天下制覇

Aaah, casual murder.

Yet another early webcast. Broadcast begins April 6th. Starting to wonder if all the simulcast companies got a deal to premiere things a week early with some random TV station.

Impressions:

See, Mars Red, this is what a modicum of effort looks like. Not as much effort as, say, Mappa or PA Works put in when they did their Meiji/Taisho era shows about clandestine groups of vampires/werewolves fighting werewolves/vampires, but still an understanding that the secret agents going on missions to actually do things is a lot more fun and engaging than the adventures of Blando McStoneface, bureaucrat for hire. Heck, there's a murderous prostitute here with a automatic crossbow in her umbrella. A dude has a lightsaber just, uh, because? They're not even meant to be the highlight of the episode either. They're the side bits.

Which isn't to say that it's all strong. It's definitely trying to lean more into artistic style over raw animation strength, which is to say it's not going to be showing up on any feature reels for impressive action sequences any time soon. Hitting the pause button to recite a haiku is not the approach one takes to wow with visuals. The end bit with seemingly a main antagonist dude covered in a python, cackling over a pipe organ was also a bit overly corny in a show already trying to be League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I also find either lightsaber dude or killer whore to be far more fun characters than the titular main one, who mostly gets a by this week for not chewing up the scenery and competently murdering a werewolf friend or whatever. Not so much being a character I want to see more of as neither being a bore nor irritant.