I originally wasn’t all that impressed with the Drifters manga but when looking at it in motion it truly shows its worth. i guess that is because of the very nature of this series being what it is. Looking at drawing of a man being cut in half and seeing a man be cut in half in animation are quite different experiences. In this it could be possible for this show to obtain the gleeful sadistic joy of Hellsing ultimate and i certainly can approve of that. For it is hard to argue against fun. Let me say first that the opening of this series has to be the best opening of the year for me. Maybe the main reason for that is because instead of a J-Pop band they used “Gospel of the Throttle” by Minutes Til Midnight which is an American band that I quite frankly never heard of. Though they seem to have had their music featured in a number of TV shows. This looks to be a choice by Yasushi Ishii who scored the original Hellsing TV soundtrack and is working on this alongside the man who scored Hellsing Ultimate.
I have my problems with the original Hellsing TV series(That terrible filler ending for one thing) but the soundtrack is certainly not one of them. It had a level of experimentation that I think Kajura and Sawano should really take notes from. Quite simply, anime needs less Jpop and more Jazz, Rock or Jazz and Rock. I want to see more openings like this which really capture the feeling a mood a show wants you to be in. I take dynamic slow motion character shots, planes shooting down dragons and sketch style animation over the standard of anime characters running in openings.(Look it up on youtube, there is a ridiculous amount of running in anime openings.) I normally try to save time watching shows by watching the opening once and then skipping it for the rest of the series but with this show, I don’t think I could watch an episode without seeing the opening. It’s just that good.
This really is likely going to be a show that’s going to get hard for me to review as it’s appeal is a highly selective thing. You have to be the kind of person who can put aside heavy criticism and simply enjoy visceral action and gore for this series is certainly not going to have introspective characterisation or complicated themes. Or at least not intentionally. However if I am to start taking a more critical look at this show I should pick out the obvious flaw that pretty much everyone unanimously agrees on. That of course being Kouta Hirano’s brand of humor. Every so often the heavy outlined and gritty art style is dropped in favor of these rough simplistic sketches to show a comedy skit. These skits tend to come straight out of nowhere and are completely at odds with the rest of the series, always jarring no matter what. Almost as if Hirano finishes his work and then lets his son draw a few panels to fill up space before sending it off. You make think that it’s because the anime is poorly adapting the humor for animation but you would be wrong. I found the switch equally as jarring when reading the manga. However I don’t not think that these scenes don’t work because Hirano has a poor sense of humor.
Actually I think his jokes can be quite good, it certainly brought a smile to my face to see Hannibal(No. Not Lecter, the other Hannibal.) and Scipio arguing with each other at the start of the episode. It’s a joke that likely flew over the heads of people who know nothing of the second punic war(Google, Extra history, Rome: The Punic Wars. Watch the series of videos because it is well worth your time and a badass story.) but it really was funny to see these two fighting like playground children. Seeing the main characters compare ages also got a smile out of me. Overall I say Hirano has a good sense of humor but his jokes are killed because viewers can’t adjust to the style change fast enough to feel the punchline. For example, the joke about Oda mocking Toyohisa’s comment about killing anyone who couldn’t speak japanese and then Toyohisa forcing the elfs to say help me in japanese to avoid going back on his words could have really worked if they just stuck to the original artstyle.
Actually it would have potentially worked even better as they are generally shown as badass in the original art style so seeing Toyohisa act so childish with such a design would have at least brought a smile. Instead the art style changes and it’s almost as if we are looking at completely different characters. By the time we adjust and know who’s who the joke has been said and we are right back to business as usual. This is what is killing the humor of this show. Well I didn’t think I would have this much to talk about here so I might elaborate on the particular ways the drifters are imposing their moral standards and potentially corrupting the elf race for another episode. We still got a lot to go and I say bring blood and thunder.