When the story finally clicks, it is good. Everything that seemed pointless or drawn out suddenly has a meaning.

But please give this one a little time because, when it finally clicks, it is good. The story does start a little slowly, but as soon as the third episode comes on, it is like the blinders are off. Everything that seemed pointless or drawn out suddenly has a meaning. The conflicting personalities of the girls, which at first seemed irritating, now define the hierarchy of dominance within their little group and reinforce the undertones of social class and status. It is also cool to see how the Japanese view the youth of America. Rachel is very much in the mold of Lindsay Lohan and the others appear to be American schoolgirl stereotypes right out of classic teen summer movies. There is even a reference to the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld. My hat is off to the character designers for the sheer number of outfits all of the characters wear. I don't think there are fewer than three outfits for each character in every episode.

Once everything picks up, even the music, which at first seemed misplaced, really gets good. The ending titles even have a pretty rocking song. Music is used thoughout each episode to really set mood and tone. The Japanese-language version is very well done, but all the crying makes it a bit harsh. Where the crying and singing are concerned, the English-language version surpasses the Japanese. This is mostly because in the English-language version they don't sing as much. The subtitles are handled well and everything is explained sufficiently so as not to leave the audience confused.

Special features are kind of sparse, with only clean opening and ending credits available and some previews of the other offerings for ADV. This title would very much appeal to the gothic Bishonen anime fans out there who like a little mystery with their eye candy. For those who are looking for fan service, there isn't much to speak of aside from a few miniskirts with no peeps. Mixing of action violence and dialogue is handled with a good amount of balance to keep the story moving. It will be interesting to see what the purpose is of these battles in which the girls are forced to participate.

Gunbuster, the groundbreaking OAV series, is being released in the United States on DVD for the first time with re-mastered video and sound.

Gunbuster OAV Series
2006, OAV series (six episodes). Director: Hideaki Anno. 190 minutes. DVD, Japanese language w/English subtitles, $64.99. Distributor: Honneamise.

Back in 1988, some fanboys who turned animators worked for a tiny studio called Gainax and they decided it would be a good idea to rethink the mecha anime genre. Their little groundbreaking OAV series was called Gunbuster. Now, for the first time, Gunbuster is being released in the United States on DVD with re-mastered video and sound. In a first for mecha anime at the time, the protagonist was a female and every effort went into infusing the story with real dramatic content. What Gunbuster turned out to be was an anime classic that had great animation, awesome battle sequences, cute babes, and a plot that succeeded not only in reaching a new emotional level for anime, but turned out to be an allegory of fanboys(girls) growing up.

While the story of Gunbuster begins in fairly typical anime fashion, it becomes evident early on that there is a special something about how this story is told. In an effort to build believability into the story, actual scientific theories form the foundation of the world of Gunbuster. Those who have not had high school-level physics classes, or are not rabid astronomy hobbyists, will most likely get lost in the more technical plot devices. Thankfully, with a little understanding of the speed of light, everything will fall into place. Without this understanding, the scale and timeline of this series will be hard to grasp and the plight of our pilots will be lost. For each episode there is a cute little science-content animation that attempts to explain technically what is going on, but, due to the length and silliness of these explanatory episodes, they are still rather confusing. So I will attempt to present a severely watered-down summary of what is happening, and it should be enough to allow viewers to fully grasp what is going on. Please, no hateful letters from all the professors out there for my liberties.

Thanks to Einstein, we know that the universe has a speed limit of about 670,000,000 miles an hour, better known as the speed of light. A light year is roughly the distance light can travel in about 365 earth days, which is in the neighborhood of 6,000,000,000,000 miles. Parsecs, which are about three light years, are the units the army in Gunbuster uses to measure its distances from home or the enemy. This becomes significant because the first sortie against the enemy takes place about 10,000 parsecs form the earth. This is obviously a long, long, long way away. Traveling these immense distances only becomes possible through bending the fabric of space through a warp system. I think there are enough fans of Star Trek and Noein out there such that warping doesn't require an explanation.