Akame Ga Kill! - General Discussion

[Meredith Quill]

A place to discuss particular episodes, arcs and moments from Akame Ga Kill!

[Lantern7]

I feel like hugging this anime, because it's replacing Kill la Kill on the Toonami lineup. And I'll admit it . .  "wide-eyed small village boy with big dreams finds the capital to be more heinous than he figured" is a nice trope. And I would have bet money that the main character would find his friends as the anime went on, as opposed to finding one dead and the other dying at the hands of the same people that took him in. It's just . . .  how do you top "clothes are aliens that seek to use and destroy the planet"? You can't. You just can't. I know, it's not a fair comparison, but it has to be made.

[ZoqFotPik]

I'm going to give it a shot. I watched a sub of this show about a year ago and read a little about it, and seems like it has an interesting story. There is some serious mood whiplash though. One minute is a serious scene with Tastumi mourning his friends, a second later is more comical scene of him being carried away by Night Watch. I don't know how I'll feel about that if it keeps up.

[Sandman87]

Lantern7, I think you're being too generous. The reason the episode compares badly to Kill la Kill is that the episode wasn't very good. Note; There are things I didn't like about KLK, but those tend to be personal preference issues, and I recognize that they did some things very well indeed. By contrast, this first episode did nothing that was better than mediocre.

Animation was not particularly well done, nor was it stylistically interesting. Looks like it was farmed out to one of those cut-rate companies that specializes in handling non-canon filler episodes for popular series. The less said about slow panning across drawings instead of doing actual animation, the better.

Plot points that should have been spread out over two or three episodes (the "nice" rich family is evil), over half the series (his friends are dead), or saved until the end (saved by his lucky charm), were instead resolved and discarded immediately. Remember what a gut punch the Shou Tucker reveal was in FMA? That was in part because the show took the time to make us like the characters who were involved first, then hit us over the head with a horror stick. This show; not so much. I get the impression that they just wanted to shovel it out as fast as possible.

Characters so far are uniformly one dimensional stock characters. Naughty cat-girl (everyone did notice the ears and paw, right? Not completely distracted by teh boobz?), emotionally distant (and probably emotionally damaged) girl, ridiculously cartoonish ranting evil girl, cheerful country bumpkin; not an original in the bunch.

I'll second ZoqFotPik on the mood whiplash. Tastumi was broken up about his dead friends for all of 10 seconds. The Night Raid people weren't much better. "Oh well, your friends are dead. Join us!"

I'm going to be somewhat generous and assume for the moment that all of the problems with the writing and characters stem from the show not hitting its stride yet, and that it will tighten up soon. I hope.

[lathspel]

I agree, it did seem a bit generic - even to the point that you can guess the characters' personality types from just the group shot.

That said, I'm liking the concept and hope the execution improves.

The Capital looming in the background brings Honnouji Academy to mind... but I'm hoping against hope that it's really a Gunmen after all!

Edit: speaking of FMA, didn't that really cover the "innocents in the danger of the Capital" better than anyone could have? I guess we'll see where it goes.

Edited August 11, 2015 by lathspel

[ZoqFotPik]

 

Plot points that should have been spread out over two or three episodes (the "nice" rich family is evil), over half the series (his friends are dead), or saved until the end (saved by his lucky charm), were instead resolved and discarded immediately.  I get the impression that they just wanted to shovel it out as fast as possible.

 I think they wanted to get Tatsumi with Night Raid as soon as possible, so revealing the family was evil quickly was, in my opinion, necessary. I agree having both friends die was a mistake. One still being missing would have given Tatsumi motivation work with Night Raid, he helps them and they help him find his friend. Now, there doesn't seem to be anything in it for him to help them. I'll wait a few more episodes to judge the members of Night Raid. While I agree they probably will all end up being as generic as they seem, I don't think we got enough of look at them to say.

[weyrbunny]

Ep. 1 - Kill the Darkness

 

The show bear’s Akame’s name, but the main character is the instantly annoying Tatsumi? Whose brilliant idea was that? Otherwise, it reminds me of Samurai 7. Well, ok, the pilot is so trope-d it reminds me of…anime, but mainly Samurai 7. If, you know, the samurai were also hot girls. There’s even a guy in a metal suit.

