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As 2006 draws to a close, so do a number of anime series. Burst Angel has been a bit of a mixed bag for me, jumping from being an excellent futuristic 'girls with guns' actioner to a decidedly average one. However, things picked up towards the end of the last volume so my hopes were raised that this final volume may return to the quality of the start. RAPT's nefarious plans come out into the
open when they finally succeed in taking over Tokyo. Strict martial law is
imposed as they launch a vicious campaign of urban cleansing, sweeping up anyone
who makes even the smallest misdemeanour. With the civil liberties of the
citizens taking a severe battering you would hope that the Burst Angel girls
would have something to say on the matter, but a bombshell is dropped instead. Bailin, the mysterious organisation the girls work for, is taken over by RAPT
and the Burst Angels are disbanded! To make matters worse Jo and Meg
are taken prisoner and we soon learn the shocking truth about Jo's past, a truth
that leads to a deadly showdown that could have catastrophic effects. Sei
struggles to come to terms with what's happened and how to cope with her loyalty
to Bailin and her own sense of justice over what RAPT is doing. She has
some big decisions to make, but can she really do anything now her team is in
tatters? Meanwhile Meg has some hard thinking to do, Jo is her best friend
but their destinies may no longer follow the same path. Meanwhile RAPT
tightens its grip on the city and pushes Tokyo ever closer to the warped Utopia
it desires... |
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Finally Burst Angel goes back to what it does best and sticks with it. The four episodes on this disc are pretty much non-stop action from start to finish, and contain their fair share of drama too. With RAPT seizing control and implementing a policy of total crime prevention (their plan is to crush the free will of the population and therefore control the city absolutely), these final episodes create a very bleak dystopian vision of the future. All of the main storylines of the series converge and you finally find out who Jo is and how Jo, Meg and |
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Amy came to work for Sei and Bailin. That's not all there is though, Maria - a powerful RAPT soldier who seems have the same kinds of abilities as Jo - is desperate to finish a battle from their past. She kidnaps Meg (surprise, surprise) from RAPT and brings Jo to a huge training facility where they can fight uninterrupted, but RAPT aren't going to take that kind of insubordinate attitude lying down! The action is near enough relentless, but Burst
Angel vol 6 does manage to get in a lot of plot too. The
flashbacks showing how Sei recruited the girls are interesting, but
it's the ones of Jo's past that are worth the wait. You
probably guessed ages ago why she has the superhuman abilities she
has, but the scenes of her combat training in a Battle Royale
style fight for survival against her fellow trainees are
surprisingly brutal and disturbing. As all of RAPT's plans
come to the fore it becomes clear what part Jo was supposed to take,
but they reckon without the creepy Maria trying to finish her
instead. The scenes between Jo and Maria are great and the
action scenes throughout the volume are superb, look out in
particular for a replay of the stunning CGI battle that started off
the first volume. |
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Animation and music-wise the series has been great and this volume keeps that tradition going, but as much of an improvement these last few volumes are, there are still a lot of flaws. The main problem is the wasted characters, chef Koukin was the main character in the first few episodes but he is so peripheral now he may as well not exist. Meg still doesn't do anything except whine and get kidnapped (until the very end, when it's a bit too late), Amy disappears for almost the whole volume whilst Takane returns as little more than an |
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Osakan stereotype. The 'glowing brains' and the monsters they spawn are still pretty rubbish, even if they do lead to some good action scenes, and the story doesn't explore the idea of the total police state as well as it could. It doesn't focus on the people coming to terms with it and it doesn't really come up with any solutions. RAPT may be destroying civil liberty but if they are defeated half the city will go back to being the lawless dump they were trying to combat. It's not as if the Burst Angels could police it, but it leaves the way open for a second series I guess... Burst Angel vol 6 is far better than the last three volumes but suffers from underusing some of its characters. The series as a whole has been a solid actioner with flashes of brilliance let down by some strange ideas, crap monsters and anachronistic episodes. Action, music and animation-wise it's superb, with cool characters and some great set pieces, particularly the CGI robot battles. It has a well thought out premise but deals with it in a superficial way, which is frustrating. However, it is incredibly entertaining with some great scenes and battles, the pacing is good and there are some disturbing scenes of military experiments and extreme policing which adds a bit of an edge. The story is pretty gripping in this last volume even though it is pretty obvious what's going to happen, and it is fitting that a series that started on a high ends on one too. Extras: The extras on every volume of Burst Angel have been superb, and this trend continues once again. The extras may be the same on paper as they have been before, but with a commentary from the US voice cast for the final episode, Japanese trailer, MVM trailers, alternate opening and closing sequences and no less than eight of the awesome Japanese radio dramas that is no bad thing! The surprisingly lengthy and bizarre radio dramas are worth five stars on their own, you realise how versatile the Japanese actresses are when they play themselves, their characters, other characters and cutesy alter-egos The Pretzels whilst seemingly making it up as they go along! Ratings Feature:
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