Burn Up! Excess-Volume 4: The Case of the Black Diamonds (1997)

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General		Extras
Category	Anime	Main Menu Audio & Animation Gallery-Production Sketches (12) Informational Subtitles-Jiggle Counters(tm) Credits-clean opening Credits-clean closing Trailer-Burn Up Excess Trailer-Rah Xephon, Zone of Enders Idolo Trailer-Steel Angel Kurumi, Excel Saga
Rating
Year Of Production	1997
Running Time	81:09 (Case: 75)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Shinichiro Kimura
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	None Given
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$29.95	Music	Shinobu Uchida Koichi Namiki

    Burn Up Excess has been a lot of fun, with plenty of humour along the way, but this is the final volume, so they have to bring some of the plot lines to a conclusion. They manage to do so, but it feels like the strain of doing so interfered with the balance of the story.

    If you've not been following my reviews along the way, you can refer to Volume 1: To Serve and Protect. Oh, and the others: Volume 2: Crimes and Misdemeanours, and Volume 3: Under The Gun.

    The episodes on this disc are:

    These episodes are mostly concentrated on winding up the mysterious storyline concerned with Maki's past, and her dead husband-to-be, Masato. We learn, amongst other things, the real reason for the founding of Team Warrior, what really happened to Masato, the motives of that strange woman (Ruby) who tangled with Rio earlier, and why she planted a bug in the communications tower in Episode 1.

    I think they were concerned about spending so much episode time on serious plot, and wanted to counter-balance it. As a result, the first and second episodes on this disc are followed by bits of Yuji's Omake Theatre, which are really an excuse for Yuji to perve on the girls in their locker room — it goes beyond funny, though, into a bit sick. There's also a lot of dwelling on women in showers, with even Maki providing considerable fan service. And there are several scenes showing women's breasts being fondled against their will — that wasn't necessary. All the previous features, like the Jiggle Counter, and "ba-doing" noises as women "bounce" around, are still present, too.

    Still, during the second episode we do get to see all four girls in combat gear — the red outfit that we've seen Rio in often enough is duplicated (in suitable colours) for Maya, Lilica, and even Nanvel. Only Maki doesn't get a go, but she does get a new uniform (you'll see...). Nanvel returns to her regular clothes for the big assault — she prefers to be inside a bright pink fighting robot called Proshiki (it's effective, even if it does look like a rabbit).

    I'm pleased to report that Maya finally gets to use all the guns she's being dying to fire, and she's really happy about that. Maya and a mini-gun — doesn't that just seem perfect?

    The cover of this volume features Nanvel, which goes nicely with having Rio on the first disc, then Maya, then Lilica.

    There are several more instances where segments of animation are re-used (the bra scene in the locker room is only the most obvious). This, combined with the lower quality of some of the new animation leads me to wonder if they were starting to run out of money. It's a shame, for a series that started with reasonably high production values. Also, note that a mecha-cop that can out-run a speeding car cannot catch a running Rio — she must be a very fast runner... Oh, and I was entertained to see that one of the mecha-cop geeks has a PC screen filled with a list of obsolete system drivers (many referencing companies that no longer exist, like Quantum) in English — maybe the Japanese animators thought that a screen full of English would be impressive?

    These episodes do an excellent job of expanding, then winding up, the serious plot line of the series, so I feel compelled to recommend them, but the lower production values and the fact that some of the sexual elements are taken a bit too far makes my recommendation half-hearted. If you have the first three volumes, then you really need this one to complete the story. If it were standalone, I wouldn't be recommending it.

Video

    This DVD transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. It is not 16x9 enhanced. That's how this show appeared on television.

    The image is mostly clear and sharp, with decent levels of detail, although not to quite the same levels as previous discs. There is occasional film grain, and even some low-level noise (see 22:03 in episode 12, for example).

    Colour is still bright, vivid, and fully-saturated. There are no colour-related artefacts.

    There are no film artefacts of any real significance. There is relatively little aliasing, no moire, and no MPEG artefacts. There is a fair bit of interleaving, probably generated in the process of converting this disc from NTSC to PAL — it is fairly obvious when you freeze-frame or run it in slow-motion or single-step, and occasionally even at normal playing speed.

    Once again we get five sets of subtitles, all of them English (combination of Jiggle Counters and signs-only or full subtitles). I watched the full English subtitles again while listening to the Japanese soundtrack, and they seemed comprehensive, well-timed, and easy to read, but they didn't match the dub, as expected.

    The disc is single-sided (nice picture label), single layered. That means no layer change, and there's not enough on the disc to make a second layer necessary.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The soundtrack is provided in English, Japanese, and Spanish, all in Dolby Digital 2.0, not surround-encoded. I watched all three episodes with both the English and Japanese soundtracks.

    The English dialogue is well-written, with some clever lines, and matches the animation well. It's clear and comprehensible. The Japanese dialogue sounds clear enough. It's interesting to note that the Japanese version of the mecha-cop voices is far more metallic / artificial than the English version.

    The score is a bit more restrained this time around, which befits the more serious content. It's still credited to Shinobu Uchida and Koichi Namiki, though.

    These are pure 2.0 stereo soundtracks, with good stereo imaging, but no use of the surrounds or subwoofer.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    These extras are (yet again) almost exactly the same as on the first disc.

Menu

    The menus are static with music. The images on the sub-menus are quite crudely drawn, but the main menu has an attractive image.

Gallery — Production Sketches (12)

    Working drawings of the main characters, with separate pages devoted to each girl's underwear.

Jiggle Counters

    The (trademarked) Jiggle Counters are still bouncing away, and they get a lot of action. There's even an extra counter for bounces outside the Team Warrior group.

Clean Opening (1:06)

    The opening theme and animation unsullied with credits. Exactly the same as on all previous discs.

Clean Closing (1:37)

    The closing theme and animation, minus credits. Exactly the same as on all previous discs.

Trailer (1:00)

    The trailer for Burn Up Excess. Exactly as on all previous discs.

Trailers

    Labelled ADV Previews, this is four trailers played one after the other:

• Rah Xephon
• Z.O.E. Idolo
• Steel Angel Kurumi
• Excel Saga

    The Region 1 version of this disc is very similar, with the same episodes and same extras, as far as I can tell. The artwork on the cover is the same, too, although we get volume numbers, which are missing from the R1.

    The last three episodes from the ladies (and Yuji) of Team Warrior. This volume is even more unsuitable for children, though.

    The video quality is good.

    The audio quality is very good.

    The extras are decent, but pretty much the same as all three previous volumes — I'd have really enjoyed getting something different.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall