Thank Goodness.

It's hard to do any kind of in depth review. Episodes 4-11 were almost entirely consumed with one big arena battle. Complete with Stats lawyering, absurd strategic analysis, named strikes, and surprise (eh, not after the first one ) extra power ups, as well as ignoring the rules they have previously pulled out of their asses.

Well, if you like bloody fight scenes, you could probably go for this.

They DID pack a few surprises in the end, which I'm fully cool with spoiling for you, just to save you the misery of watching the whole thing.

So all the fighters are "Therianthropes" (I don't think that was the word used in Japanese, but I had trouble picking it out), who are created by some kind of gene therapy. Dr. Shidoh is the mind behind the tech. The four Zaibatsus in this bloodsport game are competing this year for control of the technology because a law is pending to make it legal.

Now in Episode 10, there's a bit of a flashback where we find out that Hitomi (The Honey Badger) was actually a naturally born critter, living on the streets of Hong Kong when Shidoh finds her and manages to tame her. So she's ultimately loyal to him, and has been doing everything she has done on his orders.

I do have to give them some credit for choosing some unique animals to transform. The worst tank/damage dealer in the show is a Pangolin, whose armor plates are apparently sharp too. But there's a limit to their imagination, and two opponents, including Hitomi, lose their right arm mid-bicep to him (And don't bleed to death).

Hitomi's ability to recover from what should be lethal abuse borders, no, crosses the border of the absurd. But hey, she has to be conscious at least once per episode to say her line. "Whoever has the sharpest fangs wins. That's what Killing Bites is." Seriously, EVERY episode, sometimes several times. Even Shidoh says it once.

BTW, our hero/POV character. I didn't even bother to learn his name because he literally sits in a chair watching the video feed for the entire event.

The other thing I have to give them credit for is twisting the plot at the end. While everything is pretty much by-the-numbers for the majority of the fight, at the very end when it seems like Hitomi has finally beaten the Pangolin (By throwing her severed arm at his head! Before punching out his brain through his mouth), she passes out and he somehow gets up again. The Cheetah manages to finish him off (After having been a bystander for three episodes.) But she's not the winner either. The rabbit, who was knocked out smacking head-first into a wall comes to, and when the Cheetah chases her down to kill her, she accidentally trips, does a flip, and plants a big fluffy lucky foot into the Cheetah's glass jaw, knocking her out and winning the whole shebang.

But that's not the final plot twist. The winning team happens to be run by the weakest Zaibatsu. The strongest one doesn't like the idea of abiding by the results. He takes out the leader of the second strongest company, and also has a crack team of chameleon commandos who are out to eliminate everyone on the arena island in order to void the results. Hitomi briefly rises from the near-dead to take out a couple of them, then Shidoh's ninja-assistant (and the disturbingly enthusiastic announcer of the deathmatch - which seems totally out of character for her) finishes off the rest. Finally, the top company's top therianthrope who stayed out of the competition turns out to also be part of the conspiracy, and kills his boss.

Still not the end. There are a few more twists and jerks, like an man hanged by the short drop method. Our hero goes back to his normal life, the only trace of what happened being three suitcases full of money that he's scared to touch. Finally Hitomi calls him, they meet, and you think This might be where they confess to each other, but they don't manage it. Then she kills him, under Shidoh's orders. That was a surprise. No happy ending there. At least she sheds a tear for him while proclaiming she's not upset.

Two years later there's an artificial island in Tokyo Bay (that was fast) that is a city for people who've gone under therianthrope treatment (Japanese bigotry portrayed as normal, I guess), and the center stage is an arena for more combat, and a bunch of new faces show up for the deathsport. Pray there is no season two....

Or is that Prey? :-)

Posted by: Mauser at 09:51 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I don't link to Manga often. But someone on Twitter posted a really cute picture of a dog girl demanding her tummy be rubbed, and gave the source. So I looked it up. (The dog girl is the last chapter).
Jingai no Yome to Icha Icha Suru is an anthology of Monster/Kemono girl stories. The alley cat one I particularly liked.

Posted by: Mauser at 07:11 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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