You May Get Ready!

(WARNING! Spoilers Ahead! Go to the Conclusion to avoid them.)

The last volume of Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure is entitled One Vision.  This volume ups the episode count back to four, including  "Real," "Ardent Desire," "The World," and "Final Frontier."

"Real" shows the results of the RaRa attack in the last episode, "Repatriation." Kazuki and Mitsuki S. have both been returned to their original world, but with their robots. As with the first time the two changed worlds, Kazuki arrives a month later than Mitsuki, which means she has a leg up on getting her bearings over Kazuki. Kazuki has a number of strange encounters with people he knows in the parallel world, but who don't recognize him in his original world. I can really feel for poor Kazuki in these scenes, as he is naturally concerned about what happened to the people he left behind. Mitsuki S. is delighted, however, because now she can finally have Kazuki all to herself, and during the course of the episode the relationship between the two gets much stronger. This point emphasizes to me that, despite the other female characters on the show, Mitsuki S. is definitely the main interest for Kazuki. The surprising revelations that came at the end of the episode after Kazuki and Mitsuki return to the parallel world, such as Commander Sanada and his crew being branded as renegades and the capture of Mitsuki S. by RaRa forces make this episode a big turning point for the series.

"Ardent Desire" is mainly the set-up for the climatic events of the next episode. Predictably, Kazuki attempts to go after Mitsuki as soon as he can. However, Kazuki's rescue fails and strange objects from the original world begin appearing at random places around the parallel world, which naturally indicates that the two worlds are starting to merge. There is a lot of mumbo-jumbo about "parallel worlds colliding," but the biggest conflict to come out of it is that either Kazuki or the alien technology must be destroyed. The biggest surprise for me was how Ayuko was able to brainwash Mitsuki S. into doing her bidding and fighting against Sanada's rouge group. 

"The World" is the culmination of the series. There is, of course, an action-packed conclusion that sees Kazuki successfully defeating Ayuko RaRa with Zinv and the help of D. Speaking of D, she really comes into her own in this episode. We finally get to see her in her original form, with her full range of emotions. I think that her transformation is one of the biggest highlights of the episode for me. D helps Kazuki to access the full potential of Zinv, but after the battle is over Kazuki decides to destroy the robot in order to prevent the destruction of both the real and parallel worlds. However, some freak reaction between the emotions of Kazuki and Mitsuki result in a new world that is the combination of the two worlds. Dr. Sanada and Ms. Akane are married, Mitsuki S and D are their daughters, and Kazuki lives with them since his parents are abroad. This ending works, because it is a best possible outcome scenario where everyone lives happily ever after. The whole ending of the series is very reminiscent of the short scene from Evangelion where Asuka, Shinji, and Rei are all classmates leading a normal life. The transformation from D's earlier persona and Rei's personality in the last episode of Eva are also very similar. However, Dual! takes the opposite direction and decides to make that ending the one for the whole series. Not a realistic ending perhaps, but it is very appropriate to the light-hearted feel of the series.

I consider the last episode of the disc, "The Final Frontier," to mainly be a bit of playful fan service. This episode takes the concept of the new world briefly glimpsed at in the last episode and expands it through a really off-the-wall scenario. I am somewhat split on the utility of this final episode...on one hand, it is one more episode of a series I really like. On the other hand, it does kind of screw up what was otherwise a fairly neat and concise ending that was arrived at fully in "The World." I guess the best I can say for "The Final Frontier" is that it is entertaining and fun to watch, but should be taken with a grain of salt. The events of this episode really don't make much sense in the continuity of the series, but my argument is that they don't really have to. At any rate, while the end of this episode seems to be fairly open-ended, with the possibility another series or movie could be made from it, I don't think that it really provides a suitable launching point for one.

The last episodes of this series are just as good as the rest of the series. While this isn't the highest order of animation, it is fluid and colorful enough to portray the climatic final battle between Sonada and RaRa in an exciting way. There wasn't really any new movements or arrangement introduced in the music of this series, but the BGM has finally started to grow on me a little bit. I am thinking about picking up the CD. The opening and closing themes would be worth the price of admission alone. Extras for this volume finally included something other than the character profiles and concept art featured on the previous discs. This time, there was a short feature that showed some behind the scenes footage of the Japanese voice actors recording their roles, and a interviews with the voice actors for a few of the lead characters. This was a fairly entertaining little tidbit, and a good way to close out the extras of this release.

Conclusion (Spoiler Free!)

As with any final disc of a series, One Vision is a bittersweet experience. However, after watching these episodes I think I can say with confidence that Dual! goes out with a bang and really delivers a satisfying conclusion. This series manages to wind up with a few last-minute surprises, despite the fact that it relies on some very familiar conventions. I think that if you have enjoyed the first three volumes of this series, you won't be disappointed with the way it is concluded in these four episodes.

By Andy Rucker