Where I Watch: Black Cat (Dub)

[Wuyabi]

Okay, so there's this thing they do on RPG.net's entertainment forums where someone watches a series episode-by-episode and posts their first impressions, while those who've seen it before get to ask me questions, and discuss the series with others while they sit back, watch the fun, and see a relative newb get sucked in. One rule, please: When discussing spoilers for episodes I haven't reviewed yet, please use the white font, like so:

This is the white font.

Okay, ya got it? Alright, let's go!  

[Wuyabi]

Ep 1 - The Solitary Cat

Ah, yes, the always startling Gonzo logo! Let’s see, I like a lotta the stuff they worked on, Baccano!, Batman: Gotham Knight, Blood +, Gurren Lagann, Code Geass, Ouran High School Host Club, and what little I’ve seen of Last Exile and Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo. But for me, a big failure for them that really stuck out was Trinity Blood. (WARNING: OPINION ALERT!) Even great English-Language voice acting couldn’t save the crap characterization and shoddy plotting. Let’s see if this series is any different…  

[Wuyabi]

We open on a shot of silhouetted buildings against a wild array of blacklight fireworks. Pretty! Ah, now people are fighting in blacklight! Two opponents, one in black, and one in white, do the classic anime clash swords move, and we see that our M.I.B. has blazing yellow spot colored eyes. Wait, now there’s shooting? Oh, one has a lightsaber, and the other has a gun, I see! The two young men, as it turns out, are arguing over a girl, who is lying prone and bleeding on the ground. Shades of Spike/ Julia/Vicious?
THEME TUNE! – Standard Shonen Anime Lyrics, not poppy, not catchy, lotsa pretty people flying around, they look more interesting than our leads, let’s see them! Back to the show!
A pretty half-face is intro’d with an ominous guitar sting as he stands with his jacket blowing in the wind. Big moon shot, then a priest with the voice of Father Cornello begs to be saved from damnation as one of the guys from the cold open, the dude in white, just… stands there. Creepy. Is… is he gonna kill Cornello?
WHOA! A Kitty Cat, Then Man In Black, leaps outta the sky and past the church window. Dude In White sees and gives a little chuckle like, “Just As Planned,” as Man In Black (Hereafter referred to as “Johnny Cash”) and cohort land in the courtyard, startling the nuns. But it turns out they aren’t so startled after all, cause when he starts whalin’ on ‘em, they whip out their guns.
Johnny, who has both a gun and a pec emblazoned with the Roman Numeral Thirteen, is too fast for the nuns, and grabs the priest. The priest asks Johnny if he’s with something called Khronos. Johnny says he’s making a delivery of bad luck, and our man in white stands serene as the priest gets blown to hell. Well, I was half-right. M.I.W. laughs and compliments our man Johnny, calling him “Black Cat.” Shyeah, until I hear something better, I’m calling him Johnny.  

[Wuyabi]

Turns out Johnny’s an assassin of some sort, and this mission was a rousing success; the priest was kind of a jerk, I guess? His two Wizard of Oz superiors tell him to report to Sephiria for his next job. She calls him Train, I’m still gonna call him Johnny, and we… slam cut to a clown in parade. The parade is being thrown for a very corrupt Governor… and if he isn’t the spitting image of a younger version of our dearly departed elder Gambino, I’ll eat my eyepiece with clarified butter.
A grizzled, eyepatch-wearing Bounty Hunter wants to catch Governor Gambino, and we soon see why: dude’s broke, and food costs plenty in this economy. Patch gets chewed out by his waitress for smoking in a restaurant, but she likes him enough to serve as exposition fairy for this episode: Since Governor Gangster Gambino got elected, the town’s been sleaze central. Patch is distracted by Gambino’s float passing by; he, and we, get a clear view of Gambino’s arm candy: A black-haired, blue-eyed pixie dressed in white, who Patch seems awfully interested in.
Suddenly, a scream! It’s a thug getting handsy with the other staff, and Miss Exposition rushes of to take care of it. Patch decides to intervene with some atomic fireball candies that behave exactly as advertised. He’s “treated” to a meal in return (eat now, pay later).
Johnny is walking away from the parade crowd, reflecting on some previous words of far too affectionate praise lavished on him by the man in white. He heads to his hotel room, feeds his white cat, stares up at the moon, and contemplates the horrible rictus face of the dead priest. After he tells his cat that the milk’s gone, we see a childhood memory… Little Johnny staring down the barrel of a gun, and someone telling him, “You can live or die, the choice is yours.”  

