Desert Punk Volume 6 - Death of the Desert   Starring (voice): Chihiro Suzuki, Tomoko Kotani, Chiwa Saito and Jiro Saito MVM RRP: £15.99 MVD2254 Certificate: 15 Available 12 December 2009

Is Desert Punk dead? Fearing the worst, Kosuna adopts his name and carries on with the help of a pint-sized apprentice equipped with a full-sized attitude. Double-crosses and unexpected events lead to an explosive final battle... but has Dessert Punk's legacy reached its end...?

Desert Punk (Sunabōzuis) is based on Usune Masatoshi's manga series. Volume 6 features episodes 21-24 of the 24-episode series and is directed by Takayuki Inagaki (Black Cat), with character designs by Takahiro Yoshimatsu (Ninja Scroll; Slayers; Trigun).

In today's politically correct society Desert Punk is either a breath of fresh air or a relic of the past depending on your point of view. Relying heavily on Benny Hill style innuendo, mainly centring around Desert Punk's obsession with large breasted women, the series is a bombastically comic celebration of juvenilia, filled as it is with sarcastic put-downs, explosive action and plenty of lechery and lewdness.

Volume six contains the show's final four episodes:

Master and Pupil - Part II: It's been six months since Desert Punk is thought to have been killed. Kosuna carries on the tradition by calling herself Desert Punk II and employing the services of a young apprentice, the timid Mitz, who is the son of Desert Punk's old master, Koid. Kosuna treats Mitz quite badly, and things get worse when a new mission that Kosuna was counting on completing is given to the Machine Gun brothers instead.

Rain and Sea: Timid Mitz soon shows his true colours. He is anything but helpless. He has something known as "Hulk Condition" that turns him into a raging monster when he's faced with danger.

Doubt and Ambition: Underground mercenaries embark on a mission to travel to a secret laboratory which they must guard. But on the way they are confronted by Junko.

Taiko and Kanta: Kosuna continues to attempt to show that she is a real mercenary, but in the end decides to forget about Desert Punk, in a bid to fulfil her destiny and become Kanto Desert's greatest power babe.

To be honest I found the final four episodes to be a real headache to watch. Gone is all of the show's lewd and wacky humour - gone too is Desert Punk for the majority of these episodes. This is a real shame as the series could have gone out on a high, but ends up just slowly dying a slow and boring death.

Extras include director commentary on the last episode; textless opening and closing titles; and trailers for other releases.

After five excellent volumes of the series, the last disc is extremely disappointing.

3

Darren Rea