All the while, those in power attempt to hold back each threat the Ryvius and its crew has to face. With disdain among the students inside and enemies attacking outside, there are many threats this crew will have to deal with during Change of Command's four episodes.
The time has come for the students living aboard the Ryvius to steal command of the Ryvius back from Airs Blue and his gang, who took control of the ship in volume 3. This is ill-timed, as the Ryvius now faces an opponent with their own Vital Guarder. Social disorder had broken out as the students, now labeled as terrorists, travel through space without a place to call home.
"If only someone would give us a break." is what everyone on the Ryvius must be saying to themselves. Ever since the Liebe Delta sank into the Geduld, it has been one misfortune after another. Students being left to die, social strife antagonizing those who seek to bring order, and waves of enemy attacks are now an every day occurrence.
Emotions were building up in the previous volume and now things have come to a boil. As we approach the end of the series, we are not given a happy ending to look forward to. Apparently Blue skipped his history classes and never learned history has a habit of repeating itself.
As a result, Blue makes many of the same mistakes that he had spoken out against in previous volumes, including the concept of holding back information from the other students. What comes around, goes around and in his case Blue had it coming as he's forced into hiding while his gang is beaten and thrown into prison.
Where as this series originally plodded along at a rather slow and stretched out pace, Change of Command throws caution into the wind and delivers the some of the most captivating drama and action the series has yet to produce.
Saturn was a bust, the point system has led to corruption among the students, and a severe hatred of those with infinite points has grown among the student body. A truly sticky situation has been created and these young students drop their adult facade and lash out violently in a manner befitting their adolescent minds. More than ever, the Ryvius is not a place any sensible human-being would want to be.
Score: 8 out of 10
The Video
Similar to previous volumes, Change of Command is presented to us in the series' original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. Again we are given a very clean video with strong colors and a transfer that is lacking in any types of encoding errors.
However, we are faced with one problem on this DVD. Inconsistencies in image quality make themselves apparent when moving on past episode fifteen, an episode which suffers from an assortment of errors and dips in video quality.
Given the fairly good image quality of previous DVDs and the other episodes on this disc, it does prove to be an annoyance. Errors come and go over the course of that single episode. Besides those problems we're treated with a nice transfer that only suffers from slight issues of video grain.
Score: 5 out of 10
Languages and Audio
Unlike the video, audio quality stays up to par when compared to previous DVDs. With Change of Command we are given the same audio tracks as those found in the previous volumes. Again we have a pair of Dolby Digital 2.0 audio tracks in both English and Japanese flavors.
As was previously the case, the Japanese audio track proves to be the better of the two with any voices being integrated more naturally into the mix. In this case the voices on the English track tend to come across as a bit loud in many scenes, over-powering any music and sound effects to be heard.
Score: 7 out of 10
Packaging and Extras
Another DVD and another large collection of extras. Here we have extras comparable to those found on the previous DVD volume, Tension. We have the latest chibi-fied installment of Ryvius Illusion as well as an all new collection of commercials and art galleries/audio dramas. Ryvius Illusion proves to be littered with spoilers of later episodes and the image gallery is as informative as ever, with sub-titles informing us of the origins of the artwork that appear on screen.
As with the previous DVD art galleries are presented as simple eye candy to keep us watching as each of the DVD's three audio dramas play out. Dramas by name alone and not something to truly become excited over, each one plays out as a long and detailed commercials featuring the stars of Infinite Ryvius buying Infinite Ryvius merchandise.
Accompanying all of this is an all new clean opening animation as well as a new collection of trailers for other Bandai series.
Score: 6 out of 10