Anime: Akudama Drive 5y3n66

Akudama Drive is something that, up until the midpoint, is nothing more than mindless action and a pretty looking steampunk setting. As someone who is sick and tired of highschools and pretentious themes about supposed deep characters, I was fully into it. There is no depth to the cast to the point they don’t even have actual names, and the plot is a very straightforward heist mission. It was of the same vein as Black Lagoon and Hellsing Ultimate. You just shut off your brain and you enjoy the mix of rule of cool and comedy based on misunderstandings.

Then the second half began and said, yeah, enough with that, time to add nonstop twists, revelations, and drama. Usually that spells doom for a show, since the transition from what it began as to something different can be alienating. In this case it worked in its favor because the bar was low to begin with and by adding extra stuff without losing the previous ones it became something more instead of something entirely different. Meaning, it didn’t lose the rule of cool and comedy bits, it added more stuff atop of that without bloating the whole… because there wasn’t much to bloat; it was a simple mindless action show.

So yeah, the premise is about a bunch of mass-murdering psychopaths forming a team against their will (although it doesn’t matter since they would do it anyways, just for the fun or the money). They are then tasked to steal the cargo of a super secure train with one of them being a typical girl who through a series of very convenient and unlucky circumstances ends up having to constantly lie as means to not be killed, like pretty much any other civilian who is standing in their way. Did I mention they are mass-murdering psychopaths? Life has no value to them. So, the seven of them use their hax abilities and one-note character traits for steamrolling or bullshiting everything in their way until they get to the cargo, midpoint through the series. And then the real fun begins, as they lose their plot armor and reveal different aspects of themselves, which were unseen up until then. In storytelling we call that fleshing out. We definitely do not call it character development, because adding more stuff is not development. From that point onward the setting and the character relations become far more multilayered and fun to follow, while still being the dumb action flick it began as.

And no, I am not saying that made the show amazing, since it is still quite silly to the most part. There are still lots of elements that can make the show unlikable.
-The fight scenes never follow the laws for physics. You will see a spiderman motorcycle that flies around however it suits the plot, and since it’s supposed to be technology instead of magic, it can be quite jarring.
-The characters never get any actual names. They are just a character class. It was stupid in Goblin Slayer, it’s stupid here as well.
-As much as I liked the world building and the twists, the pacing is too fast to let you delve into them for long. Everything comes and goes too fast for having any impact other than the viewer learning about more stuff.
-The logic that the population of the city is following is all over the place. First they revolt but stop once most of the protesters are killed. And then they revolt even more when a single civilian gets killed.
-And we never learn why those puppet thingies were occasionally trying to reveal the truth although they were ing the establishment.

So yeah, the best for enjoying the show is to never take it seriously. It is a dumb rule of cool anime that gets more mysterious and dramatic as it goes on. It’s not A tier material, but it certainly achieves more than most hyped up mediocrities and for that reason it ended up being my personal most enjoyable anime of 2020.

Story time.

Redline, 2009. Takeshi Koike and his team spent 7 arduous years at Studio Madhouse to produce one of the most adrenaline-fueled, well-animated films in all of anime. It bombed hard to the point where almost no film production has gone down this path since. It may go down as a cult classic a decade later, but at the turn of the decade, it was a miserable flop.

Keijo, 2016. Hideya Takahashi noticed a ridiculous sports manga about bodacious babes bumping boobs and buts off of water balconies. He and his team at Xebec took that fun action comedy romp and made it one of the biggest meme titles of 2016. It doesn’t quite get the respect it deserves, and the production values aren’t that great for TV anime standards, but it is a noteworthy title.

Finally, Akudama Drive, 2020.Tomohisa Taguchi and his team at Studio Pierrot got drugged up on Hotline Miami and cyberpunk aesthetics before deciding to make a show about it. This is probably not how it happened, but simply saying “individuals with talent and creativity had a wacky idea they wanted to run with” is a reality too boring for a show such as this. It’s sheer balls to the wall glory. For the most part, it’s exactly what anime has largely neglected to be.

