By Dustin Cabeal
Usually, I don’t poke fun at the titles for anime, but “Killing Bites” irks me in a particular way given that I say it every time I’m writing a review or listening to the show. Why, why is it not just “Killing Bite” or “Morphing People Fighting to the Death: The Anime.” One of the great mysteries of anime…
Killing Bites, which I will now type often and always so that you must say it over and over in your head, does not get any better with the second episode. It also did that really annoying thing that shitty cartoons and anime do in which they add extra dialogue to the same scene and re-show it in a new episode. That shit is annoying and ruined one of the few scenes that weren’t crap in the first episode. Sure, it was mostly a good scene because it meant the episode was over, but still, it didn’t need a rehash and change of dialogue. Make up your damn mind which is the proper scene, don’t give the audience both.
Porcupine lady with the flashy boobs rambles on and on about killing Yuuya, and you’ll probably pray that she does. She doesn’t and of course she and Hitomi fight. The battle doesn’t make much sense in the fact that it seems more challenging for Hitomi than the Leo fight. Which is why you don’t have a fighting story begin with the newcomer taking down an undefeated champ Killing Bites. It makes it very confusing to the audience as to why she would struggle with any other opponent when she’s easily defeated the person that’s beaten everyone else. The fight does nothing, and some other dude intervenes and then asks Hitomi to join his team. She declines until the dude she loves and also made her a Honey Badger calls and tells her to accept the deal.
After that we go to Yuuya’s school, meet his annoying as fuck friend that checked all the nerdy stereotype boxes for an anime and waited for something to happen. Thankfully, something does happen, while Hitomi is on the toilet. Oh, Killing Bites… the toilet?! A Cheetah girl, not the bad or show, you know, I don’t actually know what a Cheetah girl is, but the one on this show is a panty thief. She picks a fight with Hitomi because apparently there are no fucking rules to these fights and they can happen anytime, anywhere and yet no one fucking knows about them. What is ridiculous about this is that when Hitomi “chis” up with no underwear on, her tail lifts her skirt and she just runs around with her butt exposed. The story didn’t recover from this ridiculousness in case you were wondering. Oh, and Cheetah girl is a lesbian, which they handle in typical anime fashion of making her sexually aggressive and a pervert. Not that a morphing Cheetah girl is relatable, but come on, you could make her inability to connect to normal people due to the morphing a metaphor for her struggles with her sexuality or fuck, anything that’s relatable. Instead, it’s just got your underwear; I’m in love with you, hey let’s both tease this guy in later episodes.
The artwork for Killing Bites is better than average. I can’t knock it. If it weren’t for the artwork, I would stop watching this trainwreck. You’ll have to listen to this week’s podcast to find out why I’m continuing with this series, but just know, it’s not the story. The animation flows wonderfully during the battles, and the character designs are in fact cool. If you’re into animal morphing people that is, which I’m not, but the designs work for the story being told. The fanservice isn’t as bad as I’ve seen in other shows. I was actually just talking to my brother about a different show, and it makes this one feel a bit timid. It’s still a lot and took an episode and a half for Hitomi to put clothes back on, only to then lose her underwear. Its hard to deny that this is a good-looking anime, regardless of the subject matter.
I’m here to stay on this series. My only hope is that there’s a decent story buried somewhere between the animal morphs and sexual appeal. I doubt it, but I’ll find out first hand and let everyone know. If this show had more focus, it would be a fun, gory fighter, but instead, it just wants cute girls fighting until their clothes fall off… it seems like we could get to that conclusion faster, but whatever… cosplay or something.
Score: 2/5
Killing Bites E.02
Studio: Liden Films