The past plays a huge role in the present as two storylines explain many motivations.
What They Say:
Kinji trails Aria through town to the police station where he learns why she’s so desperate for a partner. When he finds out she’s flying back to London, Kinji realizes she could be the Butei killer’s next target!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Sometimes a little exposition can go a long way and the start of this episode manages in the space of about two minutes to highlight some of what it is that defines Kinji. With his older brother having been a Butei as well, there’s something to be said for following in his footsteps but not wanting to because of the pressures of it. But those pressures can be even more when said brother is killed in an accident and is essentially derided over it because he didn’t stop the accident before it happened, even though he saved a lot of lives afterwards. It’s a big part of what makes Kinji who he is so having that dealt with early on here, even in just a brief passing like this, helps out quite a lot as it adds some context to his wanting to get out of all of it and downplaying his abilities.
With Aria, we also get a significant amount of background information on her when Kinji follows her one day after school and it ends up taking both of them to the jail where her mother is. She’s in there for some 842 year sentence involving a number of issues, one of them being the Butei killer that’s out there that they believe her to be. But with the killer out there causing trouble again, Aria is convinced that she can find him and eliminate at least a hundred years off her sentence in one fell swoop. Mothers being mothers however, she’s far more concerned about her daughter and the fact that she hasn’t picked up a partner yet. There’s a real social stigma to that in the Butei world and the kind of relationship she has with Kinji at the moment doesn’t cut it. It at least explains why she wants a partner, but with her focus like it is, it also explains why she doesn’t want a partner and why most people wouldn’t partner with her.
That the two stories do interconnect isn’t a surprise and there’s a bit of time spent where they separate a bit before Kinji manages to convince her that they need to work together. Where it goes kind of pear shaped in a way that at first doesn’t make so much sense, and in fact feels like it’s a huge gimmick, is with the introduction of Riko, who looks like a slightly blonder Aria, who is running her own manipulations among all the Butei and has a sizable agenda of her own. While the big villain reveal moment is really awkward, it’s the kind of piece that’s filled with a whole lot of tension and over the top sensations about it that almost feels like it’s a fanfic writer gone wild. What strikes me the most about all of this as it fleshes out the last quarter of the episode is that it’s the kind of material that’s usually saved till much further into the series. Showing it off early here just makes me wonder how strange the show can get from here, or whether it’s going to collapse under its own weight.
In Summary:
The further in to Aria the Scarlet Ammo we get, the more unusual it gets. A lot of it really just comes down to the pacing of events as it all comes across as pretty rushed and busy, and this is magnified by the style of the animation with its softer look and the color palette used for much of it that almost makes it all feel like an old time photo. There is an appeal to a show that does go over the top with abandon, and this one certainly feels like it’s doing that, but it’s hard to tell whether it’s going to pull a rabbit out of the hat yet or just dazzle us with something empty and flashy. The show is one that I still think has some potential to it, but right now it’s something that looks more like it could be an amazing train wreck spiraling in epic proportions with how it’s being executed.
Grade: C+
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.