[Wuyabi]

Next morning, Patch trails Governor Gambino all the way to his Inaugural Ball. Patch is frustrated that there’s too many people around to kill Gambino, and decides to do so as he leaves the auditorium. As Gambino is making his speech, Patch catches the eye of a dour young blonde girl who does not return his genial wave. I think we’ll be seeing more of her… Shortly after that, Gambino formally introduces his affianced brunette pixie, Joanna. Patch is jealous.
A dippy (and poorly drawn) souse spills champagne on Patch’s head, and Patch goes to the bathroom to wash off his eyepatch and clean himself up. Turns out Patch’s one “bad” eye is better than good, and when he spots Governor Gambino being escorted out, he has a vision of the Governor’s imminent demise—at the hands of Johnny Cash! BUM BUM BUM!
Patch follows Gambino back to the auditorium, reflecting on his vision. It’s contents will occur in five minutes, so Patch with have to be quicker than Johnny—but the Governor’s thugs are quicker than Patch, pulling guns on him. Gambino calls them off, and Patch attempts to warn him, getting in a short but quick tussle with Gambino’s bodyguards, which ends when he gasses them with his suit case.
Scanning the auditorium, Patch bemoans his situation for a while, then notices an open window. HEEEERE’S JOHNNY! Johnny moves quick as lightning across the auditorium while Patch tries unsuccessfully to stop him. Johnny knocks out Gambino’s closest bodyguard, then announces that he’s come to deliver some bad luck, shooting Gambino in the the back. He sends the whole place into a frenzy, which is why it’s awfully weird that no one notices him calmly walking away from the building… no one but Patch, that is, who lectures Johnny on his methods before nearly getting his head sliced off by a giant boomerang.  

[Wuyabi]

The weapon is wielded by one of Gambino’s bodyguards, who has an ax to grind. Johhny gets ticked, pinning the bodyguard to a tree before zipping off to who knows where. Patch leaves… but the Man In White comes to punish the bodyguard for hurting his precious Johnny. There is lots of spurting redness.
Patch gets the scoop on Johnny, and is told what we already know: He’s an assassin for Khronos, and, judging by the reaction of Patch’s informant, the most dangerous one out there. Later, Patch talks with Miss Exposition and tells us another thing we already know: Patch is a Bounty Hunter, or a “sweeper.”
In a red and grey flashback hell, Little Johnny begs his parents to “please wake up.” He runs and runs, only to find the body of the priest Big Johnny killed. Gee, ya think this is a dream filled with Meaningful Symbolism? S’kinda hard to tell. Little Johnny runs away, and is confronted by a half-submerged head, at which point he goes all agonized Luke Skywalker and starts shooting at it with a gun that wasn’t there a split second ago.
Now he’s shooting a buncha people and growing up as he does it! ANVILICIOUSNESS! Oh, but now a shadowy figure has Johnny in his sights and shoots him! Aw, teardrops! The moon! Johnny in the real world looking sullen! A girl singing in a pure contralto voice! And… DUDE! She’s not BGM! She’s on the rooftop next to Johnny’s! She’s wearing a pretty flower-print kimono and has a short haircut, black hair and blue eyes. Please let the next episode be about her and not Emo Johnny!  

[Wuyabi]

Episode Overview: I tend to judge a show based on the likeability of its' characters, and, as you've no doubt noticed, I can't say I like Train Hartnett (sp?) much at all. He's pretty enough, but also cold, unapproachable, and emo... basically Edward Cullen without a Bella... a role I just now realized could be filled by our young, mysterious kimono clad singer.

However, Sven, aka Patch, is an interesting fella. You get a good sense of a world-weary charmer there. Yeah, I know, he's a basic Spike Spiegel ripoff, but I gotta say, I love Spike Spiegel, and all anime archetypes of his ilk.

Man In White isn't too bad either; as villain archetypes go, I have a soft spot for depraved obsessive stalkers. Edward Cullen works as a villain, not a hero, and you can see that concept demonstrated in this very series.

The plot is... meh. Hope it gets better. Also, where are all the other cool characters from the opening? They looked like they were having so much fun! When does the fun start?  

[Wuyabi]

Ep 2 - The Hesitant Cat
There’s that portentious moon again as we pull back to view a wall and see a shrieking, pigtailed silhouette and that of her creepily giggling assailant. He’s really enjoying her terror, and says as much, but is interrupted by a well-timed cop. The beam of the flashlight our officer wields reveals that Giggler isn’t entirely human. Just what sort of world is this? Giggler seems to have no problem taking care of our cowardly cop. This looks like a job for Johnny Cash! Now where is he?

On the roof, listening to Kimono Girl sing about rain, I guess. She proves herself to be even more of a manic pixie dream girl (who will no doubt teach Johnny to feel again) by stealing his milk, and says that milk is great to have after you sing, which proves she’s never taken choir: that stuff ruins your singing voice, and you shouldn’t drink it if you plan to perform. In honor of the Nostalgia Chick, who suffered through a review of Showgirls, enduring the escapades of a similar random character… I dub this girl… Nomiko!  

[Wuyabi]

Nomiko has a very long and pointless one-sided conversation with Johnny before noticing his gun: “That’s a sharp revolver!” I get that the translator is using “sharp” as a synonym for “cool-looking”, but calling a revolver “sharp” makes a person seem… confused, at best. Well, despite her oddness, Nomiko’s apparently a sweeper. She asks what Johnny does for a living, and he… says nothing. She pulls out the old “We’re not so different” speech before downing the rest of his milk and vanishing. My guess is, they’ll be together by the end of the series. That, or she’ll be dead.

