First Impressions – Akame ga Kill!
Teaching you to never trust anyone, ever!
Well guys, here it is at long last. The latest masterpiece from the studio wonder that would save anime, White Fox. So, the question is: has anime been saved yet?
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Gah, I’m so excited for this. It will probably take a while to get to the arc I like, but seeing Akame ga Kill! animated is just exciting in general.
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Bloody Passable Start
Who’da thunk these nice folks would be psychos?
Sumairii // If you couldn’t tell, I was being rather facetious above. But let’s talk about Akame ga Kill instead of poking fun at the silly concept of “saving anime.” The first thing to note is that this premiere was pretty good. The animation quality was excellent, the bgm was pretty damn baller, and the story so far was, well, decent. You could say that the story will pick up later on since the premiere must go through the motions of familiarizing the audience with the cast and introducing the world, but I’ll call it as I see it. Dropping us into the two-faced, sadistic family plot of the premiere wasn’t exactly a strong way to start things off, but it was perhaps the most convenient method of establishing the premise of the show. Kind of uninspired, but it gets the job done. So the end result is, as I have said, a decent first episode that will definitely keep you coming back for more next week. It’s just nothing to write home about.
How do you spell gullible?
The second thing that immediately stood out to me was the surprising mixture of light-hearted and dark tones. I was expecting Akame ga Kill to be some sort of gritty grindhouse of anime, especially with all the buzz about the liberal application of gorn in the manga. So I wasn’t quite prepared for the goofy and gullible lead and the amusingly deadpan Akame faces during the interludes of the slaughter-fest. Fortunately, I did find these little moments to provide a nice release for the rising tension in between blood, blood, blood, and body parts. So this was more or less a pleasant surprise. It’s really great that the show isn’t relying on overwhelming us with heavy-handed amounts of grimdark to sell itself, and the shrewdly implemented lighter tidbits weren’t so jarringly disconnected from the rest of the action as to end up ruining the atmosphere.
A Manga Reader’s Take
I can see why Aria hides this face.
Karakuri // Hmm, yeah, I think the whole “the capital is actually full of sadistic rich people” reveal was a lot more shocking in the manga than here. Though then again, I started reading Akame ga Kill! with absolutely no idea what I was getting in to (besides the fact that any character was fair game for death flags), so I was less hyped about the story than most people. Maybe having the group of assassins as the good guys seems a bit one dimensional as a story element now, things should get more interesting as the capital’s side of things is revealed. As for now though, I think they portrayed the breakdown of Aria’s character okay. Having the stills with her face contorted and her rambling felt maybe almost too dramatic, but I like what they did with the flashes of unlimited torture works going on in her shed. They showed just enough to get the effect that things were pretty grim without going overboard with the gore.
Clean up on all the aisles.
Tatsumi seems like a regular enough MC, and really, he is. He’s fairly strong on his own, but has that general MC naivety. Really, up until the point where he killed the girl himself at the end, he was pretty much like any other shounen hero in anime. Though because of that, he’s probably a good access point to the series. Obviously because he’s new to Night Raid, but also because he’s pretty much the most normal person in the assassin team at the moment. At least he can fight though, so unless he had a case of not wanting to kill people (which is probably a lesser worry, considering the end of the episode), he probably won’t be holding anyone on the team back.
In the perfect world, I would have liked Akame ga Kill‘s premiere to have a little more oomph to live up to the hype it came with. But such is the nature of hyping things up; you’re almost always guaranteed to be disappointed, though not necessarily devastated. There were definitely some things that could have been done better, like how Tatsumi’s violent retribution could have had more impact with more development of his friends beyond “these are sacrificial characters introduced to set the mc down the path of antihero.” But in the end, this first episode was still solid enough to tide my interest over until next week.
Ah, I’m so happy that this wasn’t overly censored. That was one of my main worries when I heard that this was being animated. Already in the first episode we had death and torture, but they managed to show a lot of it without the black bar of doom showing up. Oh, I guess I should say that I’m happy with how detailed they bothered animating the blood flying around. Not that it was a huge, integral part of the manga, but it made things look a little classier (…if that’s even possible). I’m happy with how things have turned out so far. Maybe it wasn’t quite what people were hoping for at the moment, but that’s kind of what I thought too, until the manga went into the capital’s side of things (which was around the time the characters started dying). Words cannot describe how much I’m looking forward to Esdese’s introduction into the storyline. The Jaegers in the OP look awesome already.
Welcome to Night Raid~
About Tag Team
We live, laugh, enjoy and strictly believe on "more the merrier". When together, we usually come up with very chatty, conversation-based episodics and interesting posts.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
I have to admire the studio/producer/writer’s nuts on this one. It does take a rare courage to liberal mix gore and this sort of humor. It reminded me of the film Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, a spoof of 80s slasher films that is ten times better than all of the Scary Movies.
I like this crew, the Night Raid. If the populace is that depraved, take em out…
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Nice and hardly any censors!! I do believe my second bloody anime series this season has shown itself and I’ll be biting my nails (not literally) in anticipation for the next episode. Impressive opening maintaining a balance between comedy and serious elements. Where animation is concerned, my faith in White Fox was proven well placed after the great jobs the studio did with Jormungand and Hataraku Maou-sama.
