Fantastic Children

Publisher
Beez Entertainment
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
26 episodes aprox. 25 minutes each
Year
2004

Fantastic Children - Volume 3

By Joseph (Joe) Wood
31st Mar 07

The third volume of Fantastic Children doesn’t disappoint despite the rather high expectations set by the previous two instalments. So far it has all been a build up to this moment as the Children of Befort finally manage to track down Helga.

Of course it isn’t that easy, Helga and Chitto out at sea are picked up by a ship owned by the GED Group, who plan on recapturing Kritchner. Thoma meets the Children of Befort while searching for his friends and agrees to assist them. They soon come across the GED ship but as they land, and begin searching for Helga, Kritchner returns. With the awesome power of Orsel at his finger tips Kritchner is a threat to everyone aboard as his powers attract the mysterious shadows called Enma. Helga learns the truth of her heritage, and the location in her drawings, but will she accept the news that follows?

In this third volume the more sentimental and lighter aspects of the previous volumes seemed to have disappeared completely. The three episodes (the fourth episode on the disc is a review episode) here have darker elements a lot of tension and incidentally far more action. Lots of things are cleared up, it’s revealed what Orsel is, what the mysterious shadows, called Enma, actually are and their purpose in chasing the Children of Befort. It is also the first time that the origin of the Children of Befort, Princess Tina and how she came to be reincarnated as Helga on Earth are revealed (the booklet with volume one and the back of the cases of each DVD do mention this, but this is the first time in the series everything is explained in detail).

As great as learning the answers to all these questions are, it leads to some major drawbacks. The most attractive aspect of Fantastic Children has been its sense of mystery, the show has kept its cards close to its chest, and many of those are revealed in this volume killing most of the mystery. Also now that Helga and the Children of Befort have met, it is difficult to see where the series is heading. Wither the characters will go to the planet Greece or not, there are still large chunks of plot that have yet to be resolved and it should be interesting to see how these elements will affect the story in later episodes.

The third volume continues to set high ground, the real worry though is how the series develops from this point, will it continue to push the bar eve so slightly like it has been doing or collapse under the pressure of expectation?

R2 DVD Notes

Features: English , French subtitles Japanese, English, French audio Clean opening and ending animation and Beez Trailers

Release information: Publisher - Beez Length - 125 min Classification - PG Released - 15-01-2007

Notes:

-- Joseph (Joe) Wood 31st Mar 07

Fantastic Children Images