Back at the restaurant, Sven (He’s cool, so I’m using his real name) scares the crap out of Miss Exposition for kicks and giggles, and cadges some free coffee off of her, since he has no money. She has a problem with this, naturally, and asks him why he doesn’t get a job that pays regularly; doesn’t he have any kids to support? He says no, and she insults his age before walking away. He’s so stunned that it takes him a while to register his resentment at the gluttonous patrons of the table across from him and scream at them to shut up. HEE! Sven’s suffering makes me happy in my soul!  

[Wuyabi]

Our assailant from earlier is a “preta-ghoul”. Nobody wants to touch this guy, in spite of his bounty, because of what he can do to a person’s skin. Nomiko’s up for the challenge, though. She even tips a wink to the camera! Ugh. Sven just misses her. When are these guys gonna meet? I want stuff to happen!

And… it’s starting to, as shots of a blonde girl running are intercut with Sven staring at the bulletin board in bounty hunter headquarters, looking at various unsatisfactory jobs. One guess as to where Blondie’s headed, folks! Sven tries for a guy named Tony Kaye, but is beat out by a guy with whom negotiations are not an option. Blondie, of course, plows into Mr. Non-Negotiable just as he is about to leave the shop.  

[Wuyabi]

Spurred on by her plentiful assets, Double N vows to defend Blondie from her pursuers, but fails spectacularly. It’s up to Sven to protect Blondie, and he does so, bashing the brutes with a spring mechanism in that magical briefcase of his. She treats him to a massive lunch, all while smiling sweetly… and this is my first real clue that something is rotten in Denmark. We didn’t get a good look at the girl that Giggler attacked, but we do know that she had blonde hair. Couple that with the fact that Giggler can supposedly take people’s skin off, and… oh, I just deduced the twist ending of this episode. Man, I hate when that happens.

Her dialogue reveals her fawning, Nadeshiko perfection, as the bartender spots that Blondie’s “attackers” are cheerily walking away with a fat stack of cash for their trouble; yup, she paid them to do it. AAAGHHH! We’re only ten minutes in and I already know how this’ll turn out! That’s usually a very bad sign. Blondie feeds him a line about needing to find her sister and pays him with an ungodly amount of moolah.  

[Wuyabi]

And back to boring Johnny, who’s just been assigned to kill somebody else, probably Giggler, but of course, he is distracted by thoughts of Nomiko. Back to Sven! Back to Sven! After the commercial break, my wish is granted, as Sven and the bartender, Annette, who quiz Blondie on why she needs Sven for this when the police could do better. Blonde Giggler gives a load of bull answer tailored to seem like flattery. Anyway, their target is Torneo Rudman, a gangster who supposedly kidnapped “Blondie’s” sister. When Sven agrees to take the job, Blondie has an odd slip of the tongue, referring first to a “Renslet(?)” and then to herself, “Elena”. Suspicious Annette is suspicious.

Johnny feeds his cat and meets Nomiko again. He doesn’t like her outfit, and tells her so. She informs him of her prospective bounty, and he seems struck by her assertion that she has no killing intent. She walks. He broods. She enters a warehouse. He broods. She points her gun at a bound figure…. And then there’s sand, which means Giggler killed the tied up girl? I dunno.  

[Wuyabi]

The elevator’s busted, so Nomiko climbs the stairs. It would be so awesome if she would hallucinate a talking toad right now, but, to my unyielding disappointment, this is turning out to be not that kind of show. Walking… walking… walking… BODY! And then Giggler shows her another, which is enough to make our brave bounty hunter start running towards him, accompanied by blacklights and a kickin’ techno beat.

They fight, Johnny saves her, then she knocks out Preda-Ghoul. Yay. They chat, and afterwards, he meets up with a buddy. Well, my guess about Blondie was way off, but we still don’t know what Sven’s getting himself into. Annette is also wary, and warns Sven as he leaves, but he spouts some duty nonsense as Blondie follows… and now Johnny is pointing his gun at a solemn little girl. TO BE CONTINUED!  

[Wuyabi]

Ep 3 - The Cat in the Dark

The Moon. Blondie. Sven. They’re at Torneo’s vacation home, where Rinslet is supposedly being kept. Johnny points his gun at a little blonde girl… the one that Sven met before, I think… as Nomiko’s song rings in his ears. Theme tune. And now… Oh, I see what the writers did here. Johnny was sent to kill Rinslet, and Blondie is bringing in Sven to… take care of Johnny while she grabs Rinslet’s bounty for herself? We’ll see, but my opinion of this series just ratcheted up a few notches.  

[Wuyabi]

Sven stops Johnny from doing the dastardly deed, and Rinslet is creepy, oracular, and morose. A bunch of men with guns threaten the whole group, so Sven sets off a briefcase flashbomb, diving out the window with Blondie in tow. Johnny beats up the gunners while Sven and Blondie hangglide to safety. Yay for magic briefcases! Rinslet is shown to be safe and unharmed while the lead gunman, Torneo, waxes poetic about our soon to be Nakama’s imminent demise.