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4. FoXdie  
The story is about Eclair and Lumiere, two “young” girls (you'll see) who work for a galaxy-trade monitor organization called GOTT. They are 2 ES Members (superhuman agents with great powers) who fly the galaxy in their spaceship the “La Muse” to dispute trade conflicts between planets, retrieve stolen goods, and most importantly, keep the nobles happy.
Most of the real-estate and trade in the universe is owned by the nobles, the “original” inhabitants of planet Earth. But as Éclair and Lumiere cover mission after mission they find out that not everything is as it seems and that these nobles don’t always have the most honourable intentions. Along the way they meet up with different ES Members and a lot of bad-guys of course, (Taadah).
A good show with some serious flaws. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it, but I have a feeling this could have been so much better if there was some more planning involved. Sometimes I actually had the feeling they we’re making things up as they went along.
The series is stretched out across 24 episodes and up until 15 or 16 everything’s OK.
The story is getting interesting, the action is heating up. But it kind of goes downhill from there. There were so many cool storylines in there and I don’t think the exploited that to the fullest. The whole noble thing could have been used way more effectively, there we’re some filler episodes, and there were some really strange revelations in the end which I found particularly corny.
The artwork is pretty good, nothing groundbreaking, sometimes above average, sometimes below. Music is pretty good in setting the mood and building up tension.
The characters, locations, spaceships, etc. are very cool (I especially liked inspector Armburst, ooooh, mysterious…)
The girls are hot (I thought it was a fanservice show at first, but that was not the case), the guys are cool, the spaceships are definitely interesting, and the powers of the ES Members original to say the least. Nothing wrong in that area (well maybe in their interpersonal relationships, a bit freaky).
On the whole I do suggest you give it a try, I did have a good time watching this, it has a kind of feel good factor that makes it worthwhile. It’s not great but it’s fun. The climax does go out with a big big bang so at least you’ll walk away feeling satisfied watching it.
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3. Qian Wan 
Gonzo proves their worth with the release of yet another good title: Kiddy Grade. This story sets off somewhere in the future where mankind colonized galaxies. To establish the order of commerce, an independent organization called GOTT is created. Not only does GOTT has its own political influence, but it has its own special forces as well. Eclaire and Lumiere happens to be in this special forces unit. ES-members, as they are called, goes on various missions to do GOTT's biddings. Of course, there are other GOTT ES-members who are just as unique as our main characters. It is both cool and refreshing to see other ES-member dual teams in action, as they are all different. When it comes down to the characters, Kiddy Grade gets an A+
Eclaire fights with her magical lipstick, and Lumiere has the ability to control any artificial intelligence. Gonzo sure knows how to put these abilities into animation. The action inside Kiddy Grade is of top class. Explosions and melee fights are both exciting and capture the action theme of the title. The music also accompanies the action. The spaceships and technologies pack a sense of sci-fi that shows the animation quality of recent anime.
For the ten episodes however, this series is merely a superheroes-saves-the-day in the name justice type of story. Although Lumiere and Eclaire has all sorts of different interactions, the story doesn't unfold until the dark past of Eclaire starts to haunt her. When it was finally kicking into shape, the story takes a drastic turn into another mini-plot, which bothered me. The ending wasn't that breathe-taking and it failed to reach the potential it could have had with such unique characters.
High: Beautiful art, lovely characters, good music and action scenes.
Low: The overall look into the plot is disappointing and lacks point.
Bottom Line: The plot isn't 5-stars by it is workable and above average (just isn't as good the other elements). Definitely worth a look.
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| 2. Avenant
Set in the future, we are introduced to GOTT agents Éclair
and Lumiere. They basically run around doing all kinds of errands for Eclipse,
the GOTT director - this leads to the series being somewhat episodic, but that
suits it perfecty. Kiddy Grade is one of those series that leaves you with
a lot of questions, but answers most of them - things in the series are not always
as they seem, and it's
debatable as to who the "Bad" guys really
are.
The animation is basically your usual clean,
colourful GONZO stuff - the music is nothing spectacular. The characters
are intresting to say the least, but it's the story that really stands out. Plenty
of mystery and intrigue to keep things intresting. Overall,
Kiddy Grade is a well-rounded and solid series. While it is indeed very
good, it just about falls short of being a classic - worth a look |
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