon come to have a lot of influence over her. Unfortunately, her dreamt-of career with the Ocean Agency is a no-go, as she fails the entrance tests in dubious circumstances - leaving her out of a job & out of a home, too. A run-in with a pickpocket doesn't help matters, either. Maia needs to find a job & somewhere to live, quickly - but being shot ends her day on the worst possible note...
2 - Maia's Longest Day (Part II)
Maia wakes up in the office of Nereids (the company that Rena works for), where Rena has plans to make use of her to catch some criminals she's been after. Maia's naturally reluctant to play along, until Rena makes her an offer she can't refuse - there's a job & place to live on the line for her. But Rena's plan goes wrong, leaving Maia in the hands of the gangster she was meant to help catch. Rena initally doesn't plan to do anything to get Maia back, until the gangster involved threatens to turn the incident into some bad publicity for Nereids. Worried about getting a bad rap, Rena finally secides to take action, and somehow, following her rescue, Maia manages to end up working for Nereids...
3 - There's No Business Like Nereids Business?
Maia's new job isn't going too well - she's getting all the menial stuff, and even then isn't coping too well with it. So when a new job comes in - track down a large amount of stolen money, within a week - no-one's more surprised than Maia when she's given the job, especially when Shizuka's the one who volunteered to take it. Maia's first clue to the identity of the thief comes when she finds that a rent-defaulter she's been chasing has left - with just the amount of money they're looking for. Once they know that, tracking him down isn't too hard, but events start to run out of hand...
4 - Chaka Chaka Bang Bang
Introducing Gloria, another Nereids employee who's something of a rival to Rena. A false call-out brings the girls to a rich suburb of town, where Gloria has set a trap for Rena. It seems she owes Gloria some money, and she's not leaving until she gets it back. Her being a member of staff ('leader', even) only makes it more difficult to get rid of her. Just to really ruin Maia's day, Gloria decides the rookie could use some company for a while, and tags along with her. Meanwhile, a case of mistaken identity leads to Rena being kidnapped by a group who were really after Gloria...
Working for the Ocean Agency in this world is a big thing - it's the ultimate job, with stiff competition for places, but all through the selection process Maia is head and shoulders above the rest of the candidates. On paper, she should be guaranteed the job. That she doesn't get it is an indication that something's not quite right here, and while it's not until later in the series that we get to find out why, there are a few pointers thrown into these episodes for those paying attention. Don't say I didn't warn you. "Failing" the test throws Maia's life into free-fall, though (a lesson that you really shouldn't assume that you're going to get any job), and provides the catalyst for events in the rest of the series.
This volume is pretty much all set-up - with a full 26-episode run to play with, Daphne's producers decided to take things slowly and give the Nereids crowd a proper introduction. Well, the girls anyway - the poor branch manager always gets a bad rap and is just shown as a man who's so far under Rena's thumbs that you'd be able to take prints from him. Rena, Gloria and Shizuka are all over-the-top characters in their own different ways, and there's a great sense of fun about them - and a sense of threat when they need to get serious, too. Now if only they didn't resort to the overly-revealing battle costumes, we'd be all set - the character designs used in the series really don't lend themselves to fanservice, but the show tries to titillate anyway, with very mixed results. Throwing Star Wars references in there doesn't help, either (bragging points to anyone who can spot what I'm talking about).
Knowing that something bigger is going on (even if you don't know what) does make the apparently standalone, shallow nature of these episodes a little bit harder to deal with, though. Girls-with-guns is fun and all, but it's not exactly original. The characters are interesting, if sterotyped, and the show is set in a world not unlike Agent Aika's (where water plays a greater part than it does in today's world), but there's nothing mind-blowing yet. It's all potential, but potential that isn't full realised yet, and that makes this disc hard to recommend purely on its own merits. There's better to come from the show - I can safely say that, having seen it - but it's going to take a little while to get there. In the meantime, we get a disc that's interesting in both story and setting, without having the hook there yet that will make it something to really look forward to. Promising, but flawed.
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