Short Synopsis: 044 continues her hunt for the mob boss.
Highlights: The subtle characterizations.
Overall Enjoyment Value:8/10
While I’m waiting for Mission-E to appear (seriously, what the heck happened to it?) I might as well watch this one. Since the past Spring season featured a lot of good 13-episode series, and relatively few good 26-episode series, I can blog lots of series this season. If I end up dropping Soul Eater (which seems pretty likely at this point) and Kaiba doesn’t go into yet another hiatus, I’ll be able to blog seven new series. There are lots of promising series this season, and one of them is Ultraviolet.
When I watched the first episode, the character-designs looked familiar somehow, and one look at the staff-list made me understand why: they’re done by the same guy who did the character-designs for Osamu Tezuka’s adaptations, such as Hi no Tori and Black Jack, but he also seems to be Osamu Dezaki’s standard character-designer. The result is pretty interesting, as it brings some of Tezuka’s innocence to such a dark and gritty setting.
I must say that Osamu Dezaki knows how to spice up his fights a bit, even when his budget isn’t unlimited. The screen, split in three is indeed something you’ll either love or hate, but I personally quite like it. It’s got an interesting effect.
In any case, the reason why I’m going to blog this series is that it’s definitely something different, as it tries to look into the mind of a killing machine. Much like Elfen Lied, in a way, but without the gore and the naked children. The thing I was waiting for in this episode is some more development for 044, and not just another action-scene, and that’s exactly what I got. We still don’t know what that strange voice is, but in this episode, it makes 044 save one of her original victims who fell in the ocean.
On a side-note, this series is quite a bitch to try and understand. Tuesday really seems to be the day of complex dialogue: Real Drive, Himitsu and Ultraviolet all have very complex dialogue that really takes a while to understand. In this episode, I’m still not sure what the Mob boss’ story about the vampires was all about.
This series does have its flaws, 044 could have been more subtle in trying to hide her own presence, but I suppose that as an almighty killing machine, she might not have any worries to hide. This indeed doesn’t seem to be a series about a main character, trying to complete her mission, but instead it’s much more about 044 herself.
Obviously, this series isn’t for everybody, and it sure has gotten a lot of bad reviews since it aired. I like it, though. It seems like another solid series from Madhouse, and I’m willing to stay with it for 10 more episodes.
Perhaps you can infer to its original American movie for background story (or spoiler, whatever floats your boat).
It wasn’t the blood fest or the potential naked scenes that hold me off this series: the original movie lacked the depth of storyline, and the reception from the critics was cold, which inevitably led me to shun this series.
Here’s hoping that the anime series doesn’t suck as much as the American movie.