Can you guess what the term is? Do you know what anime has been missing for a while?

Straightforward entertainment.

Action anime is so focused on gimmicks and drama. A lot of the time, these productions would be so much better if they focused on being either over the top or otherwise just focusing on entertainment value to maximize their potential and aesthetics. There’s a reason Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure became a hit long before the nature of its ambition incorporated particularly dramatic storytelling. There’s a reason the Slime isekai is a lot more well-regarded than most of its peers. Hellsing Ultimate is mainstream for this as well. Prioritizing fun and aesthetics above all else has become criminally undervalued.

This is where Akudama comes in, barreling through horde after horde of anime in post-apocalyptic 2020 with the biggest, stupidest grin on its face. Its characters are about as outlandish and simple, forcing their bombastic nature and chemistry to carry their weight. Otherwise one-dimensional characters such as the meathead Brawler or the red and blood-obsessed psychopath, Cutthroat, remain entertaining as a result of this chemistry and how their gimmicks are handled. Even the least asinine of the group, such as the Ordinary Person and the Hoodlum, have enough comedic value in their interactions to fake their way in and react in perhaps even more over the top ways to the situations than everyone else. Even then, each of these weirdos has little personality quirks to help them all stand out amongst each other and butt heads on a consistent basis. There’s enough vibrancy to the characters to sell the insane nature of events in the show, perfectly complimenting the show’s wonderful presentation.

Tomohisa Taguchi and his team must have had an absolute blast during this production. The vibrant cyberpunk aesthetic is stark, with tons of atmospheric lighting all around and combinations of red and blue being used to their fullest. The transitions are also hilarious, with environments shoving themselves into the screen. Perhaps the most hilarious scene transition is in episode 2, where after everyone is about to crash as Ordinary Person and Hoodlum are screaming, we fade to black and cut to an exposition dump on the setting of Kansai, which is presented by animals drawn on paper and held up by sticks. The show truly gives all and no fucks at once if it’s willing to present exposition this way. It helps that the show also has several gorgeous shots in both the calmer and more hectic moments.

As for the character designs, they are both somewhat simple and somewhat busy, and are rendered in an interesting, slightly more realistic art style. The hair and especially eye detail is constantly on display, even when the action ramps up. The fight scenes are fluid and exciting, especially when the lighting changes to ramp up the intensity of the fights. There’s a sense of weight to each impact, and characters can get tossed around like ragdolls. This is, sadly, where some mechanical CGI comes into the picture and that doesn’t look great. There are also a few moments of reused animation and slideshows. However, when the action is this good and the collateral damage and laser beam effects are this wonderful, a few blemishes won’t hurt. We are dealing with some of the best digital particle effects usage in recent anime, after all. It’s just a shame that some of it gets censored since there are several drop-dead gorgeous sequences that further elevate this show to one of the most well-animated TV productions of the year.

As for the soundtrack, it’s solid. There’s a mix of electronica, jazz, and more that get utilized effectively. Only a few tracks stand out, such as the menacing techno track that has so far been labeled as Cutthroat’s theme, and the piece that plays during the final fight between Brawler and the Master Executioner in episode 6. Regardless, they’re all still fine as they complement the show well enough, and more interesting pieces reveal themselves over time. There’s also an OP and ED but let’s not get into them, regardless of if they fit the show.

As for the show and how it’s written, Akudama Drive is stupid. It’s over the top with characters uppercutting people with bikes, shielding themselves from radiation of some sort with weird unexplained tech shields, and characters crashing through walls all the time. Sometimes the show does take a breather to explore characters like Ordinary Person and Hacker a bit more or to even just take in the gorgeous atmosphere. It can even be surprisingly sweet at times. However, not only does the show earn it with its likable cast, we’re more often barreling through corpses than sitting down to eat, if that makes sense. The show’s asinine nature does somewhat come at a cost with unexplained things like Cutthroat surviving being thrown off a hotel or their employers playing flutes that provide unexplained barriers to keep them alive. Everyone has something for every situation, convenient or no, though rarely does the show become obnoxiously or detrimentally contrived.

