Long time. Welp. Not dead yet. No. This is not about rap. But yes. There is a rap reference in here somewhere.
Either way, here goes.
Gangsta is an anime. An anime made by some guy named KOHSKE (shrugs). About... well, about how boys ought to view the men they fantasize about being. What? Yesh, as Sean Connery would say. But wait, it makes some sense. Keep reading you fuck...
EDIT: Plot twist: KOHSKE is not a GUY. KOHSKE is a LADY. Oh, boy! Dun-dun-dunnnn!
The approach isn't inherently problematic. It is, after all entertainment, escapism, make believe, and what-have-you. What it is, however, is a domewhat interesting view into a world as seen through the lens of how fantasies shape it. Hipster logic? Kinda. But wait, there's more to this.
The story takes place in the city of ERGASTULUM, a seedy-ass hellhole of a place where gangs rule, life is cheap, the law is bent, and people do what they can to get by. In a town like this it is simply best to sometime just take a step back, cough some dough, and hire some "handymen," meaning people who will go and take care of your shit for you. Shit is so bad that even the cops do it.
Fertile ground for manly men to man around like men, I say. The boys should be excited.
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| 'Sup fuckers. Enticed, yet? |
Don't they look
man as fuck to you? They should, as evidenced by the hard features of their design, an intentional departure from the standard of the medium... unless they are the villains. But nope. These are your protagonists. And that is
fine -- the art is fucking amazing in an economic sense I personally enjoy, if only slightly goofy.
The blonde motherfucker with an eyepatch and a penchant for guns and threatening/joking around plus torture? His name is WORICK ARCANGELO (oh, yes).
The other motherfucker on the left and of assumed Asian descent and with a penchant for swords? His name is NICOLAS BROWN (yup). Interestingly enough, the dude speaks in sign language to his buddy Worick when he's not delibering raspy proclamations of MAN using his actual voice, which ought to connect to some phsychologically scarring episode later on, I'm sure.
Both guys fit the hyper stereotypical mold they are meant to. They are the paragons of MAN for the audience to relate to. They are so manly that they even get to be recognized as "dog tags," (whatever the fuck that means) by an unfortunate someone, and only for the express purpose of communicating to the audience how these are not ordinary manly men. They are bad, bad motherfuckers straight out of whatever proclamations you can deduce out of a DMX song.
So, again, this is a story about bad motherfucking men who answer to nobody.
The first episode is mostly expository stuff. After cleaning some alleyways of shit people and getting paid, our homies get a new job by the police: there's a new gang that moved into town and is doing nasty stuff. They want them dealt with.
So they go do it the only way they know how, which means they get to go and leave piles dead bodies and wax bro-logic in their wake. They even get to check every wish fulfillment item from the Boy Fantasy list:
-Kick ass and take names? Check. But only to bad people.
-Get recognized by fearsome reputation? Check.
-Appear to be tormented just enough about their actions or past experiences to not come across as wholly irredeemable inhuman shits that kill for money? Check.
-TELL IT TO THE MAN ( aka The One Keeping You Down)? Oh, they do. Even though they hired them to do their dirty work.
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| FUCK DA POLICE!!!! |
Why? 'Cause they were being lippy. See, they can't just be talked down like that, not my two homies Yorick and Nicolas. And yes, of course they got paid.
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How could you not? Look at them rascals!
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They are so awesome they even get to recue a
superhot shapely hooker (as she's supposed to be) named Alex. She fucking hates her job (also as she's supposed to) and is so fucking bummed with life that she cries on the regular while in the middle of her job (also, also as she's supposed to). She's fallen on hard times and is pegged to be in lieu with the leader of the gang, who pimps her out and treats her like trash.
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| Don't judge her. She's had a bad day... |
But fear not! The good guys totes save her. They
claim her as "spoils," after some good killing. See, they kinda had to so as to help her out of her jam and to keep the police from
having to kill her. She's the reason the police car gets kicked in the first place. Shit, the homies even give her a job at the end, apparently. They promote her from your standard rinky-dink alley hooker to full fledged secretary of their comely murder business.
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| Dreams do come true: Alex. Winning at life. |
It isn't a BAD thing necessarily -- for whatever it is worth: the original manga (with which this humble blogger is not too familiar with) has quite the worldwide following already, enough to warrant some kind of spinoff manga so we know SOMEONE likes it and its sense of aesthetics. However, this first episode of this particular anime adaptation does present a couple of elements going forward that could be interpreted as either boring, lazy, or both; for example: a) copious female objectification of the boring kind, and b) stereotypical dudes doing duder things. I'm not sure how deep into people's characterization we are supposed to get in this series after a while, or how well it will juggle narrative strands that end inevitably popping out, but the show does appear to be primed towards the old "one for you and one for me," school of character development as far as everything with a vagina seems to be concerned -- as if saying
"Here, have some gravitas and some motivations, darling, but, now? Now it is time for you to shake the moneymaker. So get to it. If not, then you just be quiet and sit over there." Then there are the gruff dudes who do seem poised to follow the old
"I am so tormented and shaky. Hold me. No, don't hold me you cunt. I'm sorry. Let's make up. No, forget it. I'm tormented, can't you tell from my silence and stillness? I'ma do my thing, now. But I'm sorry... Okay, I'll be back later. Have dinner ready. If you're not finished with it by the time I show up I might lend a hand... or not. It is up to my level of torment at the time."
NOW, as I said: it isn't a bad thing. Not necessarily. Mileages vary just as much as taste does. And this is
still a starting point (albeit a very shaky one). The premise is set and so are the characters and the setting. Now it is all about moving forward and seeing whether it coalesces into something more or not. As of right now it appears to be nothing but tons of dodgy characterization and bad trope abuse plus meh plotting stitched just well enough that the story can plod along. Can it turn said tropes on its head? Will Alex grow a spine? Will she have some pride? Will the duders do something more than posture and act tough as we wait for their inevitable tragic backstories to unfold? How will they react when their past catches up to them (because it always does in these stories)? It remains to be seen.
Now, is this show good so far?
No. In fact, this first episode
blowed worse than Alex ought to blow Johns. But, fuckit, maybe we can give this thing a shot, see where the chips fall for at least a couple more episodes. And I fucking hope Alex at least does something more than fucking
mope and bask at being "saved" by her murder friends/bosses, and I hope the fellas get to do slightly more more than enact power boy fantasies with stupid amounts of gusto.
Laters, taters.
