Review: Re: Hamatora 2.1

Did you watch the first series of this? I didn’t which means that I went in pretty blind on this already established series. First and foremost I have to say that zero effort is put into explaining anything from the first series. There are a couple of throwaway lines that out of context mean nothing to new viewers so that was a pretty big turn off. The gist is that there are mutants, but they’re not called mutants because then Marvel would be all over them. No they’re called Minimum Holders and they all have different special powers. After some evil shit went down in the first season, people are less trusting of them. Almost all of them work as private detectives for some fucking reason and one of their own has seemingly died. Great way to start a second series, let me tell you.

The entire episode is about them trying to find work and eventually taking a body-guard job when an up and coming Minimum Holder’s life is threatened. He’s more pop star than detective, but again for some reason they’re all detectives.

Re Hamatora PosterSpoiler ahead, the main character Nice (that’s really his name) is the only with cool powers or I should say he’s the only one who actually gets to display their powers since everyone else just sits around talking about the lack of work. Oh and he’s not dead… everyone knows he’s not dead which is the really dumb part and there’s no enemy that they’re trying to fool with his death either. It’s like they were trying to fool the audience and did a terrible job at it. I spotted him instantly and it was the first time I had ever watched the show and he was wearing a disguise.Every scene has a really annoying transition to it. It can’t just cut to a new scene it actually freezes the frame, adds a filter, a graphic and makes an annoying sound while switching. This happens for every scene change and there are some pretty short and pointless scenes. Needless to say… it wore on my nerves quickly. You know how some anime’s have a scene leading into the commercial? Picture that but without ever leading into a commercial.

I get the impression that this is a show that fucks around the entire season being cute and then gets heavy and dramatic at the end of the season. It’ll sprinkle in the drama here and there as it does with the end of the episode, but only to give the viewer the impression that it’s going somewhere.

It could be a cool idea, but I just couldn’t get into it and it didn’t try to bring me up to speed. It spent a great deal of time establishing what the world is like and that they have powers, but didn’t spend anytime showing them. Hell it didn’t even spend time explaining the relationships of all the people. Are they rivals? Different divisions of the same agency? Friends? I don’t have a fucking clue and I doubt they’re going to recap any of that with the second series. When you go out of your way to make it look and come across as its own thing, then you should make sure that new viewers can jump on. I was lost and unimpressed which means I won’t be coming back for more.


Score: 1/5


Director: Seiji Kishi Writer: Jun Kumagi Studio: Lerche