There are other issues. While the main method of exposition is cute, it does become repetitive after a while. It also comes after some inopportune times, such as after the blistering and emotional climax of episode 6. More importantly, the narrative and interesting world-building become more of a focus in the second half. Some of the reveals are just downright braindead, like the reveal of the fate of the moon in episode 7. The show also takes itself more seriously, and while it’s earned, that does make it harder for the show to maintain the bombastic edge that made it stand out in the first place. It also makes it harder to excuse some of the ridiculous reveals or moments where characters survived deaths they should not have. It’s not a complete trainwreck in the second half, as there are still some solid emotional moments. There are brilliant bits and pieces such as the comedic exposition broadcast being hijacked in episode 9, only for it to turn out that hijacking the airwaves during a time of Akudama-induced panic was a horrible idea. However, the show never completely recovers from the awkward, sometimes gaudy and nonsensical stumbling blocks of episodes 7-9. It’s fun seeing the character flaws of the Akudama start to erode the group, just as it’s fun to see the dystopia’s authoritarianism go absolutely haywire. However, the direction the show goes in never reaches the peaks the simpler first half did.

Simple, straightforward fun is what Akudama promised. The first half of the show is what more anime should aspire to be, with its lively presentation and bombastic cast of characters. Unfortunately, it seems Akudama Drive was just a bit more ambitious than that, just as a lot of anime are. Ambition isn’t everything, and sometimes just being earnest and having the drive to be fun more than anything else is what we need. There will always be a place for drama, relaxation, and even titillation. Anime is a diverse market. However, whether it be in the form of spectacle or whimsey, the simple need to be fun is still important. It will always be welcome. This is an entertainment medium, after all.

When Akudama Drive was announced and its premise revealed, I thought we were going to get the most stupid attempt at social criticism through the two japanese prefectures present in the show, especially because the man behind it was responsible for Danganronpa. Then it was released and I began watching it and it didn’t have any pretence of seriousness and was 99% a dumb action series, which is a plus.

Whether you like the show or not, I think we can all agree that it’s completely nonsensical, it lives and dies purely by the rule of cool, it cares mostly about its style and very little about its substance. The setting combines elements from different cyberpunk stories, it partially takes the executioners and authorities from Psycho , as well as their ideologies, it partially takes the public executions to please the people from The Running Man, and its aesthetics are very close to those of Cyberpunk 2077’s, even if it came out earlier.

Combine all of that with a Suicide Squad tier of plot and characters and what you get is essentially a schlocky ova from the ‘80s, stretched to last for a whole one course series. The good thing about the show is being self aware and conscious about that and never trying to be really serious or deep. Its crappy writing that idea. The fact that the episodes are named after movies and more of them try to imitate their basic plots in a simple and schlocky way is a clear indication of that. In specific:

-In Se7en the criminal responsible for the most gruesome murders is freed and pursued, like in the movie, minus the detective work and the religious overtones.

-In Reservoir Dogs, the gang is altogether and discuss the next course of action, like in the movie, but replacing the more elaborated narrative and the outcome with action.

-In Mission: Impossible the heist kicks in and is full of plain stupid action, like in that silly franchise.

-In Speed, the gang gets on a train at full speed and confront the executioners, like in the later half of the movie of the homonymous film.

-And The Shining becomes a slasher film with a character finally losing the little sanity he had left and chasing other around and trying to kill them, obviously missing a lot from the movie of the same name.

I won’t talk about Dead Man Walking, Brother, City of Lost Children and Death, for they have major plot points that I can’t spoil, as well as Black Rain because I don’t know a movie like that, and War Games because, outside of the hacking, the plot is completely different to the one in the movie and of course Akudama Drive because is it not named after a movie and it’s also the last episode.

