Black Cat: Volume 6

Introduction

Anime review discs come in batches. There's no steady drip feed of this particular stimulant, instead we get an intense rush about once a month, and then a drought filled with withdrawal symptoms until the next batch arrives. But, how to watch them? I used to be a great procrastinator, always putting off the un-pleasantries until the final moment; after all it worked for my GCSE revision. But long experience since then has taught me not to let the crap pile up, or else the only way to clear it will be by paying through the nose for a plumber. Nowadays, I leave the best till last, and get the dross out of the way first. In this current batch it has meant Gravitation first (for which I am completely the wrong demographic), and Black Cat second, a series that has so underwhelmed me that I've been in danger of being sucked into an abyss of crapitude. But… I actually enjoyed the second volume of Gravitation more than I expected, while I'm initially buoyed by the fact that this is the final volume of Black Cat. No matter what happens, there won't be any more to endure. But what if Black Cat pulls a rabbit out of its climactic hat? What if this volume is actually good? I hear they do wonders with genetic engineering nowadays; maybe pigs will fly…

What happens when the world of the sweeper and the world of the eraser collide? It's not as you would expect, a sanitation accident in a stationery shop. In this case, a Sweeper is slang for a Bounty Hunter, while Eraser is a euphemism for an assassin. When one is paid to kill, and the other paid to bring back alive, then it isn't a profitable venture to go after the same target, but this is exactly what happens in Black Cat. The sweeper in question is Sven Vollfied, a hard on his luck bounty hunter who despite going after all the big cases has a hard time keeping his stomach filled, partly due to a strong chivalrous streak that keeps him on the lookout for any damsel in distress. But he has a curious ace in the hole, a vision eye that he normally keeps hidden, but allows him to see five minutes into the future, albeit at great physical cost. The eraser is Train Heartnet, a ruthless assassin who worked for the mysterious Chronos Foundation. He survived the murder of his family to take bloody revenge, something that caught the eye of his employers, and until recently he has been a cold-blooded killer on their payroll. Now he's quit Chronos and joined forces with Sven as well as Eve, the bioweapon he was initially ordered to destroy, to go into business together as a sweeper team.



With these four episodes presented on Volume 6 of Black Cat - Cat's Nine Lives, they think it's all over… it isn't, as from the ashes of Creed Diskenth's Taoist group and a traitorous majority of the Chronos Numbers, a new group arises, the Zero Numbers, and they have a plan for world domination that will kick Train and Sven right where it hurts most.

21. The Lost Cat
It's over, the battle against the Apostles is won, the winners are celebrating and it's time to relax and bask in victory. Except Rinslett is back to work being sneaky, and this time she's hacked into some mysterious files that relate to something called the Eden Project (no, not the one in Cornwall), and its treacherous demise that left its founder, one Dr Tearja Lunatique an amnesiac in hospital. Meanwhile Sephiria is having to face being betrayed by the rest of the Chronos Numbers, who have teamed up with the survivors of Creed Diskenth's Apostles and are putting into motion a new plan. At the same Eve is feeling out of sorts, and when Sven suggests she settles down, starts school, and tries to live a normal life, she runs off in a sulk. Which is when she bumps into the Doctor (formerly of the Apostles). He's more familiar with Eve than anyone knew, and knows how to control her. Soon Eve is pitted against her former friends.



22. The Cat Bares Claws
While Sven heals, Train goes looking for help to rescue Eve. But help is coming. Rinslett has liberated Dr Lunatique from hospital, and she bares a more than coincidental resemblance to Eve. She tells them the truth about Eve, who was never a bioweapon. She was a tool created to bring about ultimate peace on Earth through nanotechnology. The plan is to have her enter 'Paradise', where Adam awaits. She is the key to the Eden Project, and when that key is turned, the skies will darken, and nanomachines will rain down from the sky, converting all of humanity into one peaceful entity under her control. As the rescuers gather, they may already be too late.

23. The Cat's Paradise
The giant wasp thing that is Eden continues from city to city, raining nanomachines down on humanity and absorbing them into its utopia. And at the heart of it all is Eve, bio-engineered exactly for that purpose. But despite the best efforts of Adam, Eve's memories of the real world are returning, which is just the opportunity that the rescuers led by Sven and Train need. Now all they have to do is to distract it from its purpose long enough to get on board and rescue Eve, before Eden becomes immortal and omnipotent. It's time for Train to lead a full frontal assault.

24. The Carefree Cat
With the fate of the world in the balance, we rush inexorably towards the conclusion. Will Eve be rescued, will Train and Sven survive their foolhardy attack, will the forces of evil be defeated by the forces of good? What do you think?

