AnimeEmily: I’ll admit that when I first heard about Akame ga KILL!‘s adaptation I was a bit nervous. For starters this series loves its violence, be it in the form of torture or somewhat horrific death scenes, and I couldn’t help but wonder if such a violent series would manage to keep the vast majority of its “blood ‘n guts”. Well, after this initial episode, I think it’s safe to say that the majority of the blood spilled in the manga will probably gush forth on the screen. Putting aside the healthy amount of blood spilled though, I was actually pretty pleased with Akame ga Kill‘s first episode. It’s not great but it was entertaining and seems like it will be a relatively faithful adaptation.
The story at this point is pretty basic. Tatsumi and his two friends come to the capital in order to earn money to buy their village. Of course, the capital, as it turns out, is unbelievably corrupt and home to a good number of psychopaths. Let’s just say Tatsumi’s party of three is tragically reduced to a one, and he ends up joining the rebel group Night Raid, a group of people with neat-o weapons determined to stamp out the evil plaguing their country.
Not to dump too much on the episode since I actually didn’t think it was too bad, but I can’t say I was necessarily enthralled by this episode. Though objectively I think the events of the episode were pretty standard right up until maybe the end, a lot of the reason for my boredom simply comes from the fact that I know the story gets way more exciting/interesting later on. I like I said, though, the episode wasn’t all bad. The amount of blood grossed me out a bit; I smiled at some of the jokes; I thought the fighting bits at the end were fun to watch; heck, I even had a lingering sadness for Tatsumi’s poor friends. Even the unintentionally silly bits weren’t too terrible, and overall, I can feel my confidence in the show’s ability to successfully adapt the source material growing.
On the character side of things, they all get better and there’s not much to say at this point. Tatsumi, despite coming off as your usual talented and naive protagonist, becomes more interesting at the end when he offs the chick responsible for killing of his friends and only gets better as the series goes on. We don’t much of a look at Night Raid’s members outside of Leone so there’s not much to say on them besides they look cool and I really like all of them, unfortunately for me.
Animation-wise, Akame ga KILL! looks alright. It’s not the best looking show out there, but it’s not terrible either. I even kind of liked the choice to use stills during a couple shots near the end; though they may have over killed it a bit when it came to whats-her-face, I thought they were pretty alright. My biggest complaint is probably that some stuff just doesn’t look at cool as it did in print, but that’s a small quibble. In a surprise turn of events, I actually noticed some of the background music, mostly the chanting stuff going during some of the more exciting moments, and I liked it, though I’ll admit that it made me laugh a bit too.
All things considered, I guess I quite liked Akame ga Kill”s premiere. It didn’t fail miserably and actually managed to elicit a bit of excitement in terms of the show’s future. If anything I’m just dreading having to sit through all the deaths again and, of course, the blood, but I’ll survive.
Justin: So this is the substance of Akame ga KILL!, all in one shot in the opening minutes of the anime:
So what exactly is it all about? Well, based off Takahiro/Tetsuya Tashiro’s shounen manga in Gangan Joker (and licensed by Yen Press), the anime showcases Tatsumi and two things: his desire for power and him being naïve as hell. He leaves his village in order to join the imperial capital to gain fame and be well known, but soon learns it’s a hellhouse of corruption and does questionable things (like having a child emperor, for example. Maybe I’m kidding on that). He then gets swindled by the imperial capital because he’s gullible.
That sure is an imperial capital
The course of the episode changes significantly when, after he’s picked up by one of the rich and gotten comfortable in this stay there, Night Raid, known as an assassination group who terrorizes the imperial capital, appears, and kills off everybody Tatsumi was hanging out with. Why? Because they’re scum for tricking gullible folks who believed they were actually nice people. After finding out two of his best friends were tortured and killed because of these guys, Tatsumi realizes that the imperial capital is scum, and is in dire need of help. He decides to join the Night Raid after this.
(Actually, he was forced to join, but let’s not sweat the details–)
I can only give the episode credit for one thing: I’m curious to see Night Raid and how Tatsumi acts in it. But at this pace, I’ll probably give it…two more episodes. This was a thoroughly unimpressive first episode. Most of the episode was spent on characters you can’t care about just yet getting killed, yapping about unimportant matters, or trying so hard to be funny that it’s unfunny. The last 8 or so minutes of the episode was me surprised at how…unbearable a girl screaming that she’s in the right for taking care of those people who had nowhere to go after it was shown that she was complicit in torturing them, and how unnecessary some dialog was in the show (Example: a soldier we don’t know about slowing everything down by saying one last line for…some reason.). I think it looks ok, though the action scenes, which I believe make up the entire series, wasn’t good. The sound fit in some parts, don’t think it fit in others, but it’s not like I doubted Taku Iwasaki for a second, he’s done his work.
But at this rate, everyone else better pick up for me to keep watching it from week to week.
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AnimeEmily
I'm a shy, lazy, easily impressed person who loves anime and manga. I've been seriously watching since about the summer of the sixth grade and have been in love since. I'm pretty much an amateur when it comes to anime and am somewhat still in that starry-eyed phase, but as I continue to watch more, I have become more critical, I suppose one could say.