Kiddy Grade starts out light, but gets grimly dark very soon. © FUNimation.

Kiddy Grade. V.1, The Peacekeepers. V.2, Pieces of the Past. V.3, Lies Beneath. V.4, The Present Future. V.5, The Freedom of Truth. V.6, Mirror Image. V.7, Lurking Shadows. V.8, Emerging Anew.
TV series (24 episodes), 2002-2003. Director: Keiji Goto. V.1-8, three episodes/75 minutes. Price & format: DVD bilingual $24.98. Distributor: FUNimation Productions.

Kiddy Grade (24 episodes by Studio Gonzo, broadcast weekly from October 9, 2002 through March 19, 2003) is one of those futuristic sci-fi serials in which the plot starts light and humorous and grows increasingly complex and grim. In "Star Century 0328" the whole galaxy is united in a Global Union of planets dominated by interstellar capitalistic groups. One of the GU's major bureaucracies is the Galactic Organization of Trade and Tariffs (G.O.T.T.), ostensibly an economic coordinator. One of G.O.T.T.'s agencies is the E.S. Force of secret agents to combat crime, defined as anything that endangers the galactic peace and economy. Its two-agent teams of troubleshooters appear to be adolescents or children with psionic powers and enough futuristic weaponry to be super-heroes. They are authorized to kill dangerous criminals if necessary, but preferably to capture them for mind-wiping so they can be reeducated as useful citizens.

The girls Eclair (age 16) and Lumiere (10) are one of the E.S.'s newest teams. Eclair is the dynamic, brash member who dashes into firefights with galactic Mafia gangs or smugglers, while demure Lumiere's specialty is super-computer hacking to uncover white-collar crime within planetary governments and interstellar cartels. The first half-dozen or so episodes look like power fantasies for young adolescent viewers. But Eclair's and Lumiere's assignments start to uncover corruption within the GU's uniformed interstellar police force, and the upper class "Nouvlesse" who dominate galactic society. There are increasingly open hints that Eclair herself has been mind-wiped. She begins to have such traumatic flashbacks to her unknown previous life that her value as an E.S. agent becomes suspect. Then the team is sent to a planet where striking laborers (little better than slaves) are stopping production until working conditions are improved.

When the two balk at their orders to "remove the criminals" (assassinate the strike leaders), they are outlawed themselves. The action grows increasingly dramatic while the story grows confusingly complex. When other E.S. "beautiful children" teams introduced in previous episodes (Alv and Dverger, Caesario and Viola, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Dextera and Sinistera) are ordered to capture or kill them, which will obey orders and which will help them escape? What is the secret of Eclair's and Lumiere's pasts? What Machiavellian plotting and counter-plotting is going on within G.O.T.T.'s executive offices? Where are all the clones of Eclair and Lumiere coming from?

Kiddy Grade has become a fan favorite for its beautifully elegant futuristic costumes and architecture/interior decoration alone, and the exotic galactic civilization full of planets, characters, and robotic weaponry with names from Greek and Scandinavian mythology (Clio, Deucalion), elementary French (Mercredi, La Muse) and German (Donnerschlag, Wirbelwind) and Lewis Carroll (Cheshire Cat, Dodo). Some of the translation seems erratic; "Nouvlesse" may be a combination of "nouveau" and "noblesse" (the new nobility) rather than just a misspelling, but one major character's name alternates between Armblast and Armbrust in English, while on the Japanese audio track it is clearly "Armbruster."