 

The architecture and landscapes are beautiful, though. I found myself looking at the sky and moon whenever Tatsumi was spazzing or bragging about something. I really hope he’s not this show’s version of chibi-Seras among the gore—did not care for that on Hellsing Ultimate.

 

The less said about slow panning across drawings instead of doing actual animation, the better.

I can’t mind the slow pan because a couple of my favorite shows use it, including Darker than Black. There’s entirely too much slo-mo here, though.

[Sandman87]

How many "shock" reactions did Tatsumi have in this episode? A hundred? I lost count. Gonna start calling him Shock Guy.

In this episode we get introduced/reintroduced to the one dimension that each of the Night Raid people have. Also, some not so subtle UST between Akami and Shock Guy. That was quick. Shock Guy kills a guy named Ogre to prove himself. We get to meet The Boss, who has a grappling-rope arm just like Franky from One Piece.

Of course the shorter girl with red hair is the designated tsundere. Wouldn't want to go against the stereotype.

Hell of a pompadour on Manly Gay Armor Guy, even bigger than Space Dandy's. Seriously, it looks like he's keeping a rolled-up sleeping bag on top of his head.

I guess all the named bad guys on the show are going to rant about how eeeevil they are. *sigh*

[Lantern7]

I'm guessing we won't get beyond black-and-white morality for another six episodes. Enough time for Tatsumi to get his place with Night Raid. I also figure one of Night Raid will get killed before the second set of credits roll.

 

For some reason, I didn't think to compare Boss's mecha arm to Franky's. My mind went to Scorpion from Mortal Kombat. I did think of Dandy seeing the armored guy, though.

[Lantern7]

Anybody else think the corrupt minster looks like an evil Santa Claus? That has to be intentional.

[Sandman87]

Yeah, I can see that, but he also reminds me a bit of the Millennium Earl from D.Gray-man. They all have that "jovial but evil" thing going on.

This episode confused me. The government found out the location of Night Raid and sent assassins after them, but now that the assassins are dead there's no further danger? So, the map got lost or something?

Tsundere Sniper launches into a full-on abusive friendship with Tatsumi almost immediately, because "pacing" is a foreign concept to this show. Once again Tatsumi ends up carrying packages for someone who's shopping. I guess that's going to be his running gag.

I see we've got someone wielding a giant pair of scissors. Where have I seen that before?

A sniper weapon that depends on the user being in danger? That's dumb. Kind of negates the whole point of being a sniper.

The new evil guy who just rolled into town at the end of the episode reminded me a little of Anderson from Hellsing.

[ZoqFotPik]

 

This episode confused me. The government found out the location of Night Raid and sent assassins after them, but now that the assassins are dead there's no further danger? So, the map got lost or something?

One of the hunters that confronts Akame says something like "That's [Akame], that means Night Raid must be around here somewhere." that indicates that they didn't know exactly where their base is. I don't think they were sent directly by the government, just bounty hunters who got too close.

[lathspel]

I'm definitely missing some pacing here - seems like a team member's back story should take least two episodes. Perhaps they knew it was only a one season deal? Or Mai is not going to live long.

I am enjoying Tatsumi's mental asides - as a running gag it adds some humor to offset the crazy angst of the setting for this show.

[jbrecken]

So why didn't they just take headchopper's magic thingy so Tatsumi could have one?

[Sandman87]

Sheele's giant scissors have a cute teddy-bear face on them. I'm going to predict that at some point we'll see her bedroom, and it'll be full of stuffed animals.

What a waste of a perfectly good bad guy. One encounter, then goodbye.

I've figured out what this show reminds me of; a DC comic from the mid 80s called Lords of the Ultra-Realm. Not in the subject matter, but in the various ways that the writing fails despite the interesting concept.

So why didn't they just take headchopper's magic thingy so Tatsumi could have one?

I was wondering the same thing. Maybe because it's not a "heroic" enough power? Or all of his female compatriots don't want him checking them out with x-ray vision? Perhaps it has bad guy cooties?

[ZoqFotPik]

They still should have taken it, if only to deprive the Empire from using it.

