Bullet/Bullet

This anime is just embarrassing. Nonstop overreacting wacky humor and none of it is funny. It's like a horrible mix of clown world action and soap opera drama. The show feels more like a Tom and Jerry cartoon than anime. Yes, there are some serious parts, but also five seconds later it's back to clown world. If you are watching this for the action then you will be bored out of your mind during the drama therapy sessions. The car CGI is low-budget and already looks dated. My overall impression is they were trying way too hard to appeal to a western audience and completelymissed the mark.

"Bang..."....ok well that was fun for about two seconds. The Anime Bullet/Bullet really does feel like its name say of firing two bullets, fast, exciting, and quickly done in about two seconds. Our story is about three individuals Gear, Bear, and a Robot companion that acts more like a computer with personalities who are approached by sexy femme fatale Noah about pulling off a heist. Until, uhoh so many assassins get involved over something so litte? Who is this woman and what is it the true purpose of this job? The world is set in a post apocalyptic almost Mad Max likevibe setting, what with its clear indication to Car's and chases, you expect this to be almost Trigun meets Mad Max in many fashions, with the Fast and Furious Movies sprinkled in cause its all about family... Characters - And this is a lame extended family you avoid at family reunions. There are no actual characters and instead tropes, who can't decide what they wanna be, and if there is ever any tension between them you can bet it'll be solved by the end of the episode. You can clearly tell early on who everyone is supposed to be and it never feels like there is any real growth or narrative.... Story - Speaking of narrative, yikes. Spoilers avoided but most anime, on their face, you should be able to tell or get a vibe of what its going to be. With this based on the promotional artwork and the first couple you can get idea of what its about, it feels like they had enough material for the opening and then stitched together a bunch of different other half written anime ideas. They try to explore the ideas of how we as a society would act with our impending world issues, and it felt like they wanted to get a certain message out, but then at the end they almost say "screw it" and go a hard right. It's identity, is that it has no identity... Artwork - One of the saving graces of this is it's animation, but also hurts it. The world is dark, postapocalyptic, but its so colorful, you never feel like it "sucks" to live in this world, and without spoilers it explains why, that need or fear of struggle is what makes these stories enticing, and all the bright colors drown it out. Otherwise the animation is smooth, save for a couple 3d CGI scenes which get very heavy at the end of the series, at that point you won't notice it over the glaring other issues... Sound - The music is good, but it feels like they leaned heavily on artists and tracks and songs, vs an actual orchestral track. It does a great job of matching the tone, but it didn't feel varied, and when it is varied, it relies on the aforementioned artists, that I felt like I was watching an anime trying to pass off as a modern American animation where they add hit songs to clearly sell a Sound Track. Genre - It's hard to say what it does for the Genre, cause you don't know where to narrow it down to, besides just action. And if that's what we do then this falls short that many other shows are able to do with it. Bullet/Bullet is a misleader as it's an anime that besides the flashy beginning, does not go out with a Bang

Bullet/Bullet seemingly is Mad Max inspired setting where civilization has crumbled expect for this cities of scrap collectors. Gear, our 15 year old garbage-collecting, mechanic expert, heist-extraordinaire protagonist, is one of those scrap collectors but we first see him participating in a heist. The first episode is dedicated to the heist and then spends a lot of time retroactively trying to explain how they got to that point. I understand the importance of having a big hook in the first few minutes, but dragging the viewer through a poor explanation does the opposite in my opinion. Very quickly we go through Gear's backstory and hisrelationship with his adopted father figure, just for him to leave his life behind in episode 2, which is treated as this big emotional moment, for characters that we don't know and don't care about yet. The rest of the show is just as confused. The car focus gets dropped for more than half the show to bring very cookie-cutter revolutionary-coded story beats. Don't get me wrong, the show obviously has something to say and that something could have been more impactful if it was written or directed better. It seems the plot looses itself and what we get is a ham fisted plot that neither delivers the message correctly nor paces its actions scenes the proper way. They're literally all in the beginning and end, with the middle of the show feeling barren. Is it a "bad" show? Maybe not. I think something enjoyable can be derive from it, but I do think it is subpar. Enjoy at your own risk.

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