Search - Neo Ranga - Lost in the Spectacle (Vol. 2) on DVD

I HAVE TO ADMIT IT'S GETTING BETTER

Sesho | Pasadena, TX USA | 06/28/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Man, the first few episodes, and by that I mean almost 3/4 of the first Volume was awful. I had to really force myself to get through it. But, the light at the end of Volume 1 was that the last episodes were good. So I bought Volume 2 and am glad I did. This dvd was excellent. What we see in Volume 2 is some deeper ponderings on the nature of the media and celebrity, right and wrong, corruption, and other Shakespearean questions, along with slapstick comedy. Coming into the fore here is Ushio as she gets a job at a store and the owners use her fame to get more business and work her to the bone. The daughter of the owners, Hiromi, used to be her best friend, but the two have drifted away in recent years. Hiromi has fallen in with a yakuza gang leader and runs away. Meanwhile, Minami has gotten a job dancing with lonely men in order to support her two sisters to the consternation of Ushio, who sees it as one step removed from prostitution. Later, while she is at the bank, Minami becomes a hostage of a bank robber, and is tempted to do a bad thing. And of course there's Neo Ranga, enigmatic as ever, who will have to face an ASE robot designed to defeat him. The last episodes see the 3 sisters travelling to their mother's home island and the awful crime mystery of Ushio's stolen bikini. There was so much in this dvd. It really deals with adult issues of temptation, lost children, people searching for hope and maybe bending the law to do it. You had some really dramatic moments with the bank robber and the runaway Hiromi and really hilarious ones with the vacation episodes. I look forward to Volume 3. If you didn't like Volume 1, at least give 2 a chance before you pass judgement."