We interrupt your character introductions to bring you this special bulletin on a shounen serial killer on the loose!
What They Say:
Under the rule of a tyrannical empire, Tatsumi, a young swordsman, leaves his home to save his poverty stricken village. He meets a girl named Akame, an assassin who was bought, brainwashed and trained to kill by the Empire. Akame is a member of the secret assassin group called “Night Raid” who use special weapons called Teigu. Together, Tatsumi and the members of Night Raid confront the corrupt empire.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After the first episode brought us into this world, this story, and ultimately this group of Night Raid that we (and our token neophyte Tatsumi) will be spending the series with, we started getting to know each member of the team individually, obviously starting with Akame. As we moved onto the less interesting characters (which, if this show is placing its priorities correctly, should essentially be everyone else to some extent), the formulaic nature and lack of any real weight to the villains that Tatsumi inevitably faced as part of his training with the Night Raid member of the week started to make it all feel a bit less impactful. While it appears that we’ll be returning to the first part of that shortly, this episode takes a brief break. That sounds promising, but what it doesn’t take a break from is the second part, or at least the fact that the villain is a pretty generic anime villain who will likely never be mentioned again.
In fact, the real purpose of this episode, strange as the placement may seem, is to introduce another critical component of this universe, at least from the perspective of Night Raid and Tatsumi: the Imperial Arms. As with the members of Night Raid themselves, we have seen Imperial Arms in use, gotten their names and descriptions, and heard mention that they were of this mysterious type of weapon. But with the focus elsewhere, there wasn’t really appropriate opportunity to explain just what “Imperial Arms” means, and so that’s where this episode comes in. Except that it doesn’t really find an appropriate opportunity either; instead, it introduces a villain who uses one of these weapons and uses that to prompt Night Raid leader Najenda to say, “Oh hey, Tatsumi doesn’t know that we’re talking about; let’s explain it to him.” Realistically, this kind of frank info dumping makes a lot more sense than enemies bitterly trying to kill each other stopping mid-fight to spout out a bunch of exposition, but it makes it so blatant that the episode was designed to convey what’s essentially a Wikipedia article that it’s slightly comical. Beyond simply informing us of what these weapons are, it also serves to make sure we’re anticipating Tatsumi getting one of his own in the future, and goes past the obvious enough hints from each of his colleagues possessing one by having him come out and ask when he gets one, too.
After that, the fight against the villain, hardly a deep or original type, follows up on this by showing what an Imperial Arms battle is like, and perhaps more importantly peeks a bit more into Akame’s past for what almost explicitly promises to be explored more deeply later on. As I’ve mentioned, the villain isn’t much to speak of, but as cliché as they are, the Imperial Arms have plenty of potential to be interesting, and the fight choreography and intensity are as top-notch as ever.
In Summary:
Well, we have quite the shounen trope established here, with 48 of its kind for this adaptation to get through a fraction of. Hopefully it gets somewhere interesting before long, because it’s spending a lot more time on introductions than might be ideal, as well-executed as they all are.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Custom-Built PC, Sceptre X425BV-FHD 42″ Class LCD HDTV.
