DVD
R.O.D. The TV Series
Volume 7 - The New World

Starring (voice): Chiwa Saito, Hiromi Hirata and Shoko Kikuci
MVM
RRP: £19.99
MVD2083
Certificate: 15
Available 07 August 2006


The three Papermasters Michelle, Maggie and Anita have the ability to control paper to make tools and weapons together they form the Paper Sisters Detective Company. After a mauling at the hands of the British Library it looks like the girls don't stand a chance at stopping The British Library from resurrecting their dead leader and enacting their plans of world domination...

And so we come to the last disc, disc seven, of this series - a series which started slow but finally picked up well.

Episode twenty-four, You Know Me, and the girls are more than a little annoyed, having discovered that they are clones; can the girls get over their crisis of identity to get back at the Joker? Will they even have time to turn the situation around and stop the British Library's plan of world domination? The surviving girls determine to travel to London to try and stop Joker, but something is wrong, very wrong with London. Alan Moore would love this episode as the girls discover that London has been transformed by Mr Gentleman to resemble its literary past. Dinosaurs from Doyle exist along side Martian war machines from Well's War of the Worlds.

Episode twenty-five, Not a Big Problem, and the power of the British Library seems unassailable, it brushes off an attack from the United States without a single loss. The resurrection of Mr Gentleman continues unabated, waiting to be transferred to Junior's brain. Meanwhile, the girls are having problems of their own as they discover that time is not the same inside London. While London is in the past, it is moving forward in time too fast. If they can find any anomalous buildings they believe that they will be able to find the heart of the British Library. As the girls start their final assault against Joker, do they really stand a chance? With most of the shows revelations out of the way, the series goes for a couple of exciting wrap-up episodes. This was a good penultimate episode setting the scene for the girls final confrontation.

And so to the last show of the series, From There On, and it looks like there is little that the girls can do to stop Joker. Yomiko, after having Joker at her mercy, cannot bring herself to kill him and becomes another hostage. Unfortunately for her Joker has no such qualms and demands the girls surrender before he kills Yomiko. It looks like their mission is over, with only the chance of a miracle to save the day. No, I'm not going to spoil it by telling you how it all works out, but you can bet that not all of the characters are going to survive the experience.

At the end of the day this was a very good show once it got into the story proper. I loved the idea that a stuffy institution like The British Library should be depicted as a neo-fascist organisation bent on world domination. The length of the story allowed the audience to really care about what happens to the girls and the high level of animation was preserved throughout. A good word has to be put in for the English vocal actors who play their parts so well that you never really get the idea that this is a dubbed show, and it's got to have the coolest opening credits of any show.

The extras on volume seven keep up the good quality that has been the mark of the previous releases. First up is the commentary with the Voice Director and three of the female voice actors - these are always a lot of fun to listen to and a worthy addition to the disc. There is another Art Gallery for your perusal containing ten pictures. To complete the extras you get a bunch of trailers, the Japanese episode previews for the three on this disc and the DVD credits.

The visuals on the disc continues to show the good quality of encoding, with the colours remaining crisp. Audio is either English or Japanese 5.1 or Japanese stereo, subtitles are included as well as a signs only option.

Charles Packer

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