Romeo X Juliet Volume 4   Starring (voice): Fumie Mizusawa, Takahiro Mizushima, Aya Hisakawa and Ayako Kawasumi MVM RRP: £15.99 MVD2299 Certificate: 12 Available 05 April 2010

Neo Verona is a medieval fantasy land which, since the rise to power by the dictatorial and cruel Leontes Montague, has been in steady decline. It has been fourteen years since he rose to the position of prince, following his assassination of all the surviving members of the house of Capulet, time enough for Montague to poison the population against the Capulets. Safe in his position he turned his mind towards the future and an heir. Now, fourteen years since the destruction of the Capulets, its one surviving princess, Juliet, is set to come into her own power and start the road towards the destruction of the Montagues... Except, that by chance, Juliet meets Montague's son Romeo, a meeting which finds the young couple falling in love...

Romeo X Juliet (2007) is a 24-episode series based very loosely on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet play. The anime was directed by Fumitoshi Oizaki from a script by Reiko Yoshida. This volume holds the episode nineteen to twenty-four: Succession, Duty, The Covenant, Curse, Seeds Brought to Life and Prayer.

When we last met our star crossed lovers, Romeo had set up a commune with all the nice burly ex-con’s that he met in the mine, while Juliet had slipped off her maidenly gowns to once again dress as the male masked avenger the ‘Red Whirlwind’, now who thinks that this is going to end badly?

Juliet has the mob on her side as she rouses the people into action. This, of course, does not go down well with Montague, who comes up with the brilliant plan of slaughtering everybody. Meanwhile Romeo’s commune is not going well due to a fertility issue. On hearing news of Juliet’s escapades he rushes back to confront his father.

Juliet meanwhile has discovered that her hallucinations about trees wasn’t just related to some slightly off cheese, but a major part of her destiny. She must either save the tree or perish creating a new one - though the logic of this completely escaped me. The stage is then set for the final confrontation, in which pretty much everybody dies, a higher body count than even the original play.

Romeo X Juliet has been a strange sort of show, more like Shakespeare on acid, especially towards the end when any pretence of connecting to the original play is abandoned, along with large chunks of logic. Not that it hasn’t been fun, the show is reasonably animated and for once the English sub is far the superior.

The disc contains no extras, audio options are for either Japanese 2.0 with subs, or English 5.1.

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Charles Packer