Review of Black Cat: Volume 1

Introduction

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 chivalric 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 working 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 since then he has been a cold-blooded killer on their payroll. He brings bad luck to his victims, something that has given him the moniker of the Black Cat. After an initial, inconclusive encounter, the two cