Posted by OP Sequence
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OP: 「ストレイ」 (Stray) by Kishida Kyoudan & The Akeboshi Rockets
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「プレイボール」 (Purei baaru)
“Play Ball”
It’s a killer’s playground in the town of Hakata, Fukuoka, according to this Winter’s Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens, and it’s starting out so far with an intriguing web of mystery as our leading detective Banba is tasked to look into how deep the thread unravels in the criminal underworld of hired killers. He’s got quite the task ahead of him as the overly obvious Red Rum Inc. is an organized hitman association in disguise that is interlinked with a mayor’s inner circle.
The investigation Banba takes is made all the more interesting when we shift perspectives to the rest of the anime’s ensemble cast with a slew of hackers, hitmen, and con artists making up a majority of our key players. Banba’s friends, hacker Enokida and pickpocketer Yamato help him gather information on a mysterious suicide that is tied to a specific picture of a mayor. In the process, other hitmen are tangled up in the mess with Reiko helping spearhead many of the assassination jobs to protect the mayor, her reckless son using his parents’ connections to get away with murder and beating up a foreigner, Jirou getting paid by the foreigner’s friend to kill the son’s friends who lynched him, and Saito committing himself to a new profession of being a professional hitman only for his efforts to go awry once he crossed paths with Jirou.
Our most fleshed out character so far is one who has the largest stake in untangling these threads, Xianming. His killing of a bartender who was seen in a picture with the mayor and the short-change he got when his next target was already assassinated make him somewhat knowledgeable of the circumstances behind what Banba has been investigated. On top of that, the ending scene shifts Xianming’s priorities as he’d rather work with Banba rather than kill him like he was originally supposed to do. He also has a personal issue of his own to investigate as he wants to try to find his long-lost sister, giving him a goal to reach in the long run.
The only issue with Xianming is how his penchant for crossdressing is brushed off rather easily. That’s not to say that every depiction of crossdressing must pull the viewer aside to have a long conversation about the complexity of trans identity in society, but at this point in time, it feels more like a gimmick to have a crossdressing assassin for the coolness factor than anything significant to Xianming himself. I think it’s the quickness for him to go “Don’t get it twisted, I’m a guy!” that makes it feel like the decision to have him crossdress is merely to make him look more intimidating. On the same coin, it might also be to make any prospective ship-teasing with Banba look kinda straight, and Xianming is more or less considered to be one of the protagonists, so it’s not like he’s as villanous as other characters who share the distinction of being crossdressing killers.
But on the whole, Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens is shaping up to be a slick, unique thrill-ride through the lives of assassins as they get tangled up into a web of conspiracy through their connections with a corrupt mayor political ambitions. It will be interesting to see how Banba and Xianming work together through an investigation, what’s going to happen with Saito now that he’s been abducted by Jirou, how the rest of the house of cards will tumble as assassins get entangled with other assassins, and whether the opportunistic samurai will come to visit anyone in our cast.
Preview
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I had no idea Hakata was such a hotbed of crime, I spent three days there and wasn’t murdered once (sorry about that).
We’re truly sorry about that (just kidding, of course).
I lived in Kyushu for about two years. 9 months of it a half-hour train ride from Hakata and visited frequently.
The crime rate in Hakata is, I’ll wager, probably better than just about any wealthy suburb in the USA you’d care to name.
I write this off to pure fantasy. If Fukuoka is a murder hole on the level of Sao Paolo, I’ll eat my hat.
I’ve now seen this show described as being set in an alternate universe version of Hakata. Even so, if I were the mayor of Fukuoka I’d be pretty annoyed. First Excel Saga and now this.
https://randomc.net/image/Hakata%20Tonkotsu%20Ramens/Hakata%20Tonkotsu%20Ramens%20-%20OP%20-%20Large%2002.jpg
This show is cool. I also really liked the main protagonist Zenji Banba, He looks a lot like Sword in Garo: Vanishing Line.
i hope there’s no yaoi on this one because OP scene hints something leading to that (or maybe i am just reading too much into it?). banbaXxianming ship should be torpedoed before it sails hahahaha. anyway this is good… IT IS GOOD. it makes me think of durara because of some similar plots like “city with underground life” and “unique” people (crossdresser, a super tantei, a genius hacker list goes on)
It has adults mostly? Will watch! I saw ramen in the title and planned to give it a miss as I am already watching one food show but this seems like it will be good.
The cast kind of came from all sides, and it was somewhat hard to keep up, but the city itself and its machinations are interesting to me =03. A friend told me that this was Durarara-light… there were some elements to that series that caused me to not finish it, so I hope this series can deliver a similar style with chars more to my liking.
I thought this was about ramen. What a pleasant surprise!
This one really surprised me because I hadn’t heard anyone discussing it before it came out. The characters all seem quite interesting and while a lot happened in the first episode it didn’t feel too rushed. Everything kind of had the time it needed to come across. I’m looking forward to what this does over the next few weeks.
The trailers for this gave me a bit of a Hamatora vibe which was basically my main motivation for watching it. Now I’ve seen the first episode…well, it still reminds me a little of Hamatora in some ways (mostly that Zenji looks a little like a calmer Nice, and just the general atmosphere in the lighter moments), but honestly this kicks off on a much more grimmer note and is a lot more action packed. And with all the assassins and scummy people (that guy who’s the son of that higher up really leaves a bad taste in my mouth), it’s kind of like seeing a crime novel in anime form. So I’ll probably be sticking around for this.