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[series:4601#628] | ||||||
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(Watch+ or Rent-) (All episodes watched): I got the impression early on that this show seemed sophisticated and meant for adult viewers. I also got the impression that as is often the case foreigners would ultimately be the biggest villains, but oh well. This show seemed fairly entertaining until several absurd stunts made me (figuratively) throw up my hands in dismay. Someone is strangled--indeed, lifted off the floor by a string attached to a kite? And another man is suffocated with a piece of gold foil? This stuff is weaker than saran wrap and hardly forms an airtight seal when hastily pressed into place. Tricks that are supposed to make characters seem 'cool' can have the exact opposite effect if they are patently impossible. These caused me to have second thoughts about this show; it didn't seem nearly as 'adult' all of a sudden. The matter of Kurima's disgrace seemed to have been addressed already, and I wondered where this story would go. Episode two largely reinforced my impressions of episode one: I like the scheming, the characters, and the cases that the Revengers undertake. What I don't particularly like is how the action is carried out. There's another death-by-gold-foil-suffocation and a long range sniper attack with a high tech bow and arrow that looks like a 21st century weapon. Much better was Kurima's matter-of-fact method (though he needed some sort of space age cleats on his special boots to jump across a canal). I wish the ethics of the Revengers and Usui were more clear; he has some sort of link to a Christian-ish church which sort of endorses revenge killings and sort of doesn't. Still, this show was good enough that I wasn't prepared to give up on it. The scenario seems to be based on the 1842 Opium War between Great Britain and China, except of course it has been moved to Japan. Episode three wasn't as outlandish as the previous ones. Still, the day-to-day issues that the Revengers try to make right come and go quickly and therefore don't get all that deep and intriguing. Somebody does something bad and is killed for doing so, basically. Fortunately there's also the overarching issue of these foreigners who are smuggling opium into Japan. We do get to know the characters better in between missions, and they are fairly interesting and likable. It turns out that Kurima has some definite talent as an artist. In episode five a freak show comes to town, and it turns out that Mio, the kite flying girl, was once part of it. I wasn't sure the show owner and his people deserved the 'revenge' (and collateral damage) that was visited upon them; he had seemed more weird than evil and they had just tried to protect him. In episode six various groups are looking for Kurima, one because they think he knows what happened to a highly valuable trove of opium that belonged to one of the bad guys he killed. Again, I thought the scheming was fairly realistic and interesting even if the fighting is overdone. In episode seven the Revengers tackle a nunnery that is actually an opium den and brothel. I thought the bad nuns were very two-dimensional--we never get any idea how what should be such a reputable institution has fallen so far, instead we just get summary justice. More interesting was the politicing going on amid the powerful people in the city. There's this Chinese guy, Liu, who is a fantastic martial artist--almost too good to believe--who is looking to be perhaps the arch enemy of the Revengers (not entirely to my liking). Except another revenge-for-hire team comes to town, and maybe they are the main enemy. It's kind of confusing. I noticed a strange mismatch between technologies in episode eight: galleon-type sailing ships but also a bolt-action rifle in use at the same time. We get some surprises in episode nine: Liu is in fact a Chinese Qing dynasty official working against the opium trade, and therby more of an ally of the Revengers than an enemy. I had thought he just wanted to get his hands on the valuable drugs like almost everyone else. The real bad guys are the second revenge team, and it may be that even the local Christian church (that Yuen loyally belongs to) cannot be trusted. There is a definite ongoing plot, involving the drugs and the threat that they pose to Nagasaki, which I appreciate. There's also the matter of what Kurima will do with himself; in episode ten he mentions that he may commit seppuku when this is all over, which came as a surprise to me. Just how anguished he still feels hadn't been made all that clear so it was hard to sympathize with him and understand him. He had seemed to have already recovered from his grief to me. It is hinted--more than a hint, actually--that the other Revengers consider offing Kurima himself, partly to get themselves out of trouble and partly for another reason. But this, too, was hard to take seriously given that Kurima and the others have risked their lives for each others' sake numerous times. I had heard that the ending would be weak but it was better than I had expected. The five Revengers risk everything in an attempt to destroy the drug ring once and for all, which was fairly exciting. The fighting was kind of bizarre--for one thing, the special boots Kurima wears seem to give him a superhuman ability--but it could have been worse. The bad guys are colorful but outlandish and difficult to take seriously. But they are subjected to the revenge that they deserve. And Kurima meets a surprising fate--I'm not sure what the point of it was, but at least it demonstrates that even the Revengers aren't perfect. This show was often unfocused and could have been tightened up a good deal, but it was OK in the end. Last updated Saturday, April 01 2023. Created Wednesday, January 11 2023. | ||||||||
