Bruce Von Stiers

The eighth volume of the Gasaraki series holds some surprising twists and turns. This volume is called To Be A Kai. This volume was released on DVD by ADV Films. This volume brings to a close the Gasaraki saga.

This disc comes with some extra things worked into it. There is an interview with Ryosuke Takahashi, the Director and Tohru Nozaki who is the series storyline coordinator and script writer. Trailers of ADV Films titles Sorcerer Hunter, Dai – Guard, Bubblegum Crisis, Evangelion and Burn Up Excess are in the Preview section. The disc has a DVD Credits section, along with quite a few line drawings in the Episode Production Sheets section.

There is a Glossary of Terms that includes such entries as HESH, which is a tank round that is more powerful than a normal round. And the Clean Credits Animation brings you the opening segment free of annoying credits.

Volume 8 has three episodes. They are Eternal, Punctuation and Gasara.

The first episode, Eternal, has the people of Japan uncertain about their future. The TA team with Yushiro in it is gearing up for defense of the country.

The US President is meeting with his cabinet to discuss options as laid out by the CEO of Symbol if Japan pulls all of its economic recourses out of the USA. The Cabinet wants the President to use the TA’s from Symbol so that the Plausible Deniability will be absolute.

One of the heads of Gawa is siphoning off information and electronic dollars just in case Japan fails. The U.S. drops a fake TA into Japan. Miharu is inside the fake TA. The Japanese forces fire upon the TA and Yushiro goes in to try to help Miharu

A confrontation between the two ends with them helping each other and a cocooned item falling from the sky What is it?

In Punctuation, the second episode, America is going to attempt a preemptive strike against Japan’s economic centers .The U.S.’s TA’s get into the Gawa building into the sub basement where the data banks are. We get to see some pretty cool fighting between the two sets of opposing TA’s.

The US President ends up rescinding the moratorium on grain exports to save a war with Japan. The Japanese leader talks it over with the President.

The last episode is Gasara. We see that Japan will disarm themselves. An item that was uncovered in the previous episode holds a key to the Gawa’s family’s plans. Yushiro’s little sister is being used as a Kai to birth a whole new world of Gasaraki

A segment of the episode shows the kugai, one of the ancient warrior types, glowing and growing with the intensity of the sister, and Yushiro, having beams shot from the kugai into their bodies. From some kind of force within this activity, the gastric is being summoned. Then we find out who and what the Gasaraki really are.

This volume nicely wraps up the Gasaraki saga. You might not get all of what’s going on if you hadn’t watched earlier episodes though.

We find out what evil lurks in the hearts of certain members of the Gawa family. The strange dream segments that have been placed throughout the episodes now make sense. And the good guys win again. Sort of.

The animation was done well and the dubbing was synced pretty good. It has some pretty haunting music in it.

You can find the single volume at retailers, or get the boxed set that contains all eight episodes. It can be purchased at retailers like Best Buy. A recent flyer from Best Buy listed the boxed set for $ 99.

The ADV Films web site can be found at www.advfilms.com.