[lathspel]

I figured Zanko would have some kind of sword arms, so that Tatsumi could get it. It was a nice turn that this wasn't the case, it's the first time this show hasn't been predictable.

We don't know that Tatsumi didn't grab it, I guess, so it could be an amusing subplot later.

[Lantern7]

Good call on the Imperial Arms. If Night Raid keeps the weapons, they risk somebody finding their secret headquarters and gaining the advanced weaponry. I'm thinking destroying the Arms wouldn't be considered.

 

Anybody else see "Red Eye Sword" and think of the Red Eyes Black Dragon from Yu-Gi-Oh!?

[Lantern7]

While we're waiting for a new episode next week . . . here are the full opening credits for AGK . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e23BunJcnlo

[weyrbunny]

I’m skipping the rest of this. It’s just too boring. As I caught up on eps. 2-5, it was a struggle to sit through each episode. And when I did pay attention, I was annoyed at how clichéd and simplistic the “girl cute, boy idiot” dialogue was. (Even Kaze no Stigma’s dialogue had more personality, and it’s what I use as a cliché-ridden baseline.)

 

The few things I laughed at weren’t supposed to be funny, either. I snickered when I realized that the vow by Tatsumi and his friends to “die together” sounded like a suicide pact, for example. Just because of the irony of a popular kids’ show glorifying suicide…

 

I also laughed when Tatsumi said something about being haunted in his dreams by gay imagery…again. Meaning, for all his played-for-laughs homophobia, Tatsumi keeps dreaming about a gay man. And you know where that leads.

[Sandman87]

I suspect that I ought to stop watching too, but the TV's on Toonami all night anyway so...
 

I snickered when I realized that the vow by Tatsumi and his friends to “die together” sounded like a suicide pact, for example. Just because of the irony of a popular kids’ show glorifying suicide…

The show does come from a country with an exceptionally high suicide rate. There's also an entire forest that's unofficially dedicated to committing suicide:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aokigahara

 

ETA: Good gravy, Sheele is just a walking bundle of Japanese "cute" tropes: Clumsy, glasses, thigh-high stockings and a ditz. All she needs now to finish the set are a maid costume, child-like speech habits, and pigtails.

Edited September 13, 2015 by Sandman87

[ZoqFotPik]

Well, they answered the question regarding Zanku's and any other Imperial Arms they come across. Since she's being so nice to Tatsumi, I'm guessing Sheele is not long for this world. Seryu seems to be what Tatsumi would have become if he had enlisted in the army instead of ending up with Night Raid.

[lathspel]

Agreed, it's a trope fest. It wouldn't be so obvious if the show didn't move fast and cover so much ground. Poor characterization is more obvious if you cram it in.

Anybody else hoping the members of Night Raid would bring up the principle of equivalent exchange when Tatsumi started talking about bringing his friends back?

I'm curious if the boss's arm is an Imperial Arm, as it were. I want Tatsumi to ask.

I really like Sheele's VA, Jessica Boone. I don't remember her from anything else on Toonami.

[Sandman87]

Looking at the list of things she's been in, I don't see any other Toonami shows.

[Lantern7]

Nice that Tatsumi was able to get the eye working just long enough to activate Fan Service Mode. Also, Sheele might be a sociopath. A cute sociopath? Is that even possible??

[ZoqFotPik]

Wow, I knew Sheele was going to die, but didn't expect it to happen in the next episode. I wonder how Seryu eats with a pistol in her throat.

[Sandman87]

You called it ZoqFotPik. Usually it's only the bad guys who suffer Death By Flashback (dying immediately after their backstory is revealed). I wonder if this is going to turn out to be one of those shows where "good guy" characters are constantly getting killed with minimal character development.

 

I wonder if Tatsumi will be the one to kill Psycho Guard Lady, and her little dog too.

 

Since organic type Imperial Arms have a hidden core that has to be hit in order to destroy them, any bets on where Evil Spot's secret spot is? I'm going to guess it's either the leash or the collar, since they don't seem to change much when he hulks out.

 

 

I wonder how Seryu eats with a pistol in her throat.

She probably doesn't eat solid food, just does shots. (rim-shot)

 

 

Edit; because verbs are not pronouns.

