The show centered on the relationship of a person and an android programmed to serve. If you haven't seen the first series, don't worry because the show is very much a stand alone series although seeing it will likely address some of your questions before you get too far into this set of 6 short episodes. Nako, a young gal who is kind of a geek, accidentally activates a "Steel Angel" which awakens with a kiss and ends up complicating her life quite a bit. Her friend, Uruka, becomes jealous at the close (and intimate) relationship between the two and sets out to end the robot's hold on her friend. One matter that complicates Uruka's plans is that a Steel Angel like Kurumi is all but indestructible and packs a powerful arsenal of weapons. In her favor, Uruka's dad is perhaps the richest, most powerful man in the world with his own army of mech-robots. Uruka gets her own Steel Angel and rather than fight one another, the two act like sisters (on friendly terms no less), which drives the young antagonist crazy. In this second volume of mini-episodes (which finished off the series sadly), the driving theme was about outside forces threatening to tear Kurumi and Nako apart, rather than just Uruka.

7. Karinka Mark II Is Back:
Nako decides to break free of her shy personality and enters a cello contest, which lets the winner study in Vienna. Uruka and Kurumi find out about it with mixed results.

8. Wassup, Sistaz?:
After the religious group, The Practitioners, awaken yet another Steel Angel, Karinka, and hope she'll be able to remind her metal sister about the true mission of the Steel Angels.

9. Rain, Shine And A Rainbow:
Kurumi and Karinka fight in order to establish dominance over each other in terms of whose priorities will be followed.

10. Big Part-Time Job Plans!:
After breaking her cello, Nako needs to make some money to buy a replacement. This leads to a host of silly situations.

11. Master Goes Away:
Everyone is upset about the possibility of Nako winning the contest and leaving them.

12. Beyond The Clear Blue Sky:
It's all out war when Nako competes and Kurumi fights an extreme battle with an extremely well armed Uruka. Will Uruka sacrifice the entire school and competition to ensure Nako won't leave (killing her in the process)?

This is what I refer to as a guilty pleasure type of anime. There was enough nudity and adult sexual themes, primarily lesbianism, that it's really not designed for kids to watch. That's why ADV Films suggests it as 17+ in their rating system. Most of the time, the themes are fairly tame but I know that some people get all upset over such things. The over-the-top humor was funny as could be and I got more than a few belly laughs watching the show. Yeah, the characters were mostly caricatures of anime stereotypes but the way in which they were handled was good. The writing, the animation style itself and the music all combined with decent voice acting (both English and Japanese) to make this one worth a rating of Recommended.

Picture: The picture was presented in 1.33:1 ratio full frame color. It looked very sharp and clear to me with no artifacts, video noise or other problems in a couple of viewings. If you blink, you'll miss some sight gag or other and it had great replay value because of it.

Sound: The audio was presented in 2.0 Dolby Digital stereo English or Japanese with English subtitles. In both cases, the vocals were clear and the music very appropriate (not to mention fun to listen to).

Extras: The extras include trailers, a clean opening and closing sequence, a character gallery, extended episode previews and a couple of anime cells that allow you to put them on the cover and "clothe" the ladies with either their traditional attire or school uniforms (or leave them in their lingerie).

Final Thoughts: I liked this DVD but it seemed to run out of ideas, and steam, so I had to lower the rating a bit but it was still fun to check out. If you want to see this one, check out Steel Angel Kurumi 2.1 first since it builds on the first volume enough that the stand-alone value was a bit less. It was cute enough to suggest getting both as a package too.