Sol Bianca 2

Original Title: same
Romanized: Sol Bianca 2
Literal:

Plot Synopsis

The crew of the pirate ship Sol Bianca are back and are just as ready to wreak havoc as before. This time out, the five felonious females (I'm starting to sound like AD Vision's ad writers now) are out to steal some of the most valuable substance in the universe--Pasha. Small problem: they're not the only space pirates after the stuff. But, no big deal--they'll just burgle the burglars. That works out fine, (if you don't count the little incident where they get their clothes burned off) except that the captain of the other ship doesn't take his defeat lightly and manages to infect the Sol Bianca with some machine-eating worms before getting arrested. Now they're stuck in jumpspace, and worse yet for the five, June is as sick as the ship and they don't even know what's wrong with her.

By the time the crew figures out why nothing works, the police have shown up and the only plan they manage to come up with is to have Feb and April surrender and wait for the ship to recover. This would probably work, if it weren't for a mysterious fellow who is not only trying to corner the market on Pasha, but seems to know all about the Sol Bianca and her crew--and he wants the captured pair transferred into his custody immediately. Meanwhile, Janny and May are trying to take care of June, who still hasn't recovered, and they don't even have a working ship to rescue their comrades with (gee, that sounds familiar). Then there's that pirate fellow, who has escape plans of his own... and a serious grudge against the Sol Bianca and her crew.

Quick Review

Rating: 3.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2003-06-22

There's an unfortunate amount of bad news about this sequel to Sol Bianca: It doesn't have as much action as its predecessor, the budget is a bit lower, and although there's a lot more plot, it seems to be a failed attempt at kicking off an OAV series, so it ends having asked a lot of questions that don't have answers.

The funny thing is, as frustrating as it was, I really liked it anyway--it's still got cool technology, and lots of surprisingly realistic character interaction, which is what really made the first Sol Bianca stick in my mind. It's probably not worth trying if you haven't seen the first, and even existing fans might be disappointed, but if you're like me and enjoyed the characters the first time around, the sequel serves up lots more.

US DVD Review

None available as of this writing.

Content Guide

There is a topless gun battle and a bit of graphic violence, but nothing all that detailed. I would probably call it 13-up, but the nudity makes it push a 16-up.

Violence: 3 - Not really bad, but violent enough, mostly at the beginning.

Nudity: 3 - Again, that scene early on, though it is done very casually.

Sex/Mature Themes: 0 - Nada.

Language: 3 - Not bad, but Janny stays in character in the subtitles.

Notes and Trivia

In case you haven't figured it out by now, this is the sequel to the award winning animated video one shot Sol Bianca. The story wasn't based on a comic book, but there was an American comic mini-series involving the same characters produced later.

Availability

Formerly available in the US from ADV on subtitled VHS, long out of print.

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