Talk about leaving an impression. I’m going to get this out of the way since I know that the obvious comparison for Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress will be Attack on Titans meets zombies. But isn’t that okay? I mean, aren’t we all waiting for AoT? And if you’re going to do it… do it like this!

Kabaneri starts off on a train. A train that looks like something out of Death Race 2000. The conductor tells them to sound the alarm and not to slow down… because shit is about to get wild. They train is attacked by zombie esque creators, but they’re incredibly difficult to kill. The use steam powered guns which is cool, but the effects are limited. One dude gets bit and they throw him a suicide bag… after a little bit he pulls it and it kills his heart before he can turn.

Inner cut with this amazing opening is our main character working on a new gun that will penetrate the heart of the Kabane (the zombie creatures). He’s very clever as we soon see. He works on repairing the trains, but his goal is actually to pick up and examine Kabane parts for his gun.

After the train arrives to the station/town, the people onboard are forced to strip down and prove their not injured. One man has a cut that seems completely unrelated and everyone overreacts forcing our main character Ikoma to get involved because he’s tired of everyone living in fear of the bushi (protectors and such) and the Kabane. The show really picks up when a second train overrun by Kabane collides with the station and the Kabane have their run of the place. The ending is sick as fuck.

I was already enjoying the premise and the characters when the train wreck happened. It thrusted the story forward much faster than I expected, but that turned out to be a very good thing. Like I said, this is going to be compared to AoT whether anyone likes it to or not. It cut out a lot of the slow build in order to just get the story going. Sure that was the charm of AoT, but the charm here is the crazy world being overrun by zombies and Ikoma. He’s… he’s awesome. The scene at the end is just incredible. You’re like, “give this guy his own show” and then you remember that you’re watching it.

The animation is top notch. I’ve noticed that all of the TV Tokyo shows have been (that must be a rebranding thing because they’re everywhere this season). Particularly with this show it needed to have great animation. The Kabane are intense looking, but more importantly the world feels alive and looks great. I dug the character designs as well, they stood out a lot, especially compared to the rest of the anime airing this season.

Between this and Kiznaiver, they’re the savors of the season. A lot of the other anime is so generic, too early to tell or just bad. These two shows aren’t pulling any punches and I will anxiously wait to see the next episode of Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress.

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Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress – E.01 Official Website

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