EPISODE 8
Of all the episodes, I think this one was probably the most intense one strangely and it’s probably my favorite one (so far). We had so much focus on Swindler and a huge moment of character development from her, and honestly her interactions with Sister are just so adorable and pure (“Onee-chan!”). They’re so sweet and so needed in such a dark and bloody anime. That little bath scene and them eating together was good stuff, too bad they were almost trafficked by gross pedophiles.
I will say, the beginning feels weird because they completely glossed over how the Akudama escaped from the executioners? I guess I can understand Courier because he has his bike, but Hoodlum, and a limping Cutthroat? The show always had these weird skipped moments but I feel like in this case it’s the weirdest because they were surrounded and injured so Boss being in trouble for letting them escape…well, she deserves it lol
It looks like there’s going to be some interesting development between Doctor and Hoodlum. Even though she’s not an Akudama anymore, Doctor is still acting like one killing everyone around her and doing whatever she wants, so what was the point of letting her go if you’re not going to pay attention to her??? Just like I thought, she’s definitely interested in learning more about the children and their immortality. We don’t know why, but it’s most likely that she wants to learn more about their immortality so she can find out how to make that happen for herself. She doesn’t seem like the kind of person that would be happy with only having the knowledge of immortality, so actually using that knowledge is more likely. She meets up with Hoodlum and she basically whips him into helping her out (tho he offered first). Of course she was able to see through his facade this whole time and she uses this to further prove herself dominant. Judging by the preview it looks like the two of them will sleep with each other, so that “make you into a man” was literal. I’m interested to see what else will happen between them, and I love that we’re seeing more cross interaction since before Doctor didn’t really have much significant interactions with anyone, and Hoodlum only had Brawler.
As for Swindler…oh my goodness. It looks like her careless and stupid decision making came back again as she went to buy takoyaki. How did she not know that she was officially classified as an Akudama? It seems so unbelievably stupid, but I will say that I do love seeing the transformation of this absent-minded ignorance to complete acceptance at the end. She questions whether the Akudama are good or not, she acts like she’s a normal good person and attempts to buy takoyaki like before, only to be reminded that she’s not ordinary like she once was. She can’t just waltz around the city like she used to with her name and picture plastered around the city. And it’s amazing that after all she’s done, she’s completely shocked that she’s considered an Akudama and not just a normal person. Her life has completely turned upside down and she hasn’t even considered the consequences of what’s she done so far. It isn’t until she dealt the first death to the sex traffickers that she fully accepted who she was. Sure the first death was probably done in the moment, but she fully intended to kill the blonde guy and easily killed glasses guy. Honestly, I think her status as an Akudama didn’t really hit her because she never really did anything like THIS. Yes, she took part in the plans but she never really got her hands dirty when it came to fighting and actually killing people. And in a couple minutes she was able to kill two people. There’s also the scene beforehand where she cut her hair short, in order to mess with her appearance (which is a pretty smart thing to do) so she was slowly accepting who she is. And like she says to Courier, this is where she belongs and that struck a cord with him. Enough for him to take the job of finding Brother with them all. And again, who or what is good and bad?
I really love what they did with Swindler, it was engaging and really well done. Next episode looks like it’ll be insane, that last shot of Cutthroat was all kinds of unsettling.
EPISODE 9
The Executioners are seriously the most incompetent group, and yet they’re supposed to be elite? I guess chalk it up to the writing, but an injured Cutthroat was able to kill EVERYONE in the building that easily? The people of Kansai are basically fucked now.
I’ve actually never seen The Shining but everyone knows that reference. The episode really did feel like a Hollywood horror movie with the whole chase scene.
Well, if you didn’t think Swindler wasn’t much of an Akudama now, her pleasure at everyone rioting and killing each other on the streets THAT SHE INCITED should tell you otherwise. Still, it’s so funny that she was worried that Courier killed those two executioners. It seems her mind works as “Killing for the hell of it is bad, killing to protect yourself and achieving your goals is good”. She didn’t have much of a choice last time but with the kind of life she’s going to be living now, this should probably be the norm for her. Still, it’s just funny how back and forth she is on certain things.
While everything is completely out of control, Doctor wants control. And it was plain with her dominating personality that she was always about having control, and immortality is the next step to reaching full control. Still, with her abilities of being able to perform surgery on the spot, I feel like she already can do that to an extent. But with her crazy personality, it’s never enough. Maybe a little cliche, but I still find Doctor’s character to be fascinating. With the show’s episodes being named after Hollywood movie, this show certainly does feel like a ridiculous Hollywood movie at times. I think the biggest takeaway from the entire bedroom scene was the last thing she asked Hoodlum. How old does he think she looks and is she a woman? That’s basically a big red sign that says NO and she’s probably much older than she looks. As insane as she is, she’s intelligent and her abilities are amazing and being in a cyberpunk world, her body being modified and all that shouldn’t be a huge surprise. It’ll be exciting to see that revealed.
The rest of the episode was entertaining. Swindler and Courier come up with a plan to find and rescue Brother before he’s sent off to Kanto, but they have to outchase Cutthroat. It looks like the opening really is just giving us all the hints that we need to see everyone’s fates. First of all, Swindler’s new haircut was totally hinted in the opening and now she actually added the change which is super cool. We see Cutthroat surrounded by executioner lightsabers, which hinted at the room that Swindler found herself in. Though I did not expect just from the opening that Swindler would be the one to kill him, but with how the episode playing out I knew that would happen. Still, the hint was there and the order is being followed as well with Cutthroat dying right after Brawler as shown in the opening. Following that, it means Hoodlum is next and judging by the preview it really does seem so. I like Hoodlum so it’ll make me said, and him mentioning Brawler makes me doubly sad. 🙁
As for Cutthroat, while he was an entertaining maniac, that’s pretty much all he was. I’m not sure whether the whole “red halo” thing was an actual thing he could see because of an ability…or because he’s severely mentally ill and it’s just a hallucination. And that’s most likely what it was to be honest, but I wish that we could have gotten more of Cutthroat other than him being a homicidal maniac. The other characters’ personalities have been shining, and some undergoing their own development, but Cutthroat was pretty much the same from beginning to end: An unhinged dude obsessed with red and killing. In that sense, it is pretty disappointing, but at least he gave us an entertaining horror chase scene. I also think that Hacker is still around as the door with the weapons mysteriously opened when the robot ball rolled in front of it, so he must still be helping Swindler out wherever he is (and interesting Swindler mentioned wanting Hacker around earlier). Still, if Cutthroat’s character was a bit of a missed opportunity, Hacker is as well whenever he’ll appear again considering he’s been gone for a good chunk of the show. And, again, if we go by the hints in the opening he’ll just die. Damn it… :/
Unfortunately the gang don’t make it in time to rescue Brother, so it must mean that they’ll have to go to Kanto somehow (and we’ll see Hacker?). But it looks like Doctor is going to get in the way again, and we’ll probably get some focus on Hoodlum as well. I at least hope that Hoodlum will go down like a hero and make his Bro proud. D:
Also, the censoring in these past couple episodes have just been awful and has taken out the enjoyment in some scenes. It’d be fun to watch certain episodes again when the blu-rays come out because the censoring is just ridiculously ugly.
