It’s a cyberpunk and heist anime that gives you intensity right from the pilot episode and up to the memorable conclusion. It’s a 12 episode watch where there are a lot of plot and subplots squeezed into but somehow manages to get the story tied together.
I read more about the production behind the show and found it supporting my initial impressions. The show was tailored to trying to hook overseas audiences hence the subtle changes in story telling I am most familiar with anime.
The reception I read about Akudama Drive being a hit somehow didn’t coincide with the global reception I would expect. It earned a lot of good attention but it wasn’t popular enough to spread widely. It was released during the Fall where a lot of competing titles were still lingering so I’m looking at Jujutsu Kaisen being a strong contender. You can find a better write up here as the post is just a review from my own impressions of the show. It's also full of violence.
The Plot:
Set in the post Kanto-Kansai war, Kansai state lost the war and was later rebuilt with the aid of Kanto that was now revered as the higher status state. The Akudama serves as a label for criminals and are ranked based on the gravity of their crimes with S-class being the highest. After leaving the Kansai Seal Office one day, Swindler comes by near a Takoyaki stand and happens to meet Courier. The Akudama known as Courier drops a 500 yen on the ground to which Swindler tries to give the money back but refuses claiming dropped money is bad luck.
Upon being asked to pay for the takoyaki by the store owner, Swindler is unable to pay due to the store refusing to accept electronic payments. She opted not to use the 500 yen on hand and this caused the store owner to phone the police. During this time, Cutthroat, the serial killer that killed 999 victims was about to be executed. Several Akudama from the S-class list have received a mysterious job request to rescue Cutthroat from his sentence.
This led to several Akudama raiding the police station in search of Cutthroat. Swindler finds herself in the station explaining her circumstances right before the raid started. In the chaos happening in the station, she finds herself in the center of the Akudama convinced of killing which made her claim to be an Akudama herself despite not being on the list. She claims to have fooled the system and thus go by the nickname Swindler. The story further proceeds with each Akudama acting on their own accord rescuing Cutthroat then revealing the rescue was all but a test for a greater heist.
I used the name Swindler instead of ordinary person as there are no formal names attached to each character. They are known by their titles and refer to each other by titles.
Impressions:
The first few episodes where as intense as the last with each new revelation makes the stakes higher. The show does a good job with the pacing without revealing too much of the plot twists that comes ahead. While it’s obvious there is going to be a plot twist and foreshadowing, the show doesn’t rely on expositions or heavy spoon feeding for the audience to get behind. It relies on showing the story through action and dialogue. The dull moments are used as exposition time to explain the world building behind through interludes that aren’t directly affecting the story.
The show has it’s dull moments when the dialogues were dragged out in the middle but I found this a necessary evil as these dialogues played a role to some major character and world building. This further adds more depth to how each individual behaves the way they are because of their own individual goals without the story overly smothering the viewers with exposition.
It also doesn’t shy away from the use of death of characters foreshadowing the later episodes to be not a happy ending Indeed, this story doesn’t have any happily ever after as each episode progresses but it manages to somehow kept me binge watching. One thing I noticed a lot was the emphases on character growth to the characters which is something difficult to pull off in most shows without leaving a flat impression.
The Characters:
There’s no specific names on the show. The cast refer to each other by the titles they are known for, like Courier, Doctor, Brawler, and our protagonist Swindler (from Ordinary Person). This approach to character naming puts emphasis on what these characters will be symbolically known for based on their role in the story. Being called by what society and peers identify you with solidifies that identity into the story. True to their names, the cast does behave as consistent as possible with their symbolic titles.
This isn’t to say they behave like their stereotyped role, there are some mannerisms added into the mix that spins some personality into them and not just some cardboard archetype. The show makes it a point to showcase as much personality as they can for each character with the limited screen time they have. Because of the limited screen time, whenever the scene focuses on each character on the spotlight, the audience can get some chunks of depth to the character. Yes, the cast behaves in a familiar archetype we often see in the anime, it’s a given for any story to do that but the difference is the stakes each character has relative to the plot.
What does their circumstances mean for them and how they react to those circumstances presented. IA thought experiment I often do when viewing a show is whether the story can still move if X character is absent? Is it a story that is driven by the plot or is it a story driven by the character? When it comes to Japanese based story telling, the circumstances the characters find themselves bring about the story as they react to their surroundings. This is opposite to what the Western form of story telling is where the characters take charge of their fates and move the story on their own.
While Akudama Drive was initially plot driven, the later episodes became showed a shift in dynamic as Swindler, our protagonist, takes in charge of her own fate and actively decides for herself what course of action she must take. This change of pace is something that is difficult to execute from the laid back approach of circumstances dictate story. This transition gives more depth to the character and gives more weight to the growth Swindler went through after being around with criminals. Her sense of justice and purpose was validated through their own active participation.
Some characters are just far out there to be sympathized with. I mean, I get Cutthroat being a serial killer and having fun taking lives but it takes a different wiring to be fully immersed with his perspective. Some casts just have different outlier views about society that makes their spot as outcasts int he story well deserved. And these are the bits of details that can make an audience deter some empathy towards these characters. If you’re so badass about fighting and murder, the sight of violence wouldn’t faze you but you know most of us aren’t like that or get to experience that often. Let me tell you the difference between seeing violence on TV and the actual thing, the latter will triggers a body reaction that signals you some sense of danger.
We hardly see that from the Akudama because they are used to this sort of thing. That wall of fascination is what makes the lives of the characters we watch as just that, a story. The show paints decent depth to its character building without giving too much exposition about it’s story telling. It shows rather than tells you the passively how things work except during moments where some interlude scenes are thrown in the mix for its world building.
Do I Recommend Watching?
Yes. It’s a 12 episode one shot anime you can binge watch, feel and think about afterwards. While I find the show running some deep themes here and there, it throws around concepts on several different areas without going in depth for the exposition. It tried to accomplish several things at once and this made it difficult to achieve in a 12 episode story. I don’t think it deserves a season 2 as the story wraps itself neatly as is. But if it does have a season 2, I’d still watch it because it’s interesting to know what becomes of the surviving characters.
If you made it this far reading, thank you for your time
