The government and the rich are all monsters. That sounds about right.
What They Say:
In a fantasy world, fighter Tatsumi sets out for the Capitol to earn money for his starving village, and finds a world of unimaginable corruption, all spreading from the depraved Prime Minister who controls the child Emperor’s ear. After nearly becoming a victim of this corruption himself, Tatsumi is recruited by Night Raid, a group of assassins dedicated to eliminating the corruption plaguing the Capitol by mercilessly killing those responsible.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
White Fox is a studio that makes anime about as good as its source material is. Give them one of the best visual novels and you get one of the best anime; that’s how Steins;Gate worked. After only doing about a show a year, the studio has grown enough to already be on its third series in this year’s third season, this one confirmed for two cours, meaning White Fox will have had anime on the air for the entirety of 2014. While the offerings for the first half of the year weren’t my cup of tea, Akame ga Kill! looked a lot more promising, and I had heard very good things about the manga. White Fox regular Tomoki Kobayashi takes on the directing duties, and as he directed the bonus episode of Steins;Gate, that’s fine by me. Even better, and a bit surprising considering his last series is still running, the music is composed by Taku Iwasaki, one of the best composers out there and responsible for masterful soundtracks from Rurouni Kenshin: Trust & Betrayal and Gurren Lagann and many others. Even with all this, I don’t necessarily expect this two-cour adaptation from a studio that may be pushing itself too quickly of a ten-volume-and-ongoing manga to live up to all of its most promising parts, but it’s certainly worth a look.
Within the first few frames, it’s clear that we’re in high fantasy world with mystical beasts to be slain in such a way that it almost seems like this could be a JRPG adaptation for a second. But as our young adventurer Tatsumi continues on his journey to the imperial capital in search of great success, we start to see the cracks in this simple world; there’s a level of corruption that runs deeper than most stories with this kind of relatively light beginning would touch upon, and this first episode runs of the gamut of tones and emotions, appropriately moving from the bright morning to the dark night that the team we’ll be following ostensibly exists within. None of the characters are as they first seem, some switching in more blatant ways only to make more subtle changes later on, one of them appearing to go all the way back to where she started. The closest one to being an exception to this is our hero Tatsumi, always as pure of heart as he seemed. But as naïve as he was at the beginning, he strikes down a girl who tricked him without any of the hesitation that one watching him would expect, something that catches even the interest of his new allies enough for them to take him in as one of their own, despite his own requests.
The tonal shifts and harsh realism tearing into this fantasy world paint a very compelling picture to begin this story, and the dynamic between the various members of the Night Raid who we’ve only just gotten to meet looks like a lot of fun to explore going forward. Tatsumi himself is always likable even with as simple a character as he first comes off as, but these revelations about the world are as sudden to him as the viewer, and change the way he’s perceived his entire life, not just the few minutes prior. There are signs of more interesting development within him, and a compelling lead is something that every series deserves. Of course, we’ve already seen a whole episode revolve around him, while the namesake of the series, Akame, has only appeared briefly at the end, attacking her targets with robotic precision that, combined with the fact that she’s not only the namesake of the series but also the character with her own backstory spinoff, suggest that she might be the most interesting character to learn more about and watch develop.
The animation is a slight departure from much of White Fox’s earlier work, using its setting to justify a world full of richer colors and somewhat thicker lines near the beginning. It matched the contrast of the story with the nighttime revelations with stark imagery to convey the depravity involved and thankfully not shying away from the brutality or (very nonsexual) nudity with horribly distracting censorship that plagues too many shows. Red is a key color as the series shows its true darkness, and it’s put on full display with the blood that flies in this episode. We’ll surely be seeing plenty more of that, as well as the sword action from our leads that we get a taste of, and it all flows smoothly enough. I actually hadn’t checked on who was composing the music beforehand, but nearly every piece of music jumped out at me and made me sure that Iwasaki must be doing another series this season, with his range of sweeping orchestral pieces, sometimes with powerful sequences of chanting, to creative electronic works, often mixing in vocals in a very different way catching my attention and making this another joy to the ears.
In Summary:
What opens in a fantasy world that seems simple enough but is also plenty comfortable to settle into turns into a harsh, brutal commentary on corruption and how likely it is that the more perfect someone seems, the darker the secret lurking within. The characters we’ll be following have little time to be any more than cool, distant figures in this episode aside from the lead, but even still they manage to prove that they’ll be a fun and intriguing bunch to learn more about. The animation comes from White Fox, a studio that knows how to take strong source material and churn out a strong production, and alongside one of their regular directors we have Taku Iwasaki onboard to ensure that, even if everything else turns to garbage, the music will sound damn good.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Custom-Built PC, Sceptre X425BV-FHD 42″ Class LCD HDTV.