Once more with passion… not really.
– Right off the bat, it looks as though Leone was stabbed in the throat by one of the bad guys, but shows like Akame ga Kill! are very predictable. If the anime was really going to kill Leone off here, it would’ve made a big, big deal out of it. Remember how dramatic it was when Sheele died? Or how long it took for Bulat to finally bite the dust? So no, Leone is not dead. The story would never off her character without an extended, over-the-top send-off, and this is why shows like Akame ga Kill! just aren’t effective. They’re way too predictable, and the twists and turns in their narrative can only fool the most gullible amongst us.
– So what are the bad guys like? Well, Lubbock is fighting this dude who seems to be wearing a mask-plus-garter-belt ensemble. Very chic. This girl over here has enhanced hearing, because she, uh, literally has giant ears. As you can see, Akame ga Kill! is very creative. You can defend the show by claiming that the girl’s ears are supposed to be wacky, but wacky to what effect? You can’t seriously tell me the sight of her giant ears is enough to make you laugh, is it?
– There’s nothing too interesting to talk about in the early going. Just the good guys chopping down the faceless underlings with impunity. At least give us some juicy action, right? Akame simply waves her sword around, and entire army goes from this to this in a matter of seconds. Yawn, wake me up when a fight actually breaks out…
– This dork’s name is just Toby. It’s just Toby!
– What if Dr. Stylish had been smart? What if after tracking Tatsumi to Night Raid’s base, he had called for backup? I don’t think anyone in Night Raid can defeat Esdeath, right? Our heroes would be forced to flee! But y’see, these possibilities are reserved for a better anime — an anime that can actually have an interesting story. Here, you just know that the good guys will kill Dr. Stylish, and that’ll be that.
– I don’t even care to comment on Tatsumi’s fight with some Kakusan dude, because who cares? Who really cares? It’s just another boring, underdeveloped villain. He’ll die, and another one will appear in his place.
– There’s especially little to talk about when the bad guy stupidly jumps headfirst at Mine’s giant gun. All he has is Sheele’s pair of scissors. You’re really going to bring scissors to a gunfight? So naturally, Mine destroys him with one giant blast from her gun. That’s it. Fuck man, those flash animations with the dueling stick figures have better fight choreography than this.
– And just in case you forgot, Mine patronizingly explains to the audience that her Imperial Arms gets stronger when she’s in a pinch. Akame ga Kill! is not only boring, it thinks we’re idiots. But no doubt, someone’s going to defend the show anyway. Blah blah blah, this is what every shounen is like! Who cares? If it sucks, it sucks.
– Najenda finally returns, and she does so by riding a giant air, uh, manta. And oh boy, she’s recruited two new members to join Night Raid. I feel for those guys. No, really, I do. They’re going to die all just so the core members of Night Raid can shed some tears for the camera. They won’t die this week, they probably won’t even die next week, but being the newest members of the group, I just have a feeling their days are already numbered. How do I know? That’s just Akame ga Kill!‘s schtick. Cheap and exploitative is the name of the game.
– An actual exchange in this episode:
Bad guy: “Tasteless… How dare you stab me from the side?”
Lubbock: “The base and my people are in danger. I don’t intend to just sit and watch.”
There’s just too much dialogue. The show would improve by a ton if everyone would just shut the fuck up.
– Case in point, as the bad guy breathes his last breath, he asks Akame why he lost to her. She then takes the time to explain to him why he failed. Who cares? Seriously, who cares why some faceless loser lost to Akame, the titular character of the anime? She doesn’t even say anything interesting anyway. Blah blah blah, the guy was careless. Great.
– Oh look, Leone’s back. Who would’ve guessed? And obviously, she survived ’cause the previous attack never punctured her throat at all. Instead, she had bitten the knife! Y’know, you’d think the bad guys would stop to make sure if someone was dead, but nope… nope, that’s just not how you do things in the real world. Y’see, I’m just a sheltered blogger who thinks bad guys should double-check their work.
– Akame looks super elongated in this shot.
– Somehow, Dr. Stylish’s poison works on everyone but Tatsumi. But really, this is just an opportunity for the two newcomers to show off their abilities. They’re going to die anyway, so we may as well give them the spotlight if only for a short bit. So the first guy, Susanoo, has spinning blades on his weapons, which he uses to cut up the bad guy.
– When parents warned us about TV desensitizing kids to murder, I thought I’d become a murderer myself! Who knew I’d be so bored looking at all this gore. Sad thing is, Akame had just done the same exact thing to these faceless soldiers in this same episode. So enjoy watching the same thing again, I guess.
– Apparently, Susanoo is a living Imperial Arms, and he can regenerate his missing body parts so long as his core is intact. Sure, whatever. Everyone has exotic powers, so I’m not really surprised. It’s just whatever.
– Spotted by Najenda, Stylish falls back on his trump card: he transforms himself into a Danger Beast. He then eats his own underlings to “level up.” Just Akame ga Kill! trying to be meta, I guess, but without humor or insight, these references don’t add up to anything. They’re just sort of there.
– Still, Stylish loses like a chump. Thanks to the power of teamwork, a somewhat-paralyzed Akame is still able to get close enough to the bad guy and cut him with her katana. And that is that. We just wasted an episode on killing this nobody, and the story hasn’t moved forward at all.
– This really was a pointless episode since nothing really changed with any of the important characters. And at this point in the story, there are really only three important characters as I see it: Tatsumi, Akame, and Esdeath. The others don’t matter. Stylish dying doesn’t matter. Night Raid recruiting two more people to die for their cause doesn’t matter. This was a wasted episode through and through.