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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Watch | 7 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 6 |
 Ggultra2764
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[series:2704#1552] |
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This baby looked unsure of what it wanted to pull off for a story. With its premise, it seemed like one that would be a dark action/ drama style title with the mentions of cursed items that were possessed by past killers and drive their wielders into murderous temptations. However, the series incorporates elements of romance, comedy and moeblob into its premise as well. This has the unfortunate side effect of making the mood of the story swing around at various points and not being consistent in what it wants to set up. Kiri's connection to his item is used comically for much of the title's run as it instead leads him to have an obsessive interest in cutting the hair of others instead of the obsessive lust for blood and murder that Yamane and Seigi get from their tools. This is rather underwhelming as some parts of the series focus on the psychological effects of how Yamane's obsession for blood effects things in her life, particularly with her older sister Houko, that were rather solid in their focus. But for our leads, Crime Edge is more focused on getting some comedy off Kiri's hair-cutting fetish and the developing romance he has with Hair Queen Iwai, whom he protects from other cursed item wielders throughout the course of the series. Iwai's character is rather cliched as she plays up the typical shy, cute and helpless anime gal that has been milked to death in plenty of recent titles. This got me under the impression that Crime Edge was pandering to its audience, especially as there are occasional scenes where we see Iwai in states of undress and a later villain introduced being just as sickeningly cute as she is. The plot does explore elements to the game played out for Iwai's life and flesh out some of the prominent item users, but does end inconclusively as things with Irai and an apparent conspiracy with someone involved with Gossip are left unresolved. Overall, Crime Edge is a series with a premise that seems good on paper but an inconsistent story direction and its dependance on pandering to its audience at a number of points leave it in complete mediocrity as an anime.
Last updated Saturday, July 19 2014. Created Saturday, July 19 2014. | ||||||||
| Unevaluated |
 Stretch
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[series:2704#628] | ||||||
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(Four episodes watched): As an indicator of how confused episode one of this show left me, I did not know whether the keyword 'drama' or 'comedy' was appropriate here. Are they trying to creep me out, or am I supposed to be laughing? This show has a strange premise, but it just stays strange instead of some sort of explanation coming together. Some very odd circumstances are dealt to us, but little or no attempt is made to explain why they are appropriate here and not just a sign of someone's imagination running wild, like in a dream. Maybe the problem is that nobody is given much of a personality, instead just some freaky habit or physical quality--a 'curse' is the way it was phrased. Their curses are their personalities, at least so far. Without character development I can't say whether drama or comedy is what's going on here, and I can't care a whole lot about what becomes of these people. There may be violence and murder, or that may all be metaphorical. It's frustrating when a show tries something genuinely original, but the way it is handled manages to summon virtually no interest from me at all. In a way, the confusion between whether comedy or horror has priority reminds me of Sasami-san@Ganbaranai--two shows which apparently couldn't make up their minds which way to go, and whose quality suffered as a result. I suppose there's no telling where something as bizarre as this might go (it might still be brilliant), but I won't be holding my breath. Actually, episode two was better. We get an explanation of how this 'killing goods' business works, and how it is dangerous because one might possess it's owner and turn him/her into a serial murderer. I don't know if I buy this bizarre ongoing 'game', but the possession angle is intriguing. Will Kiri fall victim to it, like numerous others already have? There is a strange mix of decent humor and frightening violence; how will it work out? It's hard to see humor being given priority over violence and things still turning out well. It looks like a succession of Killing Goods owners will try to take out Iwai, because that would supposedly result in them having a wish granted, and Kiri will defend her. Who set up this system, and why? No answer. I felt at this point that this show was walking a tightrope between being worth watching and not. Fights of the week won't be enough; I want some character development, some getting to the bottom of this mystery, and a fairly unpredictable plotline. As of yet, nothing had really grabbed my attention. There hadn't been any really intriguing twists, except perhaps for the risk of possession. An odd pair of new characters in episode four did the show a little good, but not a lot. I had gotten impatient and finally decided to scrap this show. Last updated Friday, December 04 2015. Created Tuesday, April 09 2013. | ||||||||