Ok, there are some classic themes from sci-fi stories such as:

-An oppressive and incompetent government, people raising against it because someone made them realize that and the authorities breaking their own laws and going full tyrannical;

-A civil war with ever growing technology that destroyed the surface and even the moon in the past and made some parts of Japan completely uninhabitable;

-Experiments with artificial humans, all of them more or less clones of each other, some of them leaving the labs and slowly getting emotions;

-The search for immortality or eternal longevity by a mad scientist and the replacement of bodies in order to live and remain as a computer with one and only conscience that combines everyone’s, before entering in one or two inmortal bodies and more stuff.

All of the above is presented in such a superficial, dumb and over the top way, it’s impossible to take any of that seriously. They are just background excuses for the mindless action to happen.

The first episode alone is an indication of bad writing, everything happens through accidents and conveniences, with the unnamed protagonist bumping into all these crazy people and events by accident just because she was pursuing a cat.

Then you get six or so episodes dedicated completely to the action, the group almost never stops going from one place to another and blowing away everything in their path while killing every random person they encounter, except for the executioners who are so powerful, two of them can deal with 5 top level criminals and boy do we get some great fights here, combining hand to hand combats with different martial arts between Brawler and Master and all sorts of crazy weapons, to Courier’s super advanced motorcycle, to Doctor’s drugs and poisons, to Hacker’s drones and Cutthroat’s…well, he’s a living weapon himself.

This non stop action makes the show entertaining and spectacular on one hand, while setting a proper tone, but in the other it makes the crappy writing too obvious, outside of the nonsensical action and all the plain impossible stuff that happens, spending half of the show in just mindless explosions, forces the series to reveal its plot twists so close to each other to the point it looks like the show is pulling them out of its own ass. There are other unexplainable things such as:

-The blown out moon;

-A train that for some reason still goes to an uninhabitable place;

-Why and how is every common citizen just walking around in a city full of superhuman criminals that runs around at will;

-How is Swindler exposed as an Akudama when buying but not Courier at the beginning;

-The fact that outside of the first two executioners that have to be taking by five top tier akudama at the same time, the rest fall like flies;

-The way characters keep disappearing and reappearing out of nowhere, and so on and so on.

And there are also small segments of two chibi stuffed mascots explaining stuff in a silly voice at the screen with silly voices in a completely different art style, later revealed to be an educational show in this world but in ours is just an excuse for infodumps that are never even truly complete. Also, they are directly taken from the Monokuma’s Theater segments in the Danganronpa games after each trial.

The Danganronpa influences don’t stop there, every character carries some sort of title or class and does not have their names and backgrounds revealed before they start falling like flies, at least their interactions are somewhat important and affect them somehow.

The protagonist, posing as and later actually becoming Swindler is basically like Rock from Black Lagoon or Edamame from Great Pretender, the only normal person around here with some resemblance of morals as she tries to keep the damages at mínimum and becoming some sort of mother or older sister figure for the kids as well as being the person who helps them being more aware of their goodbeing and suffering, and how important they are to each other, as well as not treating their wounds as nothing and ultimately she’s the one that makes everyone around her to become a little more…human.She can become a little preachy at times but for her type of character and her role, it’s somewhat excused. Well, just like the two examples I mentioned, Swindler slowly gets affected by everything that happens around her and by everyone she comes across, realizing things about the society she lives on and siding with the Akudamas before becoming a pure criminal herself, leaving the moral high ground behind and doing what needs to be done while still keeping her as the only somewhat human person around here. And she becomes a semi proactive character to the point of starting a riot.

The little sister changes as well but unlike Swindler, her change of behaviour is too sudden, she begins as a mostly silent, almost a shrine maiden type of character who is always behind her older brother’s back and she becomes like a…like a little Swindler. It happens from one specific episode to the next which makes her development completely unbelievable.

