Anime Club: Akame Ga Kill

Hello you Mirheads! For this week’s anime club we are checking out the assassin anime Akame Ga Kill!

AKAME GA KILL

CREATED BY: Tomoki Kobayashi

NO. OF EPISODES: 22 Episodes

GENRE: Action, Dark Fantasy

YEAR: 2014

COUNTRY: Japan

Tatsumi is a fighter who, accompanied by his two childhood friends, sets off to the Capital in search of a way to make money to assist his poverty-stricken village. After being separated from his friends after a bandit attack, Tatsumi unsuccessfully attempts to enlist in the army and is swindled out of his money. He is then taken in by a noble family who offer him help, but intend to torture and kill him, just like they did with his friends and dozens of other people. Tatsumi is rescued by a group of assassins called Night Raid, and is invited to join their ranks. Consisting of the swordswoman Akame, a young woman armed with a huge pair of scissors named Sheele, the string manipulator Lubbock, the armored warrior Bulat, the sniper Mine, the beast fighter Leone and their leader Najenda, a former general of the imperial army. Night Raid is also part of the revolutionary forces assembled to overthrow Prime Minister Honest, who manipulates the young emperor for his and his men’s personal gain, leading the rest of the nation to poverty and strife.

Damn you Akame Ga Kill. I didn’t want to watch you for the longest time but at a loss for new material, I finally decided to give you a shot. Damn why did I wait for so long? Akame Ga Kill has a decent blend of violence, interesting characters, and a convoluted yet still attention-grabbing story. The show doesn’t skimp out on any of the blood and gore, as EVERY SINGLE EPISODE is filled to the brim with death and dismemberment of some kind. Most of “Night Raid” are interesting and flawed characters that actually contribute to the plot…and leave a mark when they are slain in battle. Damn you emotions! While the plot is rather lackluster at many points (one which I will discuss below), it was enough to stretch across twenty two episodes. Should it have any more than that? I don’t think so.

The biggest problem I have with Akame Ga Kill is the entire last quarter of the show. Instead of actually giving a damn and tying it into the same story with the manga, they decided that the last six episodes would be completely non-canon. What a middle finger to the fans, I swear. This confused me quite a bit as a number of characters that  I actually like had passed in the series, but when looking for additional information the character was listed as alive. Akame Ga Kill = pure frustration.

PROS:

• Plenty of violence and gore.
• Interesting characters.
• Emotional investment

CONS:

• Non-canon ending.
• Sub-par plot.

SCORE: 7.8 / 10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O83bU9m5jgA

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