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Law Of Ueki Vol. 3: A Gift From The Sky
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scorpioeyez's Review
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Anime Geek, Movie guru, into action flicks
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JUN
10
2007
Law Of Ueki Vol. 3: A Gift From The Sky —
Originally published on otakureview.netNOTE: This review is a continuation of my reviews of this series. If you have not seen any of the volumes or my previous reviews, you risk spoilers by continuing.
Intro
And once again, I’m forced to say ‘wow’ to a series that it showing me all sorts of new twists that I didn’t see coming.
The Story
In the first of four episodes on this volume, Ueki has gone a week since his fight with Monjiro. Monjiro is convinced that Ueki needs to train harder, especially as there is a member of a group of ten power users led by Robert Haydn called the Black Shadow that Monjiro is convinced Ueki is going to have to face soon, and so he helps him out in his own weird way. Meanwhile, more details are revealed about the shady under dealings of Yotchan.
The battle with the Black Shadow (real name Kuroki) proves terribly difficult as he uses tactics that Ueki never saw coming. Ueki fights hard but it requires the help of all of his friends and the Black Shadow’s little brother to really determine how the battle turns out.
With no time to waste though, Ueki is thrust into yet another battle after his first against yet another member of the Robert’s 10 who has the power to change shadows into robots. After that battle, another week passes and another member of the Robert’s 10 makes his presence known. This one is named Taro Myojin and he offers Ueki the chance to join the Robert’s 10 which Ueki accepts.
Upon reporting to the compound, he meets all the other members and puts his own plan into action while Ai passes the time back home and a certain individual passes time in the underworld and finds out something interesting about Ueki and Robert Haydn.
The Good And The Bad
It is kind of cool how some of the previous characters that Ueki have beaten have been brought back into the series as supporting characters and while we’re on the subject of new characters, it’s nice to see the series bring out a primary set of villains for the audience to root against. Of all things that this series was missing for the first few episodes, having a primary set of villains was probably one of the biggest but it’s amazing how I, as a member of the viewing audience, didn’t put my finger on that until I saw this volume.
The plot really took some incredible leaps with this volume and really takes the audience along for the ride with absolutely no apologies for the speed. I really enjoyed the pacing of this volume though, with the first two volumes going so slowly and in such a formulaic pattern it was really nice to see this volume move in a brand new direction and completely break the cycle that it had been caught in. Now that it has broken the pattern that it was caught in for the first eight episodes, all sorts of new possibilities have been opened.
The writing has really improved over the last four episodes with all sorts of new plot twists being thrown in about the characters and plot. What I think is most interesting about these plot twists being thrown in however is that the series has not even made it past the first round of the celestial tournament. As of this volume, there are still 60 participants in the tournament and there is still a lot of anime left to watch of this series so it’s almost odd that such major plot twists would be thrown in so early.
The animation in this volume was fairly standard for what I’ve seen with no drops in color or blending though I was a little disappointed with what I saw in terms of the battle sequences in this volume. With so many powers being used by various characters throughout the volume, it seemed like there wasn’t nearly as much in terms of special effects to highlight the powers such as in the second volume.
Music
The music in this volume stayed fairly low key and unobtrusive with nothing particularly standing out as good or bad music tracks. The sound quality did remain strong throughout the volume though and I noticed no drops in quality.
Dub vs. Sub
The dub cast is still really taking way too much effort to get used to. As hard as I have tried to enjoy the dub cast there really aren’t a lot of great performances within it to keep me listening to it and enjoying it. I will continue to listen to the performances on each volume and one of these times I will be able to say that I enjoyed the dub cast more than the sub cast but in this case I just don’t care for the performances. I am finding that I am enjoying the performances of Lori Barnes-Smith as Ai and Ben Jeffery as Mr. K but other than that, there aren’t many notable performances with the dub cast.
Extras
Original TV spots from Japan.
Overall
With this volume, the series continues to move away from its opening pattern of intro – build up – battle – repeat and starts to move towards something that is much more fun and a lot less predictable. The characters are continuing to be developed at a great pace and the story is moving in directions that I didn’t see coming just a few short episodes ago. With so much improvement over the last couple of volumes, it would be very silly and very hard for me to not recommend this series just for the sheer curiosity value.
Final Grade: 81% - B
Law Of Ueki Vol. 3: A Gift From The Sky is recommended by scorpioeyez
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