What if the movie Speed got rebooted with teenagers?
What They Say:
Aria shows her cute side when she follows Kinji to the arcade after school. Later, when a bus full of Butei High students is hijacked, Aria calls on Kinji to team up with her to save their classmates.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With Aria and Kinji now going to the same school and having spent some time together, their relationship is ready to star getting fleshed out a bit in a more personal way. While Aria herself is still not growing on me, Kinji continues to be a fun guy as he’s pretty observant but doesn’t do it in a way that gets him busted. Case in point is at the start of this episode when Aria pulls a ticket out of her bra and he notes the variety of colors that such undergarments come in. But he does it without looking like he’s doing it and he doesn’t get nervous, sweat or have a bloody nose. What sold me on Kinji in the previous episode was his mannerisms and how he composes himself, so seeing him working it through in that way here only reinforces it.
The two have some mildly cute times together, though I do admit that I tire already of the whole master/slave thing that’s done in a somewhat joking fashion with how Aria has teamed up with Kinji, while still believing that she is indeed flying solo. The two do work well together, such as the main event that gets rolling rather quickly overall rather than just being ramped up in the second half. When Muto misses the bus, he’s furious about it but it turns into a disaster when it’s revealed to him that the bus has been hijacked and is ready to blow up. So with Aria taking the wheel, the two partner up once again to try and stop it from happening. There’s a fair bit of a rush to the events once they get going, and it’s a feeling that permeates a lot of the series in the previous two episodes as well, which has it feeling like it’s always got the adrenaline going.
Aria’s reasons behind jumping into this are amusing since a good part of it is that she wants to see what Kinji is like when he really gets going and exhibits his true abilities. It’s been sort of fanservice based at times in the first two episodes, but she’s intending to push him in a different direction this time around. The action itself is again very well handled here as it has a lot of intensity to it as the pair work together to deal with the bus, the bomb and the students aboard it who are all pretty slick themselves. It’s a solid piece of work that helps to reinforce just how well the two of them do work together and especially how they both handle the pressure. I was particularly glad to see it didn’t have a lot of humor associated with it that would feel out of place. You often get the wisecrack and the like, and that works fine, but the outlandish gesticulations and fighting with each other is something that I’m glad to see largely absent from here.
In Summary:
Aria the Scarlett Ammo has some good things going for it, but it’s needing to spend some real down time with the characters to let them get to know each other. They’ve had moments of it in the initial rush to get the partnership up, but the two of them are still clashing more than anything else. Aria does have her motivations for being like this, and that does help to ease the pressure some and redirects it more onto Kinji and sets up a bit more of the larger picture. When it comes to what defines the bulk of this episode though, it’s a good action piece with some stylish moments and a good deal of adrenaline to let it all flow well. It may be a bit too rough and tumble in execution at times, but overall it’s something that fits with the theme of the show and doesn’t showcase the action badly.
Grade: B
Simulcast By: FUNimation
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.