Lukuss, the city of despair and violence, an experimental metropolis buried deep inside the earth, ruled by gangs, where mayhem and violence are a normal part of life. To show your strength, you must deprive your opponent of their limbs.

Gangs and religious fanatics rule their own piece of the underground city of Lukuss, and a very fragile balance holds the peace together. But now, the city appears to be on the verge of chaos as that balance begins to fall apart. Four individual lives hold the city’s fate in their hands: Onishi, the leader of the most powerful gang in Lukuss; Yoshi, a mysterious man from the surface world; Ran, a young girl who can see in to the future; and Ichise , a loner who has had his arm and leg replaced with Texhnolyze. One of these four is trying to destroy Lukuss while the others try to save the city or themselves from a terrible fate. But who will win?

From the fame work of character designer Yoshitoshi Abe (Haibane-Renmei, NieA_7) reunites with producer Yasuyuki Ueda (Serial experiments lain) and script writer Chiaki J. Konaka (Serial experiments lain, Hellsing) comes a new hard boiled style of science fiction animation. Texhnolyze is an adventure in a dark dystopian world that reveals the depth of human nature and heights of technological achievements.

The Second DVD in the series contains four episodes:

Rouge 05: Loiter – Ichise continues to struggle to adapt to his new Texhnolozyed body, what horrors lay a head. Yoshi, a mysterious visitor from the surface is gathering information concerning the gangs of Lukuss, what are his plans?

Rouge 06: Repetition – Ichise finally confronts the man responsible for severing his limbs. After a applying a Repetition of punches, he is retaken by the Organo.

Rouge 07: Plot - With tension building between the Union and the Organo, will a war between gangs occur? What is Yoshi planning, is he the one responsible for tension between the gangs? Shinji has big plans for Lukuss, where does Ichise fit into his plans?

Rouge 08: Crucible – It now appears an all out war between rival gangs is looming, who will survive the conflicts and who will be crushed?

In the similar fashion of the first DVD in the Texhnolyze series, I’m still left with mix feelings. The theme of Texhnolyze reminds me my experience with Serial Experiment Lain series. Its series with a blend of sometimes confusing and mixed messages, where within the episodes of the series there are hidden messages and meanings. The major difference in the second disc compared to the first, is the coming together of a story, while not all the pieces are falling into place quite yet.

The DVD includes Anamorphic wide screen with a 16x9 aspect ratio, the quality of the video is nothing short of amazing, even if the plot is a slightly difficult to follow. With a merging of it’s own in the video between CGI and traditional cell animation is almost seamless. They complement each other beautifully, compared to other anime series where the CGI seems to take away and not give back. As for the audio, this DVD features Bilingual audio with English and Japanese 2.0 and with English subtitles.

What additional features does the DVD have to offer? Well sadly, this disc is lacking in that department. Comparing the second disc in the series to the first DVD, the major difference would be the lack of any behind the scenes work, whether it is interviews with the director or voice actors, artist’s renderings, basically something special that would add to the disc. More or less the standard features are still here, which are, alternative Dialog Outtakes, some humorous outtakes from the voice actors, who just had too much fun with these series, DVD credits for those who worked hard to put this disc together and upcoming releases from Geneon.

By far one of the best features of this series has to be the opening scene. Albeit a short opening the theme music is a powerful mixture of trance and heavy metal. The music definitely brings power to the series. The video for the opening shows a cross section of what life is for those who live in the city of Lukuss, a sort of fight to survive society where collapse could happen at anytime.

After viewing the second DVD for this series, I’m still left with mixed messages. A series with a dark view, with often confusing metaphors buried within each episode. The similar to Serial Experiment Lain, Texhnolyze is a series that will take time to grow on me, definitely will have to watch it a few times over to get a deep understanding of it. However, if you were a big fan of Serial Experiment Lain and similar anime series, then this is a definite view for you. I do look forward to additional features in future disks, such as conceptual art work or interviews with the voice actors.

Animation: 8 / 10
Story: 8 / 10
Audio: 8 / 10
Video: 9 / 10
Extras: 6 / 10
Impact Rating: 6 / 10

Total: 75%

-- Matt Capranos, Otaku Aniverse