Introduction
We’ve had a couple of volumes now of Solty Rei, and it’s found a place in my heart with its pleasant diversion status. Having seen so many futuristic Gonzo shows with cyborgs, action, and mysterious conspiracies, I’m not in any particular rush to see another one. That said, Solty Rei is one of the better ones, with a pleasant noir-ish ethos, and a cast of very engaging characters. I couldn’t help but have a grin on my face as I sat down to watch volume 3.

The Blast Fall devastated the city, a mysterious event twelve years ago that cost the lives of thousands. It’s effects are still visible today, an Aurora Shell that arcs overhead, preventing anyone from leaving the ground or even the building of high-rise towers, interfering with communications, as well as the number of cyborgs known as Resembles roaming the city, survivors who have had their bodies repaired with technology. It’s the Reestablishment Universe Committee, the RUC that is at the heart of the city’s reconstruction and the proliferation of cyborgs. Roy Revant works in this city as a bounty hunter for the Maverick Hunters Company, although his hard-bitten brutal approach means that he pretty much works alone. He’s been hunting ever since the Blast Fall, in which his daughter Rita vanished, an event that eventually claimed the life of his wife. The loss and grief still prey on him; he’s still looking for his daughter, or maybe just salvation, when one day it literally falls from the sky.

Volume 3 continues the story with four episodes.

11. Birthday Game
12. Tears: After the Showdown
This two part story begins with Roy’s birthday approaching like a runaway train, and Solty intent on providing her benefactor with the best birthday party ever, and roping everyone else in to the plans for good measure. But Roy’s about to have the worst possible birthday, when Hou Chu resurfaces. Hou was a serial bomber that Roy put behind bars, after shooting the hell out of his arm in the process. Now Hou has escaped, and has gotten himself a new Resembled arm that enables him to make even more intricate ordinance, and he’s about to go on a bombing rampage to get even with Roy. First he detonates the doctor who installed his new arm, then he leaves a surprise for the RUC security girls, putting Silvia and Celica in hospital. Rose’s brother Larry is with Roy when he gets his wake up call from Hou, and just to make his point, Hou targets all of Roy’s friends as well. It’s just a game for Hou, and he’s making all the rules. While Roy tries hard to keep up, Hou has another target, Rose Anderson. This one he kidnaps and booby traps. He wants Roy on his home turf, to play his game, and with Rose as bait, he’ll definitely get his revenge. Meanwhile, Rose’s other brother Andy has been looking up genetic records, and has found out something about his sister that Roy needs to know. Only before he has a chance, one of Hou’s little toys blows up in his face.

13. Distance
Roy and Rose aren’t getting on, and the antagonism between them affects everyone, particularly Solty, who wants the two to be closer, while also feeling a little left out with the lack of attention Roy is paying her. Miranda comes up with a solution, to throw Roy another birthday party after the previous one was so explosively interrupted. Meanwhile Resemble Engineer Yuto has a problem that he wants Roy to help with. His friend Jeremy is an energy researcher who is taking her research beyond RUC restrictions, and by doing so, she risks causing another Blast Fall. It’s not the best time for Roy and Rose to reconcile.

14. Heavy Hearts
Roy has regressed, he’s back to the alcoholic, self-loathing, hateful, vengeful man he was 12 years ago, refusing all contact with his friends, losing himself in the bottle, and trying to find someone to blame. First he blames Jeremy Kolbel for her reckless experiments, but Solty and Miranda manage to pull him away from Jeremy’s hospital bed before he does something he would regret. That only causes him to lash out at Solty, blaming her for choosing to save his life. Solty runs off in tears, certain that he hates her.

Picture
Solty Rei gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer. The image as you would expect is an NTSC-PAL conversion. It’s a pretty good one though, not too soft, prone to ghosting, or plagued with excessive judder. It is sharp and well defined, the animation is fluid and clear, and everything is almost as smooth as silk. Solty Rei is a bright colourful anime, plenty of vibrant colours and daytime scenes, although the future world, while distinctive and accomplished, certainly isn’t memorable. The character designs are up to Gonzo’s usual standards, while CGI is liberally used to enhance the 2D animation. Some of the mundane objects like cars aren’t all that impressive, but when it comes to the fantastic, like mecha and robots, Gonzo’s traditional design ethic comes through well.

