s-CRY-ed

Publisher
Beez
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
26 episodes
Year
2001

s-CRY-ed Volume 3

By Joseph (Joe) Wood
2nd Nov 05

s-CRY-ed doesn’t seem to let up for one minute. From episode, one the story from each episode ran fluidly into the next mixing action, comedy and an intriguing plot. Volume 3 continues this trend.

Episode nine sees Kazuma enter the mysterious Alter Forest in order to try to strengthen his Alter power in order to protect those close to him. While in the forest Kazuma encounters the mysterious Alter who Ryûhô has been searching for, and after battling him Kazuma’s power increases. Meanwhile Mimori starts to do her own research into HOLY’s true objectives. Episode ten “Super Pinch” see Kazuma take on another member of HOLY Emergy Maxfell who’s rather an oddball, but with a formidable Alter power. “The Alters” episode eleven sees Mimori review her findings, in confinement after confronting Commander Zigmarl, Mimori’s imprisonment causes Straight Cougar to attempt a daring rescue. The last episode on this disc sees Kazuma take on some of the strange gas mask wearing Alters who frequent HOLY’s ranks. The battle is broadcast nationwide and Konami learns the truth about Kazuma.

s-CRY-ed pulls you into each episode and it is unlikely you’re going to come out disappointed. Without a doubt (in my mind at least) the best episode on this disc is “Super Pinch”, Emergy Maxfell’s Alter is a giant robot, showing a number of nods towards a number of giant robot shows. Maxfell himself is also one of the strangest characters to emerge from this series. “The Alters” episode reviews the plot up to this point, but offers enough new information and animation so this is forgivable. What is not so forgivable however is how the information Mimori learns about HOLY is constantly snatched away from the viewer.

When someone’s about to reveal an important plot point and something happens at that exact moment to stop the viewer learning this information, it’s extremely annoying, even more so when it happens several times and it is blatantly obvious that this is happening. This happens (or seems to happen) an awful lot in this volume, and is extremely infuriating and almost caused me to reach for the stop button.

Theirs a lot of foreshadowing in this volume, and next to none of it is resolved in the volume. Also Kazuma and Ryûhô don’t encounter each other personally, which makes this volume seem poorer in comparison to the previous two as their confrontations with one another were the highlights of the other volumes, and one of the main reasons that s-CRY-ed was is so enjoyable. This volume proves that without Kazuma and Ryûhô’s fights, that s-CRY-ed isn’t quite the same. Of course, it’s a fair bet to say that our two main characters are likely to run into each other again in the next volume.

Volume three of s-CRY-ed isn’t the best volume in the series so far, and those who hope for more action between Kazuma and Ryûhô will be disappointed. However the series still looks a cut above the rest, this could very easily be one of the hits of 2005/6.

R2 DVD Notes

Features: English/French/Japanese Audio, English/French/Netherlands Subtitles, Beez Trailers, Art Gallery/Audio Drama, Charcter Profiles, Transaltion notes, Audio comics, clean opening titles for episodes 9-12.

Release information: Publisher: BEEZ Release Date: September 26, 2005 Classification: PG Running Time: 100 min

Notes: The charcter profiles and translation notes are a nice touch. The extra audio drama/art gallery is hilarious featuring the Japanese voice actors (with subtitles) spoof their charcters from the series whilst the artwork appears on the screen. Also featued are two more of the audio comics that first appeared in volume 2. The extras certainly add to the overall value of the DVD and series.

-- Joseph (Joe) Wood 2nd Nov 05