Category: Akudama Drive

Before I get into my thoughts on this episode, I want to note that what we saw this week wasn’t its final form. There’s an additional five minutes of footage that was cut for the TV broadcast, which will be part of the director’s cut on the eventual Blu-ray release. Summaries of the missing content are floating around online, but I haven’t read them – given the excellence of this finale, I may rewatch Akudama Drive at some point, and I want to save a few surprises for myself. Even if you put aside the added footage, this show will benefit from a BD watch more than most, since the censorship will be toned down and its worst-looking moments are likely to be touched up. And who knows, maybe an enterprising sub group will save us from Funimation’s shit translation once the physical release drops. That’s not a likely prospect in the age of simulcasts, but a man can dream, right?

Continue reading “Akudama Drive – 12 [Akudama Drive]” →

These two episodes were absolutely stuffed with plot developments, character deaths, and big reveals. There’s no way I can comment on everything they had to offer in a regular-sized post, and I’m not so enamored with Akudama Drive that I’d give it a Great Pretender-length review. So I’m going to do what every pop culture journalist in 2020 does when they’ve fallen behind schedule: churn out a low-effort list article. Here are the major events of “Babel” and “War Games” ranked from worst to best (with their associated episode in parentheses). If you’re keen on playing with the newest and the best hacks and cheat codes, you can check out  new world hack here and find out for yourself.

#7: Wonderful Christmastime (10)
I’m already cheating with the structure of this post, and right off the bat I’m cheating a bit more. This wasn’t a major event, but rather a small scene that played right before the midpoint of the episode; still, it was saccharine enough to earn the last place slot with ease. Not long after the mass murder of hundreds of civilians by the Execution Department, Akudama Drive thought it would be a nice idea to play an uplifting musical sting as Sister experienced her first snowfall. The main issue here was that the scene functioned as a montage, so the wintery orchestral piece also accompanied images of cops suppressing crowds with beam swords and, most jarringly, Doctor lounging next to the corpse of a recent victim. Tone-deaf doesn’t begin to describe it.

Continue reading “Akudama Drive – 10-11 [Babel/War Games]” →

For all the sex and murder featured in this episode, it left me a little cold. Last week’s focus on Swindler didn’t just make her more sympathetic, it painted a way forward for both her character and the story: the rescue of Brother from Kansai’s clutches. “The Shining” didn’t seem to care much about that, opting to split its focus between a sudden civilian uprising and an homage to its namesake film. With just four (and now three) episodes left in its run, narrative momentum is of the utmost importance, but Taguchi and his team went in a different direction with this one. To be fair, that decision resulted in a lot of stylish images – assuming your X-ray vision penetrated the black fog censoring all the bloodiest bits.

Continue reading “Akudama Drive – 09 [The Shining]” →

It’s difficult to follow an all-star episode like “Brothers,” as this doubleheader can attest. My disappointment with “The City of Lost Children” was so great, in fact, that it delayed this post by a week. After the spectacle and weight of episode 6, we got a decidedly less impressive-looking showing that nevertheless boasted a cool setting in Expo Park – which was absent for 33% of the time, due to a lengthy flashback. Even the central object in the underground park, a rocket that Brother wanted to ride to the moon, was just an excuse to get that flashback off the ground. Its eventual launch was an anticlimax that spilled into episode 8’s beginning, making me fearful for the show’s chances this week, but thankfully it was more my speed. More than appealing to my personal sensibilities, though, it was specifically interested in Swindler, who seems a hundred times more authentic now than she ever has before. All it took to give her some nuance was to pair her with a cute kid instead of a sociopathic gang. Who knew that writing was so easy?

Continue reading “Akudama Drive – 7-8 [The City of Lost Children/Black Rain]” →

All of Akudama Drive’s episodes are named after famous crime or action movies: Se7en, Reservoir Dogs, Dead Man Walking, etc. Each film title has some relation to the plot of its anime counterpart; for instance, “Mission Impossible” was the name used for the characters’ improbable boarding of the Shinkansen, while “Speed” refers to the episode where the same train hurtles toward oblivion (in that movie it was a bus, but the parallel sort of holds up). This week’s title is “Brother,” which is the first Japanese film to be featured, and it’s probably the weightiest parallel yet, thematically speaking. It should be noted that I haven’t seen Brother, but I did read a Wikipedia plot synopsis ten minutes before writing this post (very professional), so there will be spoilers for both that film and this episode of Akudama Drive after the jump.

Continue reading “Akudama Drive – 06 [Brother]” →

It’s still too early to say if we’ll ever return to the sustained mayhem of Akudama Drive’s earliest offerings, but breathers like this episode aren’t so bad. Sure, the visuals might not be delivering in every single scene, but in terms of transitioning us into the show’s midgame, it did a fine job. There’s a departure and a new rivalry within the Akudama camp, and the Executioners are strengthening efforts to bring them in, putting the recently suspended Master and Pupil in a tough spot. Was there enough room for the show to say something meaningful about its characters during all this repositioning? I’d say no, but that’s certainly not for a lack of trying.

Continue reading “Akudama Drive – 05 [Dead Man Walking]” →

Here’s a curious case of an episode that’s just as action-packed as the first two, yet fails to bring the thrills of those earlier installments. The whole time I was watching the ‘Courier vs Kouhai’ and ‘Brawler vs Executioner’ fights, I was wondering when the show would do something new. It might have revealed some characters’ hidden abilities, or used its unique setting (aboard the Shinkansen) to give one combatant a surprise advantage over another. That didn’t happen, though, at least not to my satisfaction. I’ve got a couple theories about how that dissatisfied stew came to occupy my brain, but that’ll probably be it for this week. Speculating about the history of the Kanto vs. Kansai conflict would be fruitless, given our limited knowledge on the matter, and the main cast themselves are so static they might as well be Virgil Hawkins. So, let’s talk about what makes some anime fights better than others.

Continue reading “Akudama Drive – 04 [Speed]” →

This episode was a far cry from the spectacle of the first two. There were no dust-ups with the Execution Department, no direct assaults on massive buildings or organizations, and no interpersonal conflicts within the main cast. It consisted mostly of planning a heist, then quietly executing the first half of it (as quietly as a show like Akudama Drive can manage, anyway). Perhaps some viewers needed a breather after two straight weeks of madness, but personally, I was hoping for twelve. Still, a relatively subdued affair like this one gave the production team a chance to relax their weary pencil/mouse hands, and let the characters themselves carry the burden of bringing the show to life. Were they up to the task? Eh, sort of.

Continue reading “Akudama Drive – 03 [Mission: Impossible]” →

It’s often said that TV anime dump a disproportionate amount of time and talent into their first episodes, leading to a noticeable drop-off in episode 2. As a piece of conventional wisdom, it makes sense – producers want to hook as wide an audience as possible, as early as possible, so the extra effort would be warranted. And yet, we’re seeing a bunch of exceptions to this rule of thumb in the fall 2020 season alone. Jujutsu Kaisen had a terrific second outing that convinced me to follow the show week to week, while Dragon Quest’s employment of 3DCG animation in episode 2 was a massive improvement on the first. And sure enough, here comes Akudama Drive with a follow-up that’s just as unhinged and action-packed as its premiere. It didn’t manage to top itself (that would have been an absurd feat), but these twenty minutes surely delivered on the promise I saw last week. If you consider realism to be an optional component of your anime intake, this may be the show for you.

Continue reading “Akudama Drive – 02 [Reservoir Dogs]” →