Tylor, The Irresponsible Captain #3 (DVD)

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The third "Captain Tylor" DVD contains six more episodes of one the most clever series I´ve ever seen. They are "Shiny! Happy! (Deadly) Germs!", "Strange Love", "The Unjust Dessert", "A Place for Confessions", "Sleeping Beauty", and "Well Handled Situations".

At the end of the last disc, Harumi was ordered to kidnap Tylor. At the start of this disc, she sets off a virus that sickens most of the crew. A subordinate of the Raalgon commander Dom´s comes to trade Tylor´s capture for the cure. Tylor goes willingly after securing Harumi´s freedom and trying to throw Lt. Yamamoto into the bargain. In a standard Tylor twist, he avoids execution and becomes the Empress´ pet instead of a prisoner.

There is one scene during Tylor´s trial that really stuck out. He off-handedly confirms that he DOES seem to win a lot when accused of being a mere buffoon by the Raalgon. That´s the only clue on this entire DVD that goes towards unraveling Tylor´s true character. It seems as though the series would be a waste if Tylor is just an idiot, and yet, there´s really not much to suggest that he isn´t.

Tylor´s attitude and style has started to rub off on his crew. Even the by-the-books Lt. Yamamoto has started to place his individual ethics over the military leadership´s decisions, most evident when he orders the crew to steal the Soyokaze and rescue Tylor. Despite the sometimes unwieldy number of characters, the series has done a good job fleshing them out and allowing them to grow and change.

On the Raalgon side, a few of the characters have been developed, most notably the patriot Dom. It´s interesting how to show has developed good and bad characters in both the United Planets Space Force and the Raalgon Empire. While various plots and intrigues have been hinted at, whatever´s in store for the finale is still up in the air.

Video:
The video aspect ratio is 1.33:1 (full-screen on 4:3 monitors). The quality came out well on the disc, and I had nothing to complain about in terms of color or animation quality. There is some minor artifacting, though only in some scenes.

Audio:
You can watch the show with either Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo Japanese or DD 2.0 stereo English. There is an option for English subtitles. I watched it in Japanese with English subtitles. I didn´t think much of the background music when I saw the first DVD, but it´s growing on me. The voice acting and sound effects are good. While there isn´t much use of channel separation, this is a TV show that´s about a decade old, so you can´t expect everything. I didn´t notice any problems with the audio quality.