The only thing cooler than smoking cigarettes and having a gun is smoking cigarettes and being a gun.
What They Say:
Juuzo makes a move to get Tetsuro back and carries the Extended boy to a place where Berühren cannot easily reach. While Tetsuro is unconscious, Juuzo wanders around town looking for his favorite pack of smokes. A man named Cunningham greets him.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
We’re in for another wild ride. In fact, this episode opens in the middle of the action, not giving us a chance to catch our breath. This seems like the kind of show that would open and close each episode with Juuzo in a dimly-lit room, waxing philosophical about the violent life of a hardboiled man, but then that show probably wouldn’t star a guy with a gun for a head who turns into a big gray blob when he blushes. Instead, Juuzo continues to pursue the villains who are experimenting on a child, ensuring early on that we know just how much of a heart of gold this piece of cold steel has.
This episode most notably introduces us to the other primary characters of the series, two normal-looking humans we’ve seen in the opening and promotional materials alongside Juuzo. Mary is Juuzo’s foil, a young woman who adds a good amount of comedy to the series and is initially shown to be a top-notch underworld doctor but also kicks ass and commands respect from Juuzo and everywhere she goes. Tetsuro is the subject of Juuzo’s rescue, and we don’t get much of him as a character just yet, but after what he’s been through, it seems hard to imagine him as another happy-go-lucky member of the trio in the immediate future. Building this core cast is important since, in a series with such a bizarre jumble of ideas, fleshing out our focal points with a slightly varied cast makes it feel more like a believable world that we can jump into.
The comedic moments always feel a little out of place, but they seem to be becoming more commonplace and, with scenes like Juuzo blushing and Mary trying to blindfold him by covering the most eye-like chambers (which is the only gag I’ve really appreciated in the series thus far), it feels like it’s rapidly moving away from its initial hardboiled atmosphere. That makes sense in theory, but it still seems like it would make more sense for the comedy to be more surreal and less of a basic collection of these typical anime tropes. At least nothing about Mary’s character feels too incongruous at this point.
Then the episode spends most of its runtime on which brand of cigarettes Juuzo prefers and how lacking this particular brand drains him of his energy. I can’t think of the last time I saw anything dedicate so much time on cigarettes, especially an anime like this. It’s the kind of bizarre humor that I don’t see working especially well for any audience, really, but is almost ridiculous enough to fit with the dominant image of absurdity that permeates the series. After a bit too much of this, Juuzo finally ends the fight with some one-liners that are presumably supposed to be badass, but it’s fairly impossible to take anything seriously at this point. Mary’s appearance and news of Tetsuro’s awakening at least suggest that the series will be following a very serial progression for the time being, though it wouldn’t be a terrible candidate for more episode detective-style material if that ends up being in the cards once the main cast is established and working together.
In Summary:
I still have no idea what to make of this show, but it’s certainly strange. Just as it seems like it may have leveled out, it spends a great deal of time on a weird cigarette-centric plot. If nothing else, this episode introduces us to a couple of other characters who will be joining Juuzo, and Mary seems to be a pretty solid addition to the main cast. Hopefully, they’ll balance out the series and make it feel more cohesive.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Funimation
Review Equipment:
LG Electronics OLED65C7P 65-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart OLED TV, Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K
