Episode ten is the oddball here, being both a brief reprieve from the violence and one of the strongest outings in the series because it actually has some measure of emotion, a pulse of sorts. Once most of the very barebones drama is ironed out by the end of episode four, the story all but limps from one action scene to the next until the end of the show. This is all set to a backdrop involving only the most rudimentary science-fiction elements taken from the Blade Runner films with basically nothing new introduced. So, if the side characters are mostly relegated to the background, there is nothing done to explore the setting further, the (few) main characters have very, VERY little in the way of meaningful dialogue, and the audience has basically no emotional attachment to anybody at all for the vast majority of the show’s run, then what are we left with? A completely by-the-numbers revenge story with a heroine that is basically invulnerable and targets that are both unabashedly reprehensible and as destructible and threatening as paper airplanes. Side characters show up and vanish as quickly as snow on a warm day usually without even half an episode of on-screen presence for the show to utilize their somewhat unique positions to provide new perspective on the setting. And, make no mistake, I was only referencing the core cast when I said the characters are not that poorly defined. The final pair of episodes are just all action all the time until the narrative weight drained away and I just wanted it to end already. It isn’t even necessarily because they are poorly defined they just don’t do anything really dramatic. Credit where it’s due: Black Lotus pulls no punches in being a series that looks and sounds amazing with design elements and environmental details that are absolutely to my taste, but it’s not a stretch to say I felt basically nothing for these characters. I say this because there is a massive emphasis on action sequences and nailing the audio-visual aesthetic which completely overwhelms any and all but the most barely-dramatic moments that create only the most barebones emotional connection between the characters and audience. For most of the first ten or so, I was pretty genuinely having a good time, but that enjoyment was so obviously in spite of the show’s few attempts at being a serious and thought-provoking cyberpunk story in the same vain as its predecessors, attempts that virtually entirely fall flat. ![]() The pleasure I gleaned from this show only became guilty in the last pair of episodes. ![]() The Blade Runner films being personal favorites of mine apparently superseded my better judgment, however, when it came to Kamiyama’s second outing as the frontrunner for a CGI anime At the end of my Solid State Society review, I said I would make the smarter decision and avoid GitS:SAC_2045 based purely on my past experience with the directors’ work. Your work since GitS:SAC season 1 has yet to fail to disappoint me.īlade Runner: Black Lotus is the latest Kamiyama-directed title I have reviewed here on MyAnimeList, following Eden of the East, GitS:SAC 2nd GIG, and GitS:SAC – SSS in exactly that order.
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