The only other character who has some development is Hoodlum, a minor criminal who just like Swindler, gets involved in all of this by accident and survives by lying his way before he gets influenced by his “brother” Brawler and grows some balls because of him.

The rest are never truly explored, they are just character archetypes with no information about them and remain as such until the end of the show or until they die:

-Hacker is just your typical nerdy genius better with advanced technology than the whole government;

-Brawler is just your typical thick headed tall and muscular guy who solves everything with his fists and puts strenght and manliness above everything else;

-Courier is just your typical serious and estoic guy who just wants to get it all done as fast and effective as possible;

-Cutthroat is just a typical psychopath that kills for silly reasons and the more the show goes on, the more he goes full slasher film antagonist, especially when he becomes Swindler’s stalker;

-And lastly, Doctor is a take on the mad scientist type of villain in the form of a typical bitchy woman who seduces naive young men and then plays with them and their lives however she wants in order to get what she wants before ruthlessly killing everyone.

One look at their designs and you understand these characters completely and know exactly what to expect from them, and maybe even how they will die, but I obviously can’t get into details concerning that, all I will say is that at least the show spends some time with them before killing them in an epic or ironic way, unlike in Danganronpa where you don’t give a crap about who dies because you don’t see them much on screen, and their deaths are so silly and random you mostly laugh at them rather than being shocked or sad.

Now that I mentioned Danganronpa, did you notice how the cast here can be summarize as the batshit crazy version of someone from that franchise? Hacker is a criminal Fujisaki, Brawler is a sociopath Nidai or Owari, Cutthroat is just a male Genocyder Sho on steroids, and Doctor is a criminal Mikan. The only character who can’t be summed up this way is Courier and only because he’s so boring, there’s no character in Danganronpa that is that serious to compare him with, there are only Byakuya and Ishimaru but even they are completely different to this guy.Heck even some designs remind me of the Danganronpa cast, Swindler looks like a fusion between Chiaki and Ibuki and Brawler is the child of Sakura and Hagakure, the only difference between this show and the Danganronpa anime adaptation is that here actual money or effort was placed in order to make these crazy designs justice and not whatever the Danganronpa anime was, where everybody was ruined, even Kirigiri, how can someone dare to ruin Kirigiri’s image like that? Unforgivable. Another difference with that show is that here there is not stupid pink blood…but there’s a lot of censoring.

Aside from the designs, the visuals are practically perfect as far as I’m concerned, consistent artwork during most of the duration if not the whole of it, detailed and well made backgrounds, fast paced action with ever fluent motions, and well made effects with well rendered CGI, outside of the stupid censorship present in later episodes, I have no complains here. It’s unbelievable that it was made by Pierrot, nobody would have expected that. The digital coloring has the looks you would expect from this setting and with the people making it, very colorful but still with dark tones, it really is like watching an anime version of Cyberpunk 2077 but without all of the bugs and glitches and the drops in frames. After this, I don’t even want to see what Trigger is going to make based on the game, especially after the big disappointment it was in just a week after its release.

As for the sound, the music is kind of a letdown, neither the opening nor the ending stand out and I even already forgot them, and the soundtrack in the show goes completely unnoticed. The sound effects on the other hand are plain fantastic and immersive, is like watching a Hollywood action film. The voice acting is well done for this type of series, is just like it’s obviously not amazing by default, with all the silliness it has. Shotout to the almost unrecognizable voice of Megumi Ogata as Doctor, it was a refreshing performance from her.

Down to it, if you shut off your brain and tolerate these sociopaths, you’ll probably have a blast with this one, with all of its crazy characters and plot twists and all the non stop superbly animated action, I personally didn’t enjoy it much because at one point I wanted at least some downtime to learn more about the characters and take a breath from all the fast paced explosions and fights, but I can’t deny that I was expecting to see what crazy event was going to happen in the next episode when it was airing and was fairly entertained while watching it, had I watched this one ten years ago, I would have most likely loved it almost as much as I love Hellsing Ultimate.