Divergence Eve Volume 2

“What more could you ask for than a bevy of beauties forced to put their lives on the line to answer the call of duty? Divergence Eve is a bold and imaginative voyage leading directly into the heart of evil. A dark tale enlivened by a shocking mystery which will have you guessing until the final fade out.”

This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the blurb on the back of the Divergence Eve Volume Two DVD case. This is also what is usually refered to as a big fat lie. i’ll apologise now, this is not my usual review.

Here we are with volume 2 of Divergence Eve, where Misaki and her busty buddies pick up the story from where we left off in the previous volume. Things are taking a turn for the worst, with the presence of the GHOULS becoming ever more persistent. It all gets a little too much for Cadet Susanna Bleustein and she can’t hack the training. Revealing to Misaki that her past about being forced into Seraphim, after promptly having her memory wiped she’s shipped back to earth. Moving on, our snoopy “reporter” Bernard Firestar ventures deep into the core with Misaki to find out the so called truth behind her father’s accident.

As we proceed through the volumes the story becomes somewhat clearer as to what is really going on in Watchers Nest. Misaki is losing her control over her body as the GHOUL inside her starts to make more and more appearances. Will it put the whole of Watchers Nest at risk? Just what is really going on with the secret organizations that keep popping up? All will be revealed in Divergence Eve Volume 2.

Now that the formalities are out of the way, let me warn you now that this next part of my review is all negative. Yes, that’s right; there is not ONE positive thing I have to say about Divergence Eve. After somehow managing to sit through another 4 episodes of this so called “Bold and imaginative” piece of work I found myself confused, bored and overall pretty frustrated at the whole experience. Here’s why.

One of Divergence Eve’s biggest problems is the execution. It looks fine on paper, with a decent concept, but something got lost in translation and the execution is flawed in every single way. When I listed the separate elements of this show you get things such as Horror, Comedy, Sci-Fi, Fantasy and action. But mix these all together and they all just clash. The story is incredibly dull and boring and the complete lack of explaining anything to the viewer is one of the most annoying things I have ever seen.

Divergence Eve seems to suffer a snowball effect of mistakes. The problems in the basic story transcend into the script and we are given little gems like this;

“Small traces of cellular modification were detected in the genes of the people who died in the accident. But when we try and apply the same modifications to lab animals their sensory field expands exponentially.”

“But we could…”

“NO MORE, these animal experiments are meaningless.”

That excerpt was taken from one of the “Flashbacks” that is supposed to help us, the viewer, go “Ah, so that’s what they mean” But honestly it made me want to rip out my hair. Nothing much has changed from Volume 1. There is way too much techno babble and little to no explanation as to what any of it means. After 8 episodes of this, I’m struggling to take any more. It’s just not good for your I.Q. The writers try to seem deep and mysterious by using big words and sentences but then you get gems like this;

“Everything is starting to fall apart, a wounded bond, a dull lump like doubt. Still what she saw on the other side of the wall was a truth more painful than a lie.”

Honestly, it’s in the league with Myspace poetry written by 14 year old girls. That’s fine if you’re a 14 year old Myspace poet, but not when you are a hired professional.

Continuing the snowball-like failure is the dub cast. This is probably the reason most people dislike dubs in general, capable performers putting in no effort at all and giving a shabby performance. It reminds me of the time I sat in English class, reading the play script along with the rest of my classmates. Everyone was shy, flat, emotionless, monotone and generally awful but I bet we would have done a hell of a lot better than this. This really isn’t helped by a bumbling soundtrack. I can’t remember any of the beats and if there were any I would put money on them being exactly the same as the first four episodes.

One of the things that infuriated me the most about Divergence Eve was it was just not nice to look at. Sure the characters all have big boobs, but really this is not a Hentai. You have a space station built hundreds of years into the future. The world is your creative oyster and you could go nuts designing technical masterpieces and dazzling rooms. But that wasn’t to be in Divergence Eve. Every room looks the same; there is no detail on the floors, walls or ceilings. There are scene changes where they are supposed to be in either the medical bay or a spaceship cockpit but there is absolutely no detail to differentiate between them. It is bland, uninspiring and half-assed.

Divergence Eve is one of the most frustrating things to watch. Take one party bad story, two spoonfuls of terrible performing, add one script not worth the paper it’s written on and garnish with choppy, ugly animation and a mute like soundtrack. Mix it all together in the Anime Blender© and you get this excuse for a DVD. As I said at the start of the review the back cover is just a blatant lie. It takes the best shots out of the whole DVD, puts them together with a promise of a decent watch and doesn’t deliver.

In Summary
You could spend 80 minutes of your life watching Divergence Eve. But I suggest you take up a more worthwhile hobby, such as chewing glass, perhaps? However if you’re a Terrorist Leader or CIA operative and want to extract information from your informant in super quick time, just plant them in a room with this little gem, and they’ll talk like a baby girl.