Picture

The 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer is typical for Gonzo productions, clear and sharp enough once you get used to the bright and hazy look that mixes 2D and CG elements. The animation itself is up to Gonzo's usual dynamic standards, but I found the character designs a little too basic and unmemorable. Even five volumes in, I'm having trouble placing the main characters, let alone the supporting cast. The more sedate moments in the animation also fell short of the usual impressive action sequences.

Sound

You have a choice of DD 2.0 Japanese and DD 5.1 English with optional translated subtitles or signs. There is a nice bit of separation in the stereo track, indeed there is little to separate it from the 5.1 track, which is very front-focused. The dialogue is clear in both versions, and the English dub is one of the good ones. The theme tune has grown on me, and is well worth a (legal) download.

Extras

The basic textless credit sequences, and trailers for Black Lagoon and Basilisk are all that are on this disc.

Conclusion

[Ferris]What are you still doing here? It's over! Go home! [/Ferris]

Oh, I get it, you want to know if Black Cat pulled off a last minute miracle that not only made this final volume the greatest anime ever made, but also rendered what had previously seemed like 5 painfully average volumes of episodes, meaningful and profound through clever cross-referencing and devastating revelations. Well it didn't happen, and honestly I wasn't expecting it to. On the other hand I was expecting the show to continue its decline and just vanish into the mediocrity it constantly threatened us with, but instead we get a conclusion that is actually relevant to what passes for an overreaching storyline that focuses on the main characters, and also has a smidgen of emotional strength. I was almost hooked for the runtime of the disc. Almost, but not quite.



Black Cat is a Gonzo sci-fi action show, a genre that they can pull off in their sleep, and quite often do. It's production line anime, with just the optional extras differentiating the various series. You could interchange plots, villains, storylines and effects and get different permutations of what is essentially the same show. Of late, Gonzo really has been going through the motions, and shows like this, Trinity Blood and Blassreiter are so depressingly identikit that I feel like doing the same thing with my reviews, going back to some old reviews, cutting and pasting different paragraphs together and just hoping for the best. Trinity Blood has been the biggest disappointment to me so far, simply because it promised so much, yet at the final hurdle delivered a turd of mountainous proportions. Black Cat sneaks by because it simply doesn't promise a thing. It revels in its mundanity, its sheer derivative nature, and keeps on its merry way to the end. There simply aren't any hopes to dash.



This final volume pulls a leaf from Kiddy Grade's book by slapping on an almighty plot twist (that of Chronos and Apostles joining forces), and introducing a nemesis and doomsday weapon that no one had heard of before that point. From that point, every single good guy character encountered in the anime thus far, as well as some previously thought of as villains (they left Creed Diskenth alive for a reason you know), all join forces in a battle to end all battles. Gonzo whip out the eye-candy in such quantities that you'll have to see your eye-dentist to get your eyeteeth pulled. Explosions and massive orbiting weapons abound, the energy of the nano-enteched victims fuels imaginative demonic creatures to defend Eden, and you'll be hard pressed to make out what's going on. It doesn't really matter of course, as long as the good guys win and the bad guys get what for. Throw in a couple of biblical references to make the omens more ominous, and you're on to a bubblegum winner.

Except where Black Cat finally clawed back my attention was that the finale actually took us back to the overreaching story. If you can remember all those millennia ago when the series started, one of the earliest stories, back when it still threatened to be a Grade A show, was the liberation of Eve, the bioweapon, the confrontation that pitted Sven and Rinslett against Train, and eventually led to Train leaving Chronos. Eve was a mystery, a genetically engineered weapon, whose purpose was unknown. The four episodes in this volume at last answer that question, and at least give the main story some sense of closure. I have to admit that I was avidly watching a volume of Black Cat for the first time in nearly half a year. That's until the final episode though, as once again Gonzo opt for the clichéd conclusion. With the character overload in the climax of the battle, several confrontations are set up, but we only get to see what happens with Eve, Sven and Train. Quite rightly so, of course, but still, all the rest is just wasted effort. The character overload adds to the confusion of the finale, as we simply must know what happens to everyone, so we get a couple of seconds of idyllic peace for each character as their storyline is perfunctorily wrapped up, and there is simply none of the satisfaction of seeing a properly resolved narrative.



Black Cat would have been a whole lot stronger if they had ditched 90% of the cast, all of the random story diversions, including the Apostles of the Stars damp squib, Train's darkness should have taken longer to work through, and Saya should have been kept alive longer to help him work through it. That was the most promising of the relationships that this show explored. The story would have remained focused on the mystery that is Eve, and it would have flowed quite naturally from her liberation to the conclusion that we get in this disc. Instead we got Black Cat as made by Toad of Toad Hall, a couple of weeks of enthusiasm on one aspect of the story, then a sudden distraction by something new and shiny, and whoosh! Off on a tangent...

Black Cat was a fun but forgettable show, the sort of thing that you want to watch when you haven't the effort to think, and… Oooh look at the pretty lights… Poop Poop!