Yep - - I was more interested in catching up with anime answer’s to CITY OF GOD than I was with continuing on with FMA today. Rest assured, I’ll still pick that show up again very soon (I’m about to run out of PSYCHO-PASS episodes, anyway) but I’d rather vacation in semi-fictionalized Brazil than Amestris this Friday.
I continue to be shocked by how this took so long to come stateside. Was it just too far afield of the anime norm? The show really is so distinct from any other show I’ve watched here - - like an anime directed by the late Tony Scott during his MAN ON FIRE/DOMINO streak. Every frame looks like it’s been soaked in rich dyes and left to dry under especially-unforgiving sunlight. Considering how most, if not all, animation tries so hard to replicate the look of live-action movies, it’s a wonder why more haven’t sought to capture the wonderful frenzied quality of grain like this does. Truly a rough-hewn gem, here.
It’s not all about the visuals, of course. It’s not all about the spectacular car chases, either. Even in the brief amount of screentime we’ve gotten so far, the titular team has truly stepped up as layered-characters who’ve got more to them than the too-cool archetypes you’d expect from a mother/daughter crime duo. There’s a very precise mixture of toughness and tenderness presented in the scene during their post-firefight heart-to-heart - - Michiko’s chiding Hatchin for crying and telling her to tough it out, but she is still taking a moment out to really comfort her daughter.
Maybe it’s silly to be commenting on the believability of certain motivations but, continuing my comments about Hatchin’s cartoonishly-awful foster family life in the first episode, I did find it amusing how the show makes the Padre almost unbelievably stupid in order to make sure we absolutely hate him. Yeah, he’s not supposed to be especially sharp, and he is supposed to be excessively cruel, but you wonder how dim he’d have to be not realize that any bullet going into a nine-year-old kidnapped girl in a highly-publicized crime scene would be traced to the pistol that fired it - - and that pistol would have his fingers all over it.
Or, maybe we’re supposed to understand the police as really been that corrupt in this world?
Watch this episode, "The Brown Sugar Outlaw" here and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the previous episode here.
Tom Pinchuk’s a writer and personality with a large number of comics, videos and features like this to his credit. Visit his website - - tompinchuk.com - - and follow his Twitter: @tompinchuk
