Weekly Review: Akame Ga Kill!
Akame ga Kill is another one of those anime shows that I, honestly, had no idea it even existed. Well, I kind of did. Every time I would look for a new anime to watch my brother would scream at me to watch it, saying, “Have I ever steered your wrong before?!” Eventually, I caved; and so, my adventure into the world of Akame ga Kill started. I wasn’t expecting much, in fact, I didn’t even know what it was about. All I knew is it was supposed to have some cool action scenes.
Why don’t I walk you through the first episode? In the beginning we see a couple travelers being attacked by a monster, they are saved by a young man named Tatsumi. Now, based on how easily he dispatched the monster, we assume that Tatsumi is pretty strong. He is on his way to the capital to enlist in the army to send money back to his poor village. In fact, he was traveling with two friends, but they got separated, so he is hoping to meet up with them back in the village. It’s at this point that the travelers he saved warn him of the people there, but he takes it with a grain of salt.
Within his first day in the capital, Tatsumi gets rejected from the army and all of his money stolen. This is when a nice young lady takes him in, and allows him to stay with her wealthy family. Tatsumi is finally convinced that he has found a descent group of people in the capital; then, Night Raid attacks. Tatsumi manages to catch up to the young girl and a guard outside of a barn on their property, this is after the girl’s mother and father had already been killed. This is where Night Raid catches up to the group; thinking he is doing the right thing, Tatsumi tries to defend the girl.
Within two seconds, you realize that these Night Raid people are on a whole another level than Tatsumi. This is when the real shocker comes in. Since he is not their target, Night Raid decides to show Tatsumi why they are killing this family. They open the barn door to reveal a slaughter house. Hanging in the middle is one of Tatsumi’s friend, dead from torture. In the corner, inside a cage, is his other friend, obviously tortured as well, who dies soon after seeing Tatsumi. After seeing his friends brutally tortured to death, Tatsumi cuts down the young lady himself. That is when Night Raid decides that he should join them and practically kidnaps him.
Now I don’t know about you, but that alone took a complete one eighty from where I thought the story was going. I almost couldn’t even believe it happened. The story had gone from kind of funny and carefree to holy crap people are being tortured and are dead. That’s the kind of show that this is. You think it’s all fun and games, and then, bam, something unexpected happens that makes you tear up.
This show is quite unique, the only other show like it, I believe, is Attack on Titan. Now before you say they have nothing to do with each other, I would like to say, they do. Plot armor. You know, the mysterious thing that keeps main characters alive? Yeah, neither of these shows have it. Akame ga Kill has even LESS plot armor that Attack on Titan. Meaning not even the main character(s) is/are safe. So, it’s pretty hectic whenever a fight starts. This is amplified by the anime explaining whenever two Imperial Arms (powerful weapon) users fight, one must die. So every time you are thinking, oh god, is my favorite character going to die?!
That being said, there are still some comedic times. Like the whole love thing between Tatsumi and Esdeath. If you don’t know, Esdeath is a bad ass that is head over heals in love with Tatsumi, of course, she is also Night Raid’s mortal enemy. Even in a show like Akame ga Kill, they have time for a brief swim suit episode. By now, I think that is almost obligatory in every anime show.
What makes Akame ga Kill truly special, however, is the moral grey line the show has. The enemy forces don’t really seem like the enemy. In fact, the show goes out of its way to show you that they’re human too. So when the time comes for the “good” and “bad” guys to fight, you are almost torn about who you want to win. I was honestly sad with almost every death in this show, besides the cannon fodder, fill ins that we don’t care about.
The only bad side of this show is toward the end. They incredibly rush the ending, almost tossing in deaths like frag grenades just to get to the ending. For instance, Tatsumi’s death in the anime seemed a little… forced. Not to mention that Mine’s death seemed a little odd too. In any sense, the ending kind of put a damper on things, but it was still good. The final showdown between Esdeath and Akame was a truly awesome battle worthy of the final fight headline.
Overall, this is a good show. It tears away from the norm that there are good guys and there are bad guys. It also proves that anyone, and I mean anyone, can die at any time. It’s like an anime that has a bit of reality to it. Pretty awesome, if you ask me.