Solty Rei Volume 6   Starring (voice): Jouji Nakata, Momoko Saito, Hiro Shimono and Mamiko Noto MVM RRP: £15.99 MVD2260 Certificate: 15 Available 04 January 2010

Following a tragedy known as Blast Fall, the city below is a place of melancholy. Resembles, injured people rebuilt with prosthetic limbs, walk under the all pervading Aurora, a shimmering field which prevents aerial travel. Through this metropolis stalks Roy Revant, bounty hunter, a man with no family and no ties. This all changes when Solty falls from the sky. Outwardly she resembles a small child, but this is a child with great power and a beginning shrouded in mystery...

Solty Rei: Volume 6 and we have finally reached the end of the show, but was it worth it? The show has had an odd transition from a story of a man who befriends a robot child, because he is grieving for his own lost daughter, to one of human colonisation gone horribly wrong. The best bit, and no I'm not going to tell you, is discovering who the real villain of the show is.

Volume six wraps up the story with episodes 23 and 24 - Farewell Message and The Future - and although that does not seem much the disc also contains the OVA Opportunities Missed, Love Shared split into episode 25 and 26. This story takes place after Rose has moved into Roy’s apartment and is a contemplation on happiness, with many of the main characters appearing to explore various aspects of the concept.

So, when we left Solty everyone was pretty much fighting for their lives. The City has gone to hell. Eunomia, the sentient computer which controls the city, is hell bent on wiping out its inhabitant, Ashley is hell bent on destroying Eunimia and in the midst of it all Solty and Roy are trying to save the day. Finally, in the last two episodes, it is revealed what has really been going on and the answer is so odd that I might just go back to the beginning to see if I missed all the clues. The ending is both spectacular, with its combination of hand draw cells and CGI, and touching, because at the heart of the story was always Roy’s relationship with his daughter and Solty.

The 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer is clear if a little soft. The disc comes with audio options for English 5.1 and Japanese 2.0 with or without English subtitles. Extras include opening and closing textless sequences plus trailers for other shows.

In the end the show just got better as it went alone, the ensemble aspect of the story telling kept the viewer wrong footed which makes the show's ending all the more surprising and satisfying. This is probably worth getting when it comes out as a box set if you haven’t already started collecting them.

8

Charles Packer