Sound
Sound comes in the form of DD 5.1 English, and DD 2.0 Japanese along with optional translated subtitles and signs. I found no problems with my usual preference of the Japanese track, while the dub is one of the really good ones, well cast and with distinctive characterisations. I was very impressed with the English voice of Roy Revant. The show gets the usual catchy j-pop themes, while the incidental music owes a fair bit to those old US cop dramas, with a noir-ish edge.

Extras
You get the usual textless credit sequences, and this time there are trailers for Desert Punk, and Slayers

There is a commentary on this disc to accompany episode 13. It features ADR director and voice of Roy Revant, Christopher Sabat. Carrie Savage (Solty), and Colleen Clinkenbeard (Rose), join him, and they quite rightly note that episode 13 is a turning point in the series. Then they go and talk about the booth that they are recording the commentary in…

Conclusion
I hate this volume! I really do. There’s this bit in Ghostbusters II, where Egon is testing the effect of emotions of psychokinetic potential… “Let’s see what happens when we give the girl a puppy…” then ten minutes later, “Now lets take the puppy away…” Solty Rei: Volume 3 is just like that, but a hundred times worse. It means that this volume is the best yet, in every respect, the drama, the emotional intensity, the writing, and the story, it all ups its game, and Solty Rei suddenly went from pleasant diversion to compulsive viewing in the space of four episodes. That it did so by repeatedly kicking me in the guts may make me slightly resentful, but it’s managed it nonetheless. It’s a cruel bastard about it too, introducing a note of peril, teasing you with potential unpleasant developments, then pulling back from the brink with what you think is a happy ending, only to surprise you with something even worse later on. And of course, I’m not going to tell you any of it. You can get your spoilers from elsewhere on the Interweb, or you can watch this disc and go through what I went through. I wouldn’t want to deprive you of the full effect.

We begin with a two-part story, very much in the mould of Die Hard with a Vengeance, with a mad bomber from Roy’s past coming back to play a deadly game with him. In the background there are some serious character developments going on, but the story itself is fast-paced, tense, and action packed. It’s edge of the seat stuff that is almost as good as the Bruce Willis movie that inspires it. It has a particularly psychopathic villain, and from the first moment, it’s clear that no one is safe from his antics. The tension grows constantly through the story till a gripping climax. There is a lot going on in this half of the disc, for the main and the ancillary characters, so it’s a good idea not to blink during the runtime. What follows is the aftermath, two episodes which initially begin tensely but optimistic, but eventually take the characters into utter despair. One thing that I have noted about the earlier episodes, is that while Solty Rei has evoked film noir for its central character and overall style, the abiding look of the show has been bright, cheery, optimistic, and with a healthy dose of comedy. If there is one thing that this volume has accomplished, it’s to take Solty Rei and truly embrace the noir feel, and the story as we leave it is much darker and more foreboding.

Of course Gonzo at this point stand at a crossroads with the show. What they should do is to embrace the story and its feel at this point in time, and let it develop naturally. However, the last time I saw a similar development in a Gonzo show, was in Black Cat, where they instead opted to move the story ahead in time by eight months, so far past the negative developments that they felt justified in actually increasing the comedy. I sincerely hope that that doesn’t happen in Solty Rei, and I’m on tenterhooks to see how the story actually develops from where we leave it in episode 14. I’ll rephrase what I said at the start of this. I hate what happened in this volume, but this volume is the best instalment of Solty Rei yet. It’s an emotional nosedive, I spent last night watching this in shock, and I know that if I ever watch it again, it’ll just make me cry. But the best stories do grab you like that. Volume 3 of Solty Rei has set things up for a rousing second half. Volume 4 had better not waste it.