Gangsta. – 02
Bad Boys
We are all told as children that crime doesn’t pay. Well I am here to tell you that those morally upright people are full of it. Of course crime pays! If it didn’t, then why are there so many criminals? My point is that if any of you readers decide to pursue a life of crime with no punishment, that just means the subliminal brainwashing I’ve been inserting into all my posts is a lot stronger than I expected.
One time I was walking through town…
In this episode of Gangsta period mark, we are introduced to the toughest, most hard boiled person in the entire city: Nina. This girl looks into the heart of darkness everyday, I have no doubt she could beat me up and steal my lunch money. As you might expect from a more or less lawless town, Nina works as a totally liscensed nurse and totally prescribed drug runner.
Come back! Mommy and Daddy were just wrestling!
Aside from that, this episode was mainly about introducing the Dog Tags. Right now, we know that people with Dog Tags are essentially super soldiers. A bit of environmental storytelling (those posters about a war) seems to be implying that Tagged folks aren’t just your average drugged up mercs. Though Nic is clearly abusing the drugs Nina delivers, which has a whole other mountain of implications. Are those pills connected to his super human abilities? Do other tagged people need drugs? During the fight of Nic and the muscle dude, its clear that they are physically similar in strength, but what makes Nic stronger? Experience or maybe something completely different. I do believe that there is more to the tags than just generic super soldiers, and the way that muscle punk was “removed” from the show at the end of the episode just might be an omen of further developments. I bet they’re the bad guys! Spoilers: they are the bad guys.
I really love how the questions and clues aren’t the focus in scenes like this
Getting back to the actual fight, I’m not sure how I feel about it. I would say the fight scene had decent enough choreography, but at the same time it felt kinda slow. The moves were cool, but there wasn’t that many cool moves. Studio Manglobe, who worked on everything from Samurai Champloo to Samurai Flamenco, aren’t a top tier animation powerhouse, but they are no slouch either. I just hope that this show has the budget to pull off some neat fights. I will also add that the fight kinda dragged. The show makes it clear from the start that muscle punk doesn’t have a shot at beating Nic, whose A/O Tag seems to put him at the top of the pack. I don’t mind it when someone strong toys with someone weak, but the pacing in this fight was poorly done. Letting Worrick have an interlude were he makes some sense of the tags is fine, but this whole episode just felt dragged out a bit.
My what beautiful tags you have! All the better to murder you my dear
I won’t say that this episode was underwhelming, but I can already see a few flaws in the production. I believe that there is some genuine talent working at Manglobe, so I hope that they can pull off some great fight scenes later. The appeal of Gangsta goes beyond combat for me, but if we get episodes like this that focus mainly on the fights, I want them to look good too. The story of Gangsta is only just starting to take form but I can handle a drip feed of info. One revelation at a time, 10 criminals murdered. Just your average day in Ergastulum. That name sucks.
About Samsura
As someone of questionable tastes and even more questionable ethics; if we laugh at the same things you are one of two things: A person of discerning taste or a weirdo. Guess where I fall.
POWUH: 800-899 and Self-proclaimed Manga Queen with 874 comments
~Second episode was a lot better than the first one for me. I can’t explain it well but, I felt just as excited watching this as I had when reading the same scenes in the manga. Action scenes were definitely slacking, but eh it’s whatever. (Plus I don’t like the animation/character designs in general…)
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
They need to give Shukou Murase more money and/or time. This is not up to has past accomplishments…This show only makes me want to go back and re-watch Michiko to Hatchin
POWUH: 800-899 and Self-proclaimed Manga Queen with 874 comments
~I wouldn’t blame you I need to finish watching it myself…
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
I loved that one cause it had high style and substance…
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
An entertaining second episode consistent with the first. Done well enough I couldn’t sense a dull moment whether it was the fight Nicolas was involved in or Worick giving his explanation to Alex on what Dog tags really are.
I wonder what channels she went through to get that license. I saw the info on ANN a few days ago. Nina is only 12 years old. That place must be a real rat hole.
