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 8: Emerging Anew
By otaku_kei
22nd Mar 05  The final instalment of Gonzo Studios fanservice heavy show is finally upon us! Are we finally going to see the many plot threads get drawn to a close or will the infectious energy of the show will just carry over any plot holes. So to quickly catch up how did the last volume end? Well the titanic starship Ducalian has been commandeered by a renegade member of the Nouvlesse for an unknown purpose. The G.O.T.T. is left scrambling to contain this threat, but is it all that it appears? Looks like the ES members are going to have to come to the rescue, with Eclair and Lumiere onboard the Ducalian the stage is set for the final showdown! From the opening episode of this series it has been almost unstoppable fun and this volume is no different. The Nouvlesse renegade is not alone aboard the Ducalian - not only are Eclair and Lumiere aboard, but also Alv and Dverger! Does no one ever die in this series? What are these two embittered ex-ES members truly doing there? That's right they are up to no good, as usual. What happens next is a constant switching battle as Alv and Dverger take control of the Ducalian for there own purposes. Eclair and the powerless Lumiere attempt to stop and there are deaths on both side of this battle. But as I said before this series has even more improbable resurrections that the Marvel Comics universe. Now with this unstoppable war machine in the hands of a crazed Alv all of the forces of the ES units are brought to bear against the Ducalian before the destruction of Earth - the home planet of all the Nouvlesse. Kiddy Grade has always been a lot of fun but this volume still does not manage to fill in all the gaps in the plotline, yet all of that is covered up by one of the most exciting space battles since the attack on the Death Star! For all the fans of this series I'm sure that this final volume will deliver everything that you enjoy about this show and even the plot gaps will not have any serious detriment to the finale. The fanservice is almost completely discarded in this volume so that the show can try to wrap up some of the plot threads. This show has been one of the consistent highlights of UK releases now for the last 8 months, and it is a shame to see it finally end. The light-hearted action adventure tale has had its dark points and the ending is not sugar coated no matter how impermanent any death is. Sure this show could have had better pacing throughout with fewer episodes where little if nothing happens, and the action spread more evenly across a few more episodes then we get here but this show has still been a pleasure to watch.
R2 DVD Notes
Features: English 5.1; English 2.0; Japanese 2.0; English Subtitles; Image Gallery; Kiddy Grade Specials; Textless Song
Release information: 18th April 2005 - OUT NOW
Notes: Final release of this series and I am glad to report that we still have had no problems with the quality of the releases. Once again both language tracks are fine and there were no problems I could detect with the picture.
But once again only 3 episodes on the disc, and a pretty poor showing on the extras. But who cares when the content of a show is this good!
-- otaku_kei 22nd Mar 05
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