However, the killer seems to have either an inflated ego or a death wish, as he saves our girls the trouble of a long investigation and seeks Jo and Meg out himself. The girls split up (due to Jo being a bit faster on the draw, and Meg being momentarily held up by some creep who learns –via baseball bat- why it’s not a good idea to strangle and then videotape other people), and when they’re discussing it with Sam the next day, he asks them to leave and stop interfering. When pressed, he confesses that the entire police department is being prevented from investigating the killer by influential higher powers.
The girls discuss their options, and decide that the killer needs to be stopped, regardless of consequences. Moments later, the mechanical creature /killer witnessed by Jo the previous night subdues and kidnaps Meg. Jo quickly turns to Sam for his inside info and is fully prepared to beat every police officer in the station until she gets answers. Luckily for the officers, Sam gives in pretty quickly, and luckily for us, he has a car and simply drives Jo to the site. She finds Meg, and they both find themselves in a trap.
Huge fight ensues, with missiles, gunfire, and good, old-fashioned running away.
Turns out that the ‘killer’ in question is a sort of insectoid robot, remote-controlled by a camera-obsessed creep with a fetish for watching people die on film. (Incidentally, Jo’s hair, waist-length or longer throughout this episode, is cut to it’s familiar short length by a lucky swipe of the robot’s scythe-like arms in the end battle. A quick swipe-and-slap by the robot makes it seem as if Jo is done for, but she’s harder to stop than that.
Presentation: The DVD art is pretty, but the text is confusing as worst, uninformative at best. While I appreciated what contents there were, it still seems strange to me that the mix of episode (25 minutes) to extras (110 minutes) was wildly unbalanced.
The difficulty of an understated yet appropriate soundtrack is probably not as appreciated as it should be. Every sound and song is perfect for the scene, without stealing any glory.
Extras:
The Lightness and Darkness of Jo – An episodic flashback of Jo’s discovery by a group of children, and an explanation of her ties to Meg, Shirley, and the gang.
Battle Record of All 24 Episodes – A sort of video clip explanation followed by footage of the end battle of the episode. It basically boils down each episode to all the fighting, with just the bare story essentials included so you don’t get too confused. An interesting feature I’ve never seen before in any other anime, and strangely satisfying if you’re in the mood for hack-and-slash fighting without story getting in the way.
Preview of the TV Series – Self explanatory.
Previews of the OVA – Also self explanatory.
Ugetsu Hakua (Character Designer) Special – A quick little music video with footage of the four main characters of Burst Angel. (I’m not terribly familiar with the series yet, so it may be special footage for this disc.)
Trailers – Trailers for several other Funimation series.
Overall: An enjoyable episode, but not much use unless you’re already a fan of the series or plan on becoming one. The characters aren’t really introduced, and we have no idea who they are or why we should care unless you’ve seen some of the series or watch the extras. Still, the basic story is fairly easy to follow and enjoy. However, the entire disc refers pretty heavily to stories and characters that aren’t featured on this DVD, so it can be pretty confusing to tell who’s-who and what’s-what in the extras. I do like the concept of the Battle Record extras and, to be honest, that’s the part that really inspires you to get and watch the entire series immediately.
Rating:
The Story-7- A fairly common, though not uninteresting, story of super-fighting- girls kick weird, evil, robot and bad guy tail in the interest of avenging one of their innocent friends. Why don’t these bad guys ever learn to do background checks before they choose victims? Still, the art is nice, the character design is interesting and good-looking, and the story doesn’t require a lot of research or in- depth knowledge.
Presentation-6- While I do appreciate the background music and sound effects, with their care to be perfectly appropriate without detracting attention from the main story, I have to take the DVD case into account. With it’s confusing story- summation and assumption that I know who the characters are and what the series is about, I only become irritated at being expected to know these things prior to achieving the disc.
(Besides how can someone be “…in their very first adventure, off-duty, and ready to celebrate!” If this is your first adventure, then what are you off-duty from and why are you celebrating?)
Extras-7- Again, I do like that Battle Record, and the Lightness and Darkness of Jo was a cute little peek into the back-story of the two main characters and their relationship.
Overall-7- It’s an interesting disc, but it really only drives you to seek out the series. That may be it’s purpose, but any item that doesn’t have much to say for itself isn’t at the top of my personal list.