Her name is Mikura, and she’s all about service with a smile. So what if that service is cracking skulls and the smile happens to be on the other end of a loaded gun? Get ready for this chic with a killer body and vicious skills to wreak havoc and mayhem all in the name of the Danger Service Agency!The 13-episode series Mezzo (2004) is the creation of Yasuomi Umetsu, the auteur of the notorious OVA Kite. Teenage Mikura, spiky-haired blond Hamada, and lumpish, middle-aged Kurokawa make up the Dangerous Service Agency (DSA), headquartered in an old double-decker bus in Tokyo. Questionable people come to the DSA for extra-legal jobs: tracking down a suspect in an old murder, delivering contraband, tracing aliens, and finding cyborgs. The paper-thin characters and improbable plots are just vehicles for the considerable violence. Mikura kicks the ramen out of anyone who crosses her path–or shoots them with an impressive array of artillery; Hamada and Kurokawa do little more than provide transportation and back-up. Mezzo is so superficial and hokey that the violence has little impact. (Rated 15 and older but more appropriate for 17 and older: often graphic violence, violence against women, profanity, brief nudity, sexual situations) –Charles Solomon

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