Akame ga Kill! Ep. 13: Snooze-inducing developments

I guess the show is still on hiatus. ‘Cause for the second week in a row, nothing of interest happens. You often hear that it’s a bad thing when characters are poorly developed. We should totally flesh out their backstories, blah blah blah. This way, the audience will be emotionally invested in these characters’ fate, and we’ll totally feel bad when Akame ga Kill! inevitably offs them. Well, that’s the theory, anyway. Still, it matters how you develop the characters, and the show just doesn’t do it in a way that makes me want to give a shit. For instance, Tatsumi and Lubbock have a short bro moment in which the latter confesses that he’s in love with Najenda. Yep, he was the son of some wealthy merchant, but he threw it all away to follow her. Compelling story? Not really. Will I cry when Lubbock dies? Nah, of course not. Did we just waste precious minutes telling the audience this pathetically thin backstory? Absolutely. And you know how in reality TV shows, when people are about to be kicked off the show, we suddenly learn a bunch of pointless shit about them? Welp, we’ve just given Lubbock the requisite amount of character development. And in stories with this sort of lazy storytelling, I bet you we won’t learn anything else about Lubbock. We’ve done enough! We can just ride it out until he dies!

The same thing sort of happens earlier with Bols. He saves two citizens from certain death, but because of the way he looks, they’re still afraid of him. Wave thinks this is totally unfair, forgetting the fact that he initially judged Bols the same way too. So we learn that Bols used to do some terrible things like execute people he was ordered to execute. Yawn. Is that all you’ve got? All of sudden, his wife and daughter drops by with a picnic basket, and this is basically Akame ga Kill!‘s schtick. Oh, you thought Bols was a freak because of how he looks, huh? Well, you’re totally wrong; he’s a family man! But while this might shock and amuse, I dunno, teenagers, I just find this sort of non-twist rather amateurish. It’s not surprising. It’s not funny. It’s not anything. It’s just valuable time wasted on a useless character I never wanted to know about, and I still don’t care to know about. The anime wastes its time on so much fluff that doesn’t amount to anything. Like with Lubbock, he’s received the minimum required amount of character development too. He’s now as disposable as the rest of them. Sadly, people actually have positive things to say about the Jaegers in general. How anyone can praise this shit is beyond me.

As for the side story regarding the new Danger Beasts — y’know, the ones first introduced at the end of last week’s episode — I don’t know why the anime is dragging it out so much. The narrative is even going through the motions of making the whole thing seem like a mystery. Gosh, where are these Danger Beasts coming from? I searched Dr. Stylish’s lab, and I think he might have had a second one! Do you think these Danger Beasts are escaped test subjects?! Even the good guys waste time debating what they should do about the new threat. In actuality, it’s just another excuse to have Tatsumi say something heroic about how it’s their duty to protect the people. C’mon, get on with the story already. Is anyone actually on the edge of their seat over this side story? Is anyone actually hooked in by the appearance of these Danger Beasts? I really doubt it. I really, really doubt it. At best, this side story is a minor distraction. So it’s laughable for Akame ga Kill! to suddenly act as though this is some great, big mystery. Plus, maybe the story would actually go somewhere if we didn’t waste time on so many stupid, pointless scenes. Hurr hurr, your fly is down, Tatsumi. What a dork! Susanoo, you can help us pick up chicks (as if Tatsumi could ever do such a thing)!

The entire episode is just all over the place as another significant chunk is devoted to Esdeath’s continued infatuation over our bland shounen hero. Esdeath hasn’t given up on Tatsumi! She’s so in love — oh! — everything’s changed about her personality. She’ll even take a “moonlit stroll” these days! Again, who cares? Esdeath’s a shitty, uninteresting character who’s defined solely by the fact that’s she’s a strong, powerful woman who is nevertheless a slave to Tatsumi’s dick. There isn’t a single redeeming aspect to her character. She isn’t even a good villain nor does she have any compelling motivation. But uguu, she has giant breasts. I don’t think I need to explain why that’s important. Also, her loyalty to her troops. ‘Cause people don’t give a shit that she orders her troops to rape and murder entire villages. They just want to know whether or not they’ll be rewarded for being pathetically slavish. That’s what people think love is. Just become a devoted loser, and by golly, you should reward me with sex. Most of all, Esdeath is in love with blandness. And because she’s in love with blandness, there’s… there’s a small chance she might be in love with me! That’s all there is to her character. People trying to psychoanalyze Esdeath and shit, it’s fucking hilarious.

Anyway, the episode ends with Tatsumi unluckily running into Esdeath. Oh gosh, what will happen to him next? She’s so overpowered, she could probably knock him out with a single flick of her finger. But I can’t wait to see what bullshit Akame ga Kill! will pull out of its ass next week! Nah, I’m just kidding. I don’t care. Why should I? It doesn’t seem like the anime cares either. Most two-cour shows have the courtesy to end their first cour on a high note. Instead, look what Akame ga Kill! has given us. Great stuff, huh?