Akame ga Kill! Episode #23 Anime Review

“Akame ga Kill” Episode 23

Wait, I thought the “nobody is safe” clause had this exception.

What They Say:
Under the rule of a tyrannical empire, Tatsumi, a young swordsman, leaves his home to save his poverty stricken village. He meets a girl named Akame, an assassin who was bought, brainwashed and trained to kill by the Empire. Akame is a member of the secret assassin group called “Night Raid” who use special weapons called Teigu. Together, Tatsumi and the members of Night Raid confront the corrupt empire.

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
There are only a few members of each main team left, and it works pretty well to pair them off and have that typical kind of shounen battle formula play out. But it’s the penultimate episode, and this show clearly wants to wrap up its story in these final two much more quickly than its source material intended. That means that the standard Night Raid vs. Jaegers matchups are quickly pushed aside as the battle goes straight to the top, pitting our heroes against the puppet emperor who actually ends up being the one to fight rather than his puppet master of a minister.

The usual manipulation tactics are in full effect here, with our young emperor struggling to convince himself that he’s doing the right thing despite Tatsumi showing him the evil of his actions right before their eyes. With each Imperial Arms essentially representing a power and/or weapon that’s as anime as possible, it’s really only appropriate that the greatest of all is a giant mecha, and that it can only be stopped by some combination of smaller mecha and slightly tokusatsu-esque power suits. Also appropriate given some recent musings of the surviving Jaegers is that the need to protect what’s truly important requires the mortal enemies of the series to fight side-by-side against the out-of-control emperor as he unwittingly mows down his people more directly than his minister-influenced decisions have been doing all along. While some of the actions in this final stretch may seem a little out-of-character, being written by different people, it makes perfect sense that Tatsumi’s own mirror in Wave would find whatever excuse he could to work on the side of good after seeing just how horrible his own side really is.

As Kōji Ishii (eternally Garterbelt in my mind) bellows on in a way that goes so big it feels more right than most of the over-the-top moments in this show, the battle unfolds at his whim on a scale fitting to both the stake of the battle and his own maddening ego. It’s perhaps some of White Fox’s finest work on the series, with beautifully detailed artwork adorning so much of the constant motion, delivering on both the inertia of the action and the expressive passion of the characters in the middle of it. When it reaches a climax, you feel it, and it almost makes you think it could go down the road it often does if not for the character involved.

Except it does go down that road, or at least it presents that as the case before leaving the rest for the finale. To avoid spoilers for both I’ll only say that the first season of another series did the same thing when it ended less than a cour ago, and it surprises me equally in both cases. At least for this we’ll know everything the anime has in store for us in just more week, barring any surprise announcement for a second season that wouldn’t make sense given this rush for a conclusion.

In Summary:
There’s one more episode of this anime, but this one ends on a note that manages to surprise even in a series that has implied nothing is off-limits. Everything is a bit too abrupt as a result of wrapping up before the story’s proper end, but the action is as intense and gripping as desired.

Grade: B+

Streamed By: Crunchyroll

Review Equipment:
Custom-Built PC, 27” 1080p HDTV.