Given the Dog tags are essentially super soldiers, I’m going to go with human experimentation as the cause behind them, bankrolled by rich people behind the scenes with low morals. This is one world with the exception where I don’t want to consider the possibility of something supernatural being present.
If they are, I imagine the user suffers a severe withdrawal if a regular dosage isn’t maintained. After all, drugs are addictive.
Nicolas must have done some pretty unspeakable stuff. As the pic at the header shows, he’s an “A” class criminal while Worick is a “D”.
POWUH: and Athenaeum Châtelaine with 2212 comments
Considering where she works, I don’t think she is really “licensed”, she’s just well trained, and quite a cutie! I’m not even sure Dr. Theo is licensed anymore. This looks like the sort of place a disgraced doctor would set up shop. I’m guessing all the gangsters love her. (If not, they’ll have Dr. Theo to contend with). And was it just me, or did Nina and Dr. Theo remind anyone of Shou Tucker and his daughter, if Dr. Tucker hadn’t turned out to be a sociopath? 🙂
Actually, I’m thinking they were super soldiers/living weapons, but I think that it was part of some kind of past government military regime when they were at war at some point. I noticed while Worick was talking, there were these old subtle posters in the background. They reminded me of WWII propaganda posters, and also there’s the way that he said rich people refer to Dogtags. He said they call them a “legacy of tragedy”, which doesn’t sound like a seedy scandal, but more like something the nation did at one point that it completely regrets now.
I’m guessing with the end of the war and the change in regime, there was no longer a place for Dogtags and they are kind of being swept under the rug. The government wants to forget about them, but they don’t know what to do with them, so they are all on the streets in the dark parts of town, now available for hire to the highest bidder.
As for the pills, I’m thinking that with all the experimenting on them, things often go wrong and break down in the body, considering the abuse they endure and yet how the body can still keep up. Something probably has to give eventually. And thus the pills.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
With nothing but adults and no one her age around, I’m guessing she had to grow up before her time in order to adapt to the surroundings. Here are the ages of the cast so far:
Worick Arcangelo: age 35
Nicolas Brown: age 34
Alex Benedetto: age 24
Chad Adkins: age 56
Cody Balfour: age 26
Dr. Theo: age 31
That’s the best plausible theory because the next inquiry is wondering how Theo was able to get away hiring a minor. If it’s an “off the record” kind of business, he could be hiding her existence.
That’s what gets under the skin. Unknown people whose deaths are believed would go unnoticed get their lives uprooted, they get used and discarded when they’re no longer necessary. And they wonder why some of used come back looking for retribution. The nation just creates their own monsters that come back to bite them.
I’m especially looking at the pills. There’s sure to be a risk factor. Any kind of “medication” in an anime always has drawbacks.
POWUH: and Athenaeum Châtelaine with 2212 comments
Hmm, our two boys are older than I thought. That actually does line up with my theory of this perhaps being a post WWII alternate world, and the Dogtags being the result of experimentation in a Nazi-like regime. It reminds me a little of in the The Unlimited when they had that group of Espers working for the Axis powers, only for them to be “gotten rid of” once the war was over. I mean, consider the setting. It’s modern and yet not. There are no computers, no cell phones, not even the brick kind. The cars are not really old, but they are old enough. Everyone uses typewriters and paper and pencil, and rotary dial phones. I haven’t seen a TV anywhere yet either.
And from that flashback, Nick had dogtags even when he was kid, so if you consider the dogtags were created during the war, from children. Them being in their mid-thirties in what would be their version of 1950s or 1960, would make sense.
POWUH: 900-999 with 915 comments
Cool episode overall, but it was a little underwhelming in the sense that they not only didn’t answer any questions that remained in the first episode, they added more questions and I’m left with a big “?” in my head by it’s end.
I’m cool with the lazy animation on action. It’s not like I was paying attention to it. The other stuff going on, like a random doctor scaring the hell out of Worick caught my attetion.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
Yeah, this was a good second outing, building up on all the things that made the first episode stand out, and adding layers along the way.
