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The three Papermasters Michelle, Maggie and Anita have now
come into direct confrontation with the British Library. With
a gun to Yomiko's head, will the girls really give up the
book that they have fought so hard to hold on to.
Volume
Five, The Darkest Hour takes up where episode sixteen,
Fahrenheit 451, left off - with the girls confronting
Wendy in front of a mountain of burning books. As the title
of the volume would suggest things are getting decidedly darker
with this series and to be honest its all to the good. R.O.D.
TV was always a great show but the initial episodes may
have put off some viewers that only saw the fluffier side
of the story. All the episodes on this volume are impressive,
making you salivate at the thought of the next volume coming
out.
Episode seventeen, Sweet Home, opens with the aftermath
of the girl's confrontation with Wendy and the British Library.
Mr Joker continues his plans of world domination and the eventual
reanimation of England's dead leader, Mr Gentleman, with the
acquisition of various book shops and libraries, around the
world. In fear for their lives the girls flee to the relative
safety of Yomiko's family home, but safety is an illusionary
quality, especially when Junior turns up with a gun.
Confession:
in the safety of her home its time for Yomiko to finally tell
the truth about who burnt the British Library, but are the
girls ready for the answer? Junior discovers that Nancy is
his mother, but that he was taken away at birth to be trained
as Mr Gentlemen's new host body. Junior phases with the book
revealing Yomiko destroyed the library after Mr Joker shows
her lover's fate.
In
The Family Game with the fate of Junior now hanging
in the balance, the group decide that the only safe course
is to bury the book containing part of Mr Gentleman's consciousness,
but the British Library has other plans. They despatch Mirrorman,
an agent that can appear as other people, to infiltrate the
group and retrieve Junior. Meanwhile Mr Joker's plans are
coming to fruition with more of the planet falling under his
influence.
In
Hello Sadness Mirrorman is beaten by Anita and Yomiko,
but the others are still being held captive. Joker finalises
plans to resurrect Mr Gentleman using Juniors body. Using
a giant paper aeroplane, Anita and Yomiko catch up with the
helicopter holding the rest of the girls only to witness its
complete destruction in a giant fireball.
So
a very dramatic ending to this volume. Are the rest of the
girls as dead as they appear? Well only volume six will tell
you that, I'm keeping mum, so as not to spoil the plot.
The
extras on volume five are no great slouch either; you get
an art gallery with about a dozen nice pictures and the usual
bunch of trailers for other manga shows. There is a clean
ending, which is a fairly static affair of two indiscernible
figures reading books whilst the end credit music plays. There
are some odd previews of later episodes with the vocal actress's
not really telling what's going to happen, pleasant but odd,
sounded more like the girls were having a pyjama party than
expounding on the episodes. Best extra has to be the commentary
by Taliesin Jaffe, the ADR director.
The visual on the disc continues crisp and clean, with nothing
detracting from the show. Audio is either English or Japanese
5.1 or Japanese stereo, subtitles are included.
So,
the discs just keeps getting better in plot and value. Kudos
to the people behind the English version, their love of the
show really shows through with such a quality product.
Charles
Packer
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