A high-tech psychic adventure story. Five episodes.
Komatsuzaki Ran is an unusual young woman living, along with her younger brother Wataru, in the care of Professor Kiryu, a writer who was a friend of their late father. Sonnet, a child of the streets, is a powerful psychic; converted by the repulsive Dr. Merikus into a cyborg warrior of the shadowy TALON organisation, she is sent to seek out the mysterious "Red Fang" in place of an earlier cyborg, Prototype RX-606, who apparently failed due to an excess of emotion.
The pursuit of the Red Fang and the gradual (and by no means total) revelation of TALON's intentions and goals are accompanied by plenty of violence and high-spirited action, more than a little cruelty, answers which only raise more and stranger questions, some real tender moments, and a modicum of humour. Particularly interesting is its subtly feminine perspective, unusual in anime where girls and women tend to be seen from a male viewpoint — but perhaps to be expected in a story with resonances of Frankenstein. I only wish there were more episodes, given the neutral note the story ends on, but none seem to have been forthcoming.
The style of the artwork would be typical of a slightly older production, tending towards clunkiness and with no particular degree of originality. The animation is limited to a degree which becomes obtrusive in some scenes, but overall suffices for narrative purposes.
Although purportedly stereo, the audio tracks display no particular separation, and some passages contain a loud hiss. The sound effects are unoriginal, and the voice acting while competent and sufficiently emotive is nothing special. The music is quite effective, particularly the opening song "What Is Love?".
This programme is somehow more than the sum of its parts, and is recommended without reservation.
The usual Central Park white subtitles with black drop shadow succeed in largely conveying the sense of the dialogue, though they refer to Miss Komatsuzaki as "Lan" throughout without any clear reason.
The discs are, as usual, CLV only providing a decent but not exceptional video transfer, and have the usual periodic chapter marks. Apparently due to run time constraints, although the identical opening credits are presented for each episode, ending credits are only provided for the final episode on each disc. The two sequences are different, and it is unclear if others still were discarded.