Kiddy Grade  Recommended
Publisher
MVM
Director
Keiji Goto
Production
Fuji TV, GONZO
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
24 episodes
Year
2002
Kiddy Grade volume 6: Mirror Image
By otaku_kei
14th Feb 05  The G.O.T.T. HQ lies in ruins after the all-out assualt by Eclair and Lumiere. Chief Eclipse is dead, gunned down by one of her own ES operatives. ES agents have been taken out of commission by this ferocious attack. The world has turned and what do these events mean in a galaxy that has just been turned on its head. Welcome to the new G.O.T.T. and the Acting Chief - Eclair, welcome back to Kiddy Grade. Now over halfway through the series and the plotline is only starting to come together. Here we have three episodes that throw in even more action into the mix, but the plot development appears to be being dragged out at the moment. In fact the plot exposition that occurs across these 75 minutes could well have been wrapped up within 25. A possible cause for this drag being far too many lines of important dialogue being left half finished but allowing for a lot of pensive mid-distance gazing. I am sorry to say it is not a great piece of direction from the creative talents at GONZO studios. So by the end of these three episodes even more questions are brought up, and the true threat in Kiddy Grade remains clouded in mystery. But at the very least the true perpetrators of the shocking betrayal at the end of volume 5 are exposed (even though it takes 3 episodes). Now that the gripe is out of the way, to get to grips with what is done right on this release. Well once again as soon as this disc was in the DVD tray I was hooked straight back into the ongoing story. After the cliffhanger that was left at the end of volume 5 the anticipation for this volume was stifling, and I have to say it was worth it. The change to the G.O.T.T., the doubts and fears of the general staff as well as the still active ES members over the new direction that Acting Chief 'Eclair' is taking them in is well handled and does not feel forced in any way. The introduction of ES members Sinistra and Dextera is a welcome addition after the loss of so many ES members in volume 5, especially as these two guys have only previously appeared in brief cameos earlier in the series. Also the action scenes as we have come to expect from this series are top notch with several battle scenes across the volume. But for those of you who like their anime to be more plot heavy you will probably already have become bored by this point in the series. Kiddy Grade has been one of my personal favourite releases of the past 6 months, and that has not been diminished by this plot-lite instalment in the series. Whilst the action set-pieces do not dissapoint I am becoming increasingly concerned that the final 2 volumes will possibly have more plot that they can fit into 6 episodes. All that said, as long as this title remains as energetic and enjoyable as it has so far I'm going to trust to GONZO to wrap it all up nicely, so far it has been a great ride.
R2 DVD Notes
Features: English 5.1; English 2.0; Japanese 2.0; English Subtitles; Image Gallery; Character Profiles; Textless Song
Release information: 7th February 2005 - OUT NOW
Notes: Once again we get another standard UK anime DVD release. As always the quality of transfer by MVM is fantastic, but yet again the extras are negligable and will not hold anyones attention for long I feel.
The menus are well laid out and all the option are clearly selectable but with minimum animation. The use of yellow subtitles rather than white helps for any of those scenes that have a light background, but I guess subtitle preference is a simple matter of personal taste.
-- otaku_kei 14th Feb 05
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