Edited September 21, 2015 by Sandman87

[Sandman87]

Uh oh...Armor Guy revealed his tragic backstory. Any bets on whether or not he survives the next episode?

I hadn't noticed it before, but that roll of hair on Armor Guy's head is heart shaped when you see it from the front.

[ZoqFotPik]

 

Uh oh...Armor Guy revealed his tragic backstory. Any bets on whether or not he survives the next episode?

He's also facing his mentor. I give his odds of survival at around 0%. The way that he told Tatsumi to watch how he fights, suggest to me that he knows he isn't going to make it. Maybe Tatsumi will inherit his Imperial Arms. 

[Lantern7]

RIP Blueno. Bluto? Heck with it . .  . "Bro." We wound up getting three deaths of Imperial Arms wielders, which feels like a high that's not going to be topped for some time, if at all. And Tatsumi got some kickass armor. . . which is great, since part of me couldn't take him seriously wearing his "normal" clothes in fights.

[Sandman87]

Armor Guy bit the big green burrito of death, but at least he was able to tidy up his hair with his rebellious switchblade comb first. Gotta look your best for your death scene.

 

Is this how it's going to go from now on, with one Night Raid death every two episodes?

 

Since this show can't seem to leave any cliche unused, I expect that someone in Night Raid will either turn out to be a traitor or to have their own secret agenda to take over the world.

[lathspel]

Armor Guy got a bit more Space Dandy by the end.

It's pretty cool that it's living dragon armor, I have to say.

I figured "control any fluid" would include your opponent's blood, but I guess that would've made it a short fight indeed.

[Sandman87]

I figured "control any fluid" would include your opponent's blood, but I guess that would've made it a short fight indeed.

There's some serious comedy potential there. Having the power to make people wet themselves without warning? Priceless.

[ZoqFotPik]

So we meet the anti Night Raid squad. Interestingly some, at least on the surface, don't appear to be evil. I'm glad they didn't drag out who Esdeath would see as a love interest. By the way the Engrish on her list is almost Zero Wing level awesome:

 

 

It emphasizes the potential for future, you want to train your own vessel of general class more than anything.
II
Liver is sitting, those who hunt dangerous species can be together even at present.
III
Like myself, who grew up on the frontier, not the Imperial City.
IV
I hope the younger because I dominate.
V
Who innocent smile can be is good.​

[Sandman87]

Excellent catch. When she was talking about the requirements I knew it was going to be Tatsumi, but I figured Night Raid would learn about the list and then have him deliberately infiltrate.

 

When Mine had her hair down she resembled the nice version of Moka from Rosario + Vampire.

 

How many people would stick around if they arrived for their first day of work and found out that one of their coworkers is a creepy silent guy in a gimp mask?

 

We're going to be hearing the word "stylish" a lot, aren't we?

 

The Jaegers? I guess that doesn't sound quite as lame as just calling them "the Hunters."

[lathspel]

Wow, that took a turn for Tatsumi.

Also nice that we got a partial backstory for the chief of Night Raid. She could almost be Esdeth's sister - I wonder if that will parallel the Akame / Cookie Monster plot?

[Lantern7]

Did not see Tatsumi's latest turn coming. Esdeth reminds me of Maxima from Superman: The Animated Series (and, to a lesser extent, Smallville), only she's way more up front about wearing the pants in the relationship. Or holding the leash. Can't wait for her to find out that he personally hearsed one of her Three Beasts.

[Sandman87]

...he personally hearsed one of her Three Beasts.

I know what you meant, but that sounds like a euphemism for something dirty.

[nobodyyoucare]

 

The Jaegers? I guess that doesn't sound quite as lame as just calling them "the Hunters.

Well you know using the foreign word for something then the word in your language is an old trick to make something sound cooler.

 

Of course this does lead to some funny linguistic oddities. Such as naming certain things. For instance Yumi is the Japanese word for bow but to distinguish the bow from other bows in English it is Yumi Bow so it is Bow Bow if you were to translate it fully. . 

 

Note the last six episodes of the anime differ from the manga. They basically wrapped things up while the manga is still ongoing. 