That seemingly saint-like family is the definition of one of Psycho-Pass’ episode titles “Nobody Knows Your Face” because the story pulled a 180 on their true nature. “Disturbing surprise” is an understatement. What was a sweet privileged young girl quickly became an irredeemable, disgusting bitch. So cheers were brought about seeing her getting sliced. If only she had a slower, agonizing death to measure up for the number of slain victims. Tatsumi did well avenging his friends. He has some of the generic MC traits but finally a protagonist who’s not afraid to dish out retribution to those who have it coming.
Night Raid is deadly and efficient. Akame was not what I expected since I thought she’d be this super serious assassin but she’s quirky, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Like Attack on Titan, there are rumors floating around about deaths coming left and right with no exceptions. So I’m going to have trouble not getting attached to any characters I may come to like. With 23 episodes left, I’m going to be in for quite a ride til the end of the year.
@Karakuri: Looks like one of your favorite mangas got an adaption. Any others you’re hoping to get the same treatment?
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Ahaha Akame ga Kill! really likes to get you attached to characters before killing them mercilessly. Basically every time someone mentions their backstory or romantic interest or something (you know, death flags) right before big battles, you sit there worried over if the story is going to off them or not. It’s terrible, but really entertaining. Plus the deaths normally mean something too other than just adding bodies to the death count. Long story short, I think you’ll probably enjoy this.
Hmm, actually other than Bloody Cross (of course), I think a lot of my favourite manga already have adaptations. Actually, totally outside the action genre, I’d really love to see the shoujo manga Oresama Teacher get an adaptation because that series is hilarious. It’s by the same author as the currently airing series Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun, so there’s hope (maybe).
POWUH: 900-999 with 915 comments
My thoughts by the end of the episode:
“Shit, they said everyone will die.
I don’t want it.”
POWUH: and Athenaeum Châtelaine with 2212 comments
I’ve never even heard of this series, but I suddenly heard a ton of hype about it and so I decided to try it out. I kind of like the “no one is safe” style shows, so though the summary didn’t sound interesting, I decided to try it.
Well, all i can say is it was…okay. Nothing really special as far as I can see. The gore isn’t really that bad, the weird juxtaposition of comedy and seriousness is a little disjointed for me. It looks like it could be fun, but I also think it could get tiring after a while too.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Hmm, maybe stick around for a couple episodes? Once it hits the “nobody is safe” point, a lot of things should be better developed.
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 386 comments
Well now.. I use to read what an anime was actually about, But I leave that to fosh, he says its good then well watch it. So ya going into this anime i didn’t know much about it really. Started off slow and normal, finally some nice people to help.. Totally caught me off guard. That ending bit damn, and here I feel for the little girls act.. tisk.
anyways this series got my attention quickly and I’ll stick with this one a while longer. I Liked the idea and how things played out that’s for sure, BUT right at the very end it sorta lost me in the comedy.. very strange mix indeed, Bloody comedy seriousness? hmm well have to see how this combo works out.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Your brother has good taste here. xD Trust in Fosh!
I don’t really remember there being that many comedy moments in this first fight, but maybe I just wasn’t paying attention. It’s been a long time since I started reading this.
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
I love the manga for this series and I can’t wait to see more especially with the other team of special soldiers that get introduced later on! Oh yea Esdeath <3 her shes so badass and fun 😀
Thankfully this was not censored to hell and for that YES!
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Yay! I can’t wait for them either. A lot of my favourite characters in this are on Esdese’s side. xD
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I’ve been on the fence about even trying this show, and haven’t watched it. And I’m still on the fence, but leaning towards not bothering. It just seems like it’s a bunch of stuff that would rub me the wrong way.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Hmmm. Yeah, I like this for the darker themes. Going by our opinions on past shows, this wouldn’t be something you would enjoy. Probably.
POWUH: Novice (36-50) with 39 comments
well I did not waited for things to come out that way for shure, I mean oh sweet mother of Jesus, how deeply f*#@ up can people be?
The fact than he just cold blooded killed her, show us that the Tatsumi got some really dark part that he doesn’t let people see to often.
A problem I find here is the complication the distorted moral standards might bring to this series if it’s plot is not well constructed, I mean, in the capital does money=evil? if someone has a huge income but is not doing this horrible stuff, however doesn’t do anything to stop the ones who do, is that person evil? it’s definitely not good,but it’s evil? those people in the capital really need to bem equaly judged but what is the point where murder becomes a viable punishment? and how they even found out about who is a crazy psicho around the capital?
Also I supose people who fight to keep the status quo would be just as evil?
Geting reeeeealy confuse here you guys…
however i must say that it was a pretty pleasant first episode, I like introductions, so the fact that they just put us right there in the middle of things was a bit of a turnoff to me at the begining, taking that out I don’t have so much to complain about it: 7/10
for now I might stick whit it.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Uhh, I wouldn’t say that money automatically equals evil. I think it’s more that there are a lot of people in the capital who have a lot of power, so they end up abusing it brutally. There’s a huge class divide between the powerful people in the capital and everywhere else, so they take advantage of that. There’s no one to stop them either because they’re at the top of everything. So Night Raid basically acts as “justice”.
Things should become clearer as to who the enemy of Night Raid is and whatnot as the series goes on though. …Kind of. There’s kind of a large gray moral area that develops, so what’s considered good and evil gets kind of confusing.