The Get Backers series comes to an end with volume ten, and I was sorry to see it finish.  A fun and usually light-hearted series, the concluding chapters wrap up the major story lines in a satisfactory way, but leave a lot for a subsequent series.

Series recap:

The Get Backers are a pair of young guys, Ban and Ginji, who run a business retrieving stolen or lost objects.  Business isn't very good right now.  They live in their car, and have run up a huge tab at a local restaurant.  Even giving their lowly standing, they are quite good at their job.  Once they take on a job, these goofy guys always recover the object they are sent after.

Part of the reason for this amazing success rate is that both members of the team have superpowers.  Ginji is a human electric eel, who can generate a powerful electric charge with his hands, and Ban has a 'jag-on' the ability to create a powerful illusion for up to a minute.  With these powers, and a stubborn streak that doesn't allow them to give up, the Get Backers are able to recover just about anything.

This time the team has been asked to return to the Limitless Fortress, a lawless place where Ginji was once a major player, and retrieve Makubex, the current leader of the lower level.  Makubex has been kidnaped by a mysterious group, and is being held on the upper levels, a place where no one ever goes.

Volume 10:

The four episodes on this disc wrap up the return to the Limitless Fortress in a nice way.  Realizing that Makubex is being held in the Beltline, the floors that separate the lower levels from Babylon City at the top of the tower, Ban and Ginji along with Kazuki and Himiko head up there, a dangerous place that they've never gone.  Akabane tags along too.

Getting into the Beltline is easy, but as soon as they enter things start going wrong.  Ginji gets taken away from the group, the rest of the people get trapped in an endless maze, and Akabane goes over to the other side.  Things get worse before they get better.

I enjoyed the heck out of this last volume.  There was a lot of action and humor as well as an interesting story.  We learn a lot about the nature of the Limitless Fortress, as well as some unexpected information about Makubex.  One of my favorite scenes is in the penultimate chapter when Akabane  and Ban go at it mano a mano.  This time Ban doesn't hold back though.

I liked the way the series ended too.  There are enough plot lines left to make up another good season, but things ended quite satisfactorily.  All of the major storylines are wrapped up, and you get to see how all of the major characters have decided to live their lives.  A good ending to a good series.

This DVD presents episodes 46-49 on a single DVD that comes in an Amaray case with an insert listing the titles of the episodes and the extras.

Audio:

This DVD offers the choice of the original Japanese in stereo, or a 5.1 English dub.  I viewed the show with both soundtracks and they were both good.  There was some problems with the English track though.  At the beginning of the first episode the music is way too loud when compared to the dialog.  This evens out after a few minutes.  Aside from that, the 5.1 dub was more dynamic than the Japanese track, with a little more strength to the bass.  The English voice actors did a good job, putting feeling into the characters without making them sound goofy like some dubs.   The rear speakers are used to good effect.

Video:

The anamorphic widescreen image looked pretty good.  The colors were bright and the image was sharp.  There were some digital defects with aliasing in the background being the most noticeable.  Fine lines tend to shimmer when the camera pans over them, and there was some cross colorization in the few black and white scenes.  These weren't distracting and this is still a good looking DVD.

Extras:

There is a commentary to the last episode which features the director and actors who voiced all of the main characters.  There were a lot of people involved with the commentary, and it was pretty lame.  The actors talked about the whole series and related a few amusing anecdotes concerning the recording, but didn't really have a lot to say.  There was a lot of dead air where the group is just watching the show. *yawn*

There was also a clean opening and closing animations and a text piece on the meanings of the characters name.

Final Thoughts:

I had a lot of fun with this series.  Though the first Limitless Fortress storyline was a little long, this second journey into that place was paced much better and was pretty exciting. Though there are some aspects of the series that weren't covered (how Ban and Ginji met for example) this volume wraps up the series in a nice manner.  A solid series that comes Highly Recommended.