After the explosive, exciting events that concluded the last volume of Kiddy Grade, my expectations were naturally high coming into these 3 episodes- and I'm happy to say, I wasn't let down.

We last watched Éclair and Lumiere storming the G.O.T.T building and quite literally raising it to the ground. This naturally left the story in a precarious position; with the G.O.T.T supposedly vanished, we had lost our main antagonists and thus the plot could have quickly lost direction. Of course, I hadn't factored in massive government conspiracies, psychically controlled clones and body swapping hijinks.

This volume kicks off with some brief moments of recap but quickly moves into gear by virtue of dark boardroom orders and the fast rise of a new, more tyrannical G.O.T.T under the leadership of someone claiming to be (and looking a lot like) Éclair!

The speed at which this show is now travelling is quite astounding; missing one episode, or even a few lines of dialogue, could mean you lose complete grasp of what is happening. No sooner had the old G.O.T.T fallen that a new regime appears in its place- a completely different group (under the banner of the G.O.T.T) with ambitions to police the known universe.

Of course, attempting to analyze quite what is happening burdens me with a rather nasty head ache, especially with all the inter-planetary political rumblings going on in the background. That said, I didn't feel particularly disorientated or frustrated by this ambiguity- the story moves so fast here that I quickly forgot my questions and just let myself be swept up along for the ass-kicking ride.

That's not to say we are being left completely out of the loop either; the dialogue is typically hinting at what might be happening, but is often cut short just as I'm about to reach an answer to my assumptions. If anything, we at least learn a lot more about Éclair in this volume; I think it's fair to assume that her and Lumiere (and possibly the other G.O.T.T ES members too) are the products of some kind of genetic tampering or at a stretch, even bio-mechanical robots! We catch a flashback early in this volume of Éclair waking in a dank bedroom with her memory completely erased- leading us to assume this isn't the first time she has rebelled against her 'creators'.
Armblast's role in all this particularly intriguing too- the guy just seems to float about with no obvious purpose, pointing people in the right directions and then letting them do the dirty work.

We obviously have a lot more left to learn about this series, but until we do, I'm content to simply sit here and enjoy the exciting story unfolding before my eyes.

In Summary

Kiddy Grade #6 is a worthy successor to the outstanding previous volume, introducing us to several new layers of government intrigue and corruption while displaying the same flair for colourful, exciting action that has dominated previous volumes. Naturally, I'm itching to find out what's going on- some where along the line; Kiddy Grade has become compulsive viewing!