 

This series is basically Tragedy/Dark Comedy. Yes some of the evil characters aren't necessarily evil even though they are viewed by the other side as evil. They do have moments where they explain character motivations and show that things aren't so black and white. 

[Lantern7]

Anybody else mildly put off by Tatsumi escaping Esdeth's loving clutches so soon? Another question: does the whole "somebody always dies when Imperial Arms are used against each other" thing become moot if one of the users is hellbent on not fighting?

[Sandman87]

Apparently so. In some other show I'd suspect that the "somebody always dies" is a popular myth that Evil Santa Claus is exploiting for some purpose. In this show I expect that it's because they didn't really fight.

Seemed a little dumb of Tatsumi to endanger his life and his chance to gather intel by trying to convert Esdeath to his side. I doubt that any of the generals who might have been salvageable are still alive and serving at this point. Lower ranking officers maybe, but not generals.

Bols's relationship advice sounds like another way of saying "act like a stalker."

Wave said something about how Tatsumi jumping into the river wouldn't work against "a man of the sea." An excellent point, except that the river is not the sea, and river sailors have an entirely different skill set from sea sailors. So yes, it totally did work against him.

[ZoqFotPik]

As shown by the episode I'm guessing the "Two Enter, One Leaves" Imperial Arms thing is more of a guideline than rule.

 

 

Seemed a little dumb of Tatsumi to endanger his life and his chance to gather intel by trying to convert Esdeath to his side.

Well, in my opinion, Tatsumi has always been shown to be something of a naive moron, so it fits his character to think he could convert Esdeath. Although some of fault my lie with Night Raid for not properly briefing Tatsumi on how dangerous she is.

 

 

Wave said something about how Tatsumi jumping into the river wouldn't work against "a man of the sea." An excellent point, except that the river is not the sea, and river sailors have an entirely different skill set from sea sailors. So yes, it totally did work against him.

Again in my opinion, similar to how Seryu was initially, Wave is portrayed as a mirror of Tatsumi so being over confident fits his character.

[lathspel]

I'm still finding the "General Esdeth falls for Tatsumi" to be far and away the most unrealistic part of this show. She's nice and crazy and all, but - No.

[Sandman87]

I can believe it. She decided she was gonna be all over the first guy who matched all the points on her list, and she's gonna force herself to love him dammit! Not really love, but as close as she can get through sheer delusion and willpower.

[Lantern7]

Well . . . Dr. Stylish and his minions were sweet one-shot villains. I think they doomed themselves by finding Night Raid HQ so easily. That, and NR had two new members, one of whom is a human Imperial Arms.

 

Oh, and we'll be having a marathon of AGK! next Saturday. Saves me from recording most of Toonami for a week, which is nice.

[Terrafamilia]

So...I'm guessing that Dr. Stylish was a size queen?

[running and ducking]

[Sandman87]

So many questions: How did eating his employees help Stylish grow more than a tiny fraction? For that matter, where did all the extra mass come from when he first went giant-sized? Where does he buy his minions' bondage gear?

Stylish's "seeing" minion got the best deal, what with the eyes just being a little larger. "Smelling" guy has a serious case of duck-face, and The Ears looked like Mickey Mouse's daughter. Or maybe H. Ross Perot.

So...I'm guessing that Dr. Stylish was a size queen?

(rim-shot)

[ZoqFotPik]

 

For that matter, where did all the extra mass come from when he first went giant-sized?

The same place that Tatsumi's and Wave's armor, Lubbock's wires, and Seryu's dog thing's mass come from.

[lathspel]

This was a salute to other anime - I spotted FMA and Attack on Titan references pretty easily, and the old school CN nerd in me found Dr Stylish's last minute cable attack very reminiscent of The Big O.

I actually wish we'd spent more time on this fight - I never got a really good look at Giant!Stylish.

Looking forward to an explanation of automail in this universe as well, since we've seen a guy with two arms of it now.

Wanna bet new redhead fox girl gets Sheele's scissors?

[Sandman87]

Now that you mention it, Stylish also had a lot in common with Mayuri Kurotsuchi from Bleach, including the "turned my minions into living bombs" bit.

 

No bet on the scissors.