I hope they don’t fully answer the question about what “Dog Tags” were, and instead focus on who they are now. Cause face it, it’s like you say, “super soldier experiments”, yadda yadda yadda. I’m much more interested in them keeping it the stuff of modern urban legend and all the fear and mistrust that surrounds that.
That’s much more intriguing and evocative, if handled with care, than anything so comic booky as to fully explain the secret origin.
Yeah, the name Ergastulum, does suck. But that is an old Latin word for the barracks that the Roman Legions kept their slaves in. They were little more than guarded sleeping cells dug into the ground. Also, they served as a mass grave when the slaves were worn out. At least that some of the history that comes with the word. It’s probably not the name of the town, but if the Big Bad calls it that….
POWUH: and Athenaeum Châtelaine with 2212 comments
Ergastulum is the name of the town. They’ve been calling it that in both episodes, and you can see the name on the side of the police station.
Nice history regarding the word by the way. I can see the connections and why the town was called that. The two does give a southern Europe feel. Italian-esque is not out of the question. So the idea of naming the two something that the Roman soldiers kept their slaves….or “dogs” many just have something to do with the naming of it. 😉
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
…is it the name of the town? I thought that I heard that is what the fans started calling it since it has been left unnamed in the manga?
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
“Ergastulum City Police Department” Written on the outside of the police station before they got the call that Nicolas was fighting with another Dog tag.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
…that just makes it so weird now that people would name their town after a slave barracks/grave…
But then… Might contain spoilers?
POWUH: and Athenaeum Châtelaine with 2212 comments
I guess the same reason, some would refer to an area as “Devil’s Kitchen”. It goes with the character of the town, and now that you’ve told me what the name of the town mean, it makes sense, considering the denizens of the town and what I think the Dogtags might have been. And remember that the Dogtags seem to only in this town, as Alex, whose from another area, wasn’t aware of them. It’s likely that they were created and kept there, and when whatever happened happened, they basically escaped or were released and blended in with the population.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
I thought the name was “Hell’s Kitchen”. That’s supposed to be a part of New York. I know there’s a place called “Hell’s Gate” on one of the islands in the Caribbean.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
…Yeah, Hell’s Kitchen, supposedly came from “statesman” Davy Crockett…
POWUH: and Athenaeum Châtelaine with 2212 comments
Yeah…that. 🙂 What I’m saying is, is that the names of cities and town can be really strange things. It could be names after everything from a person’s name to what the area smelled like. So, it having that name isn’t very weird.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
Well, Hell’s Kitchen is unofficial, not helped by the popularity of Daredevil and Gordon Ramsey (two fictional characters) ….It’s actually called Clinton…
POWUH: and Athenaeum Châtelaine with 2212 comments
This was a great episode, this show keeps getting better and better. I love that they are not giving all the answers and are actually presenting you with more questions.
I have a pretty good idea of what the Dogtags are and how they came to be, but I’ll wait to see if it gets confirmed. I really like Nina and Dr.
TuckerTheo they are awesome additions to the cast.And we finally got an idea of the plot and how that may develop. Nick is still the best, and Worick is awesome too. This is one of my favorite shows of the season, and I’m excited to see the next episode.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
mmm… Man-oppai.
POWUH: and Athenaeum Châtelaine with 2212 comments
Eww. I’ll take a sculpted set of pecs over man-oppai anyday. 😉
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Seriously? R U Kidding? I really don’t care if I’m stealing skylion’s thunder.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
…it’s freely on loan for this sort of situation!
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1557 comments
Hahaha, read this earlier.
“You never know when we (men) will be called upon to use them.”
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1557 comments
I liked the first episode better than this. The whole fight between the two dogtags was too drawn out, and I found the ranking system gimmicky and felt it would have been better if it wasn’t in here.
So this is related to Michiko to Hatchin, hm? I ended up dropping that show because it felt too episodic and Hatchin kind of annoyed me, so I can’t really recall too much.