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Burst Angel has been a bit of a frustrating series for me so far. It started very well, then started to slip a bit, then in the last volume it just ran off in a weird direction. This volume starts as the last left off, with Jo and the mysterious silent samurai facing a 'demon' which Jo can see is a massive robot suit. Things look bleak for the two of them, but there is a shocking revelation for Jo just around the corner... Meanwhile Kohta find's himself caught up in a deadly gang war after he unexpectedly meets an old school friend for the first time in years. However, these are just small events. RAPT are once again scheming their way to their own kind of justice, and their experiments are starting to have an effect on the Burst Angel girls. Whether mind control or deadly new enforcement robots, RAPT is broadening its scope and this time they hit a bit too close to home for comfort. Osakan street gang leader and school uniform wearing police officer (yes, really) Takane Katsu is visiting and it isn't long before her brash attitude gets her mixed up with RAPT's latest schemes. The sinister motives behind them are only now starting to become clear, and one thing's for certain, it's going to be tough from here on in... A strange sort of formula has appeared in the last few volumes, where the first half of the DVD is a bit weak and the second half shows some promise of better things to come. This volume does nothing to break this formula and still leaves a few too many unanswered questions. As a sci-fi action series there isn't a great deal wrong with Burst Angel, there are plenty of decent fights and the animation and music is excellent, but the story has gone in some truly strange directions. At the end of the last volume Jo - for no apparent reason - ends up in a deserted feudal Japanese village with a stoic samurai who appears to be unable to talk. There is a pretty limp explanation in this volume as to why she ended up there, but you are pretty much expected to take this totally anachronistic situation at face value. Has she been thrown into the past? Has she been thrown into an alternative dimension? Is the samurai just a manifestation of her spirit? Is what she is seeing real? What the hell is going on? Things are never adequately explained, and this happens at other points in the volume too. Back in the future world the series normally inhabits things are not bad. Kohta, now a completely peripheral character, gets an episode to himself in which he meets an old friend who has gotten mixed up with the yakuza. His friend has had a lot of bad things happen to him and has ht a low ebb, he thinks the yakuza was the way out he but he soon finds otherwise. It's pretty unoriginal if truth be told, it's just a standard gang story about betrayal and revenge stuck in the future, and it has a very cheesy ending. It's lucky that - true to the formula - the last two episodes are more interesting as these are nothing more than average. Finally in episodes 19 and 20 the focus shifts back on to RAPT and their disturbing plans to bring their own vision of justice to Tokyo. Biological experiments, mind control, artificial intelligence, deadly force... it's all here and it makes for slightly more thought provoking viewing than the series has for a fair few episodes. RAPT's vision of an evolved humanity living in a utopia is slightly reminiscent of Seele in Neon Genesis Evangelion, and in a similar way there seems to be more going on than we have actually seen. I do like the no-nonsense Takane so I'm glad to see her back (even if she has become little more than comic relief) and there's plenty of action to enjoy, including some impressive CGI as the Burst Angel's resident giant robot Django takes on a group of out of control automated patrol vehicles. But what makes these episodes stand out is the fact that there is a bit more thought put into them and some interesting mysteries raised, rather than more infuriating ones. Burst Angel vol 5 continues to squander the excellent start the series had, but episodes 19 and 20 are more like what I expect from it. The series has always been at its best when it focuses on RAPT so I'm glad to see it bringing them back into the story in a big way. The series is frustrating in that it has become mired in stand alone 'filler' episodes, but it has tried to inject some more interesting elements back into the story this time round. There's plenty of action, a smattering of intrigue and for once Meg doesn't get kidnapped (shock!). It still has a long way to go to reach its previous heights and it's a shame that Kohta and Amy are underused, but this volume is promising once more. Extras: Despite the not-so-great direction the series has taken, the same is definitely not true of the extras. Burst Angel has had great extras on each volume, and the usual trailers we are presented with the next instalments of the mad-as-a-spoon Japanese voice actresses' radio show, as well as a less insane but still enjoyable audio commentary for one episode from the US voice cast. Also included this time round are interviews with the Japanese voice actresses for Jo, Meg, Amy and Sei as well as interviews with the character designer and CGI director. For a series to still be able to contain such great extras on volume 5 is nearly unheard of, and there is no series better extras-wise. Ratings Feature:
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