What They Say:
The leader of the criminal esper organization P.A.N.D.R.A is imprisoned in the jail for espers, Deadlock. There he meets a man with unusually colored eyes who catches his interest, Andy Hinomiya.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Serving as a spinoff from the original Zettai Karen Children series, it’s little surprise that we’d eventually see more of this property. The original manga by Takashi Shiina is still going strong with thirty-two volumes released so far, though the Weekly Shonen Sunday series has not seen a release in North America. The anime adaptation hit in 2008 with fifty-one episodes and an OVA, which was released by Sentai Filmworks. Now we have The Unlimited, which focuses on the “villain” of the previous series and lets us see things through his view. While the original series was animated by SynergySP, this one gets a much more interesting look with Manglobe tackling it. Directed by Shisho Igarashi, who has worked on various things from a VOTOMS OVA to Heaven’s Lost Property, it has the potential for something that really expands the overall work.
With the world still mixed when it comes to espers and their place in it, Hyobu Kyosuke is the Magneto of the world here, viewing espers as the next stage that should lead and control the world. His abilities are powerful and all encompassing in many ways, which we see early on when he takes down a military strike team with ease. But it’s all just a ploy as he wants to be captured and jailed. This gets him sent to Deadlock, a special prison on an island designed to handle espers. While one might expect espers to be individually locked up and drugged, what we see here is that they’re pretty much normal prisoners and end up in fights easily enough. This gives us introduction to a bit of a brawler named Andy Hinomiya, a man who gets into fights easily enough but has plenty of issues with the fallout from it.
Andy sort of smoothes things out, or at least tries to, and his presence is something that ends up really intriguing Kyosuke as he spends more time there. He’s amusing when it comes to dealing with the warden and guards upon his arrival, and Kyosuke makes sure he stands out since he keeps to his school uniform that’s his trademark. It’s little surprise that Kyosuke takes a real liking to him and sees him as someone useful for his plan, which is slowly revealed the more time he spends in Deadlock. His approach of getting in there to go after a young girl that’s been kept in a special prison is definitely intriguing, especially since she knows who he is so clearly. Of course, getting her won’t be easy and that lets the show play well with the action, something that it does quite well, making for an engaging use of abilities, choreography, weaponry and animation as well.
In Summary:
Comparisons to the Zettai Karen Children series will be brief and pretty much over with after the first minute or two of this series. While that series had its serious moments, it was largely dealing with a show aimed at a younger audience while still trying to nab certain older demographics. Here, The Unlimited is going after an older audience right out of the gate with a strong sense of polish and design that really makes it intriguing to watch. While we’ve seen a somewhat playful and whimsical Kyosuke in that series, here we see what he’s like when he’s not dealing with those characters and is going after other parts of his goals. There’s plenty of back story to explore and more than enough material to work with that should make this appeal to older fans and add to the overall world narrative. This is the first show of the new season that has left me wanting more right away. It’s a strong work across the board and one that I hope only manages to improve and grow. But in this first episode, it’s laid out what it can be like and should be like beautifully with its tone and seriousness while still having a certain spark of humor.
Grade: A-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
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.
