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The dolls are back and on the verge of diving into the Alice game in Rozen Maiden Traumend disc two!

There are seven dolls made by the almost mythical dollmaker Rozen. They are each beautiful, each almost perfection – and alive. So what’s a doll got to do in order to be perfect? Kill off the other six, of course. Each doll is embedded with a power that allows them the ability to defeat the others, the Rosa Mystica that each doll possesses can, when collected, turn them into the perfect doll – Alice.

Who are the dolls? The first made is the angry, spiteful Suigintou, a white haired beauty with no desire other than to meet ‘Father’, until she becomes linked to a dying human named Megu. Kanaria is the second doll, an olive-green haired feisty thing who repeatedly claims to be the smartest of all seven dolls. Third and fourth are twins Suiseiseki and Souseiseki. These two make telling the dolls apart by name virtually impossible. Both have brown hair, but the former has long locks and a beautiful green dress, while the latter wears boyish clothing and has short hair. They both have one green eye and one red one. Fifth is the main focus of the story, Shinku. Most of the second disc takes place in the home of her owner\medium, Jun. The typical blond Victorian aristocrat, she has mixed feelings about playing the Alice game and destroying her sister dolls. Hinaichigo, the sixth doll, is a blond, childish little girl. She is shorter in stature than the others and very prone to shrieking (mind that volume, watchers), and often referred to as the baby or infant. The last doll (and by visual art standards, my favorite) is Barasuishou. White haired and eye patched (yay for eye patches!), Barasuishou is similar in disposition to Suigintou. Cold and manipulative, she isn’t very prominently featured in this collection of four episodes.

Traumend is the second season of Rozen Maiden, and disc two features episodes five through eight. “The Letter” shows Suiseiseki (the more feminine of the twins) and the baby Hinaichigo trying to get in better with Jun, with whom they are staying. They both write him letters, and though Suiseiseki tries to make the baby fearful of mailing her letter, Hinachigo succeeds in her quest while Suiseiseki is thwarted by Kanaria’s attempts to vanquish her with a water gun. Suigintou is woken in “Angel”, and finds her medium is the dying girl Megu. Megu willingly agrees to be Suigintou’s medium, under the promise that the doll use all her lifeforce and let her die. Suigintou agrees, but after coming face to face with Shinku, the Victorian aristocrat doll, she has second thoughts.

In “Tea Party”, the four dolls who frequent Jun’s house (the twins, Shinku and baby Hinshigo) attempt to make cookies while Kanaria tries to vanquish them in an attempt to force them to her medium’s house – a doll-crazed woman. Shinku brokers a deal, and all five dolls go to Kanaria’s house for a highly silly tea party.

The fourth episode goes deeper into the series’ overlying plot. The tomboyish twin, Souseiski, sees ‘father’ in a mirror that the dolls use to move from place to place. ‘Father’ is crying, and she finds out that it’s because the dolls aren’t playing the game, and he has yet to find the perfect doll, or Alice. Souseiski decides it’s time to put the game in motion, something she confesses to her sister dolls.

The baffling names aside, Rozen Maiden Traumend is a fantastic anime, with gorgeous Lolita design on the dolls and though half of the episodes seem like fluff, the other half are what really grabs you. I can’t wait for the next disc to be released. The only downside is the lack of bonus features – there is textless ending animation and some previews, but that’s it. Otherwise, a fantastic DVD.

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