"Dual" starts out in the shadow of "Evangelion," but in appealing to our better natures rather than our darkest fears, quickly moves out to claim a bright sunny spot of its own.

High marks for a strong story arc which plants seeds that will pay off later in the series, but low marks for the silly political setting of the alternate Earth.

Kazuki and Mitsuki are well-realized and given concrete motivations, while side characters like Dr. Sanada and D are suitably zany and engaging--and show signs of developing relationships of their own.

While Teraoka's hero-mecha designs are attractive, he spends less effort on the designs for the Rara giant robots--especially the giant mecha turtle.

Natural-sounding dialog with some reasonable cultural alterations.

The American actors provide competent characterizations, but the Japanese actors have a much wider emotional range.

Mild violence.

Navigates well. Some of the features include an art gallery with renderings of composite images akin to movie posters, a line art gallery with far more interesting glimpses at some sketch studies of the characters, bio profiles on some of the American voice actors, and, of course, DVD credits.

Nothing's started yet and maybe nothing will. But at last count Kazuki had three girls with a growing interest in him, and all of them are co-workers.

Gotta admire writers who create a female-driven robot you pilot by caressing something called "sympathy balls." Beavis and Butthead, where are you?

Love it? Hate it? Buy it.