Kiddy Grade Volume 7

Despite there being an intangibly inspirational quality to the look and feel of Kiddy Grade, I still find myself struggling to be seriously interested by this show. And while the slew of gratuitous panty-shots and bizarre plot twists contained within this penultimate volume did a decent job of distracting me for an hour, once I’m left to reflect on my feelings for Kiddy Grade, it quickly becomes apparent that I just don’t care enough to be excited by this story and it’s well endowed yet hollow, almost plastic characters.

Character development (and therefore viewer emotional attachment) is vital to the long term success of any ambitious show and this is where Kiddy Grade is fatally flawed. So far, we’ve been dragged through Éclair relapsing into nervous break-down, seen her suffer through several friendship betrayals and somehow managing to survive an infinite amount of “life or death’ situations- of course, you would assume such things would profoundly shape your personality in some way or another; but Éclair, well, she has simply enlarged her breasts and bought a cute new outfit.
To be fair, I feel stupid complaining about such things when glancing at the fluffy, generous aesthetics of Kiddy Grade, but given its tone and atmosphere, this is evidently a show that intends us to take it seriously and therefore, deserves serious analysis too.

For what it’s worth, Kiddy Grade #7 isn’t as bad as I’m making it sound. There are revelations a-plenty, some token exciting action scenes and a particularly good flashback into the past of Lumiére; illustrating her first meeting with Éclair and the discovery of her ‘electronic’ super-powers.
It’s these exceptional moments, watching in awe as Éclair jumps from roof top to roof top with a bemused Lumiére in tow, that really frustrate my opinion of Kiddy Grade; such chinks of excellence prove what could have been achieved with this show if more time had been spent fleshing out these admittedly likeable, memorable characters.

In Summary

Kiddy Grade #7 has proven to be a major turning point in my opinion of this show; a volume that is full of action and plot twists, but also dominated by boring and horribly under-developed characters. Having praised Kiddy Grade over the last couple of instalments, my tolerance for the story’s unbalanced serious tone and distractingly fluffy personalities has obviously taken its toll on my patience.

Provided you have enjoyed Kiddy Grade’s unique blend of big breasts, strange names and bizarre combat up until now, I see no reason why this penultimate seventh volume would disappoint. As for serious science fiction fans like myself; Kiddy Grade #7 is nothing more than an hours worth of mediocre, disposable fun.