Aquarion Volume 4   Starring (voice): Takuma Terashima, Tomokazu Sugita and Yumi Kakazu MVM RRP: £15.99 MVD2289 Certificate: 12 Available 08 March 2010

Earth has been devastated in the Great Catastrophe. At their moment of greatest weakness and after 12000, in the Holy Genesis year 0011, the Shadows Angels of Atlandia have arisen to attack mankind. Man's only hope lays in the mecha machine ‘Angel Aquarion’ a multi-part craft that when joined together creates a powerful robot. But to make the machine work its pilots have to merge their souls with the machinery...

Aquarion: Volume 4 and something really strange has happened to the show. For the first time the story outweighs the techno porn creating a much more enjoyable experience. The stories which make up this DVD represent episodes twenty one to twenty six - Crimson Path, Wings Unseen, Fleeting Wings, Heaven’s Gate, Final Battle Atlandia and The Day the World Begins - would have made a pretty decent film.

That’s not to say the extended story was without fault, the final cataclysmic battle does drag a tad for my taste, still the narrative heavy episodes made for a nice change - a pity if feels like too little too late.

The Shadow Angels have continued their attack, but finally we get to see the war from their perspective, and you know I’m not sure that the humans come out as the good guys. The final act of the story is triggered when Sirius, after much contemplation, decides to go over to the Shadow Angels side, during a battle. This throws his sister and friends into confusion, especially when he returns to attack them. Eventually, both sides are brought together; we discover the real meaning behind the war and its inevitable resolution and no I’m not going to spoil it for you.

The sound options remain the same as the previous disc with a choice of either a decent English 5.1 or the original Japanese 2.0 with optional subs. The extras aren’t as good as the previous disc and kick off with some music videos (9 min, 05 sec) which is a sort of truncated version of the final episodes set to music. Next up is Manga Style Silent Movie (3 min, 03 sec) which starts off with shots of the original manga but turns into a quick look at the 3D CGI process. It’s okay but it’s not very deep. The disc is rounded off with trailers.

For once I didn’t fall asleep during Aquarion and so I’m not sure why the show could not have been this good from the beginning. There is no filler in these episodes just back to back solid story telling. The problem with the integration of the CGI elements and the 2D animation remains, but whilst this was a noticeable flaw in previous episode the story is captivating enough that you don’t really notice it this time around. So no real change in its mark, the show was better but the extras can’t compare to those on volume 3.

7

Charles Packer