The end has arrived for Wolverine as his goal is finally before him.
What They Say:
Logan – Logan and Yukio both face their opponents; Kurohagi tries to make Mariko his own once more.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As Wolverine draws to a close here, the show finally brings us to the confrontations that have been expected from the start. We’ve gone through an array of foes for Logan to deal with, making some awkward allies along the way whose sense of honor is what lets them work together and also the inclusion of a few women that could connect better with Logan than his one true love he’s fighting for. What’s really become apparent over the course of the series though is a significant missed opportunity to explore more of what Logan and Mariko’s relationship is about. Since we get the small bit at the start of the series, we never really revisit why they’re so bound together and why he’ll go as far as he is to rescue her. The lack of that emotional component is significant and reduces the show as well.
With the majority of this episode revolving around a fight, it does admittedly work fairly well when it comes to that. Logan and Shingen have been going at it since the first episode and there’s a decent sense of intensity about it, though Logan doesn’t truly view Shingen as his real enemy. The back and forth has picked up a bit since arriving at the Dragon Palace and Shingen even took things up a few notches by coming up with a trick or two in order to hold his own against some of what Logan is capable of. It plays out well and I do like that Shingen is aggressive with all of this, confident in his skills and realizing that he has to just stop toying with Logan. The whole thing ends well but then gets kind of wonky when it comes to Yukio’s involvement as it feels like it comes out of left field.
The weak link in the series continues to be Kurohagi though and he proves it again easily here as he shows more of his true colors upon seeing just how badly the fight is going. He naturally goes to an extreme and uses his persecution complex to justify what he does, but it just speaks of bad plotting in that someone with so much money and power would go in that direction, holing up in the catacombs below Madripoor and making himself a cornered target for those that are still hunting him. And unfortunately, it all leads to an ending that just doesn’t feel like it has any real threat or impact to it. Shingen was far more the big bad guy of the series than Kurohagi and even the little trick he uses just doesn’t work well considering who the show is dealing with.
In Summary:
In the end, Wolverine wound up giving me about what I really expected it to be. While I had hoped for a more serious anime interpretation of it, we got a pretty safe show that was drawn out, had some big plot holes and didn’t really work the angles that it could and should have in order to make it stand out. At the same time, it did give me a lot of what I expect from a Marvel Comics property brought into animated form. While I thoroughly enjoy the movies, the comics and other animated enterprises have continually fallen short for me for years now as their approach to storytelling hasn’t been the strongest. I liked the series in a sort of basic way throughout because I like the characters and settings, but everyone knows this could and should have been a hell of a lot more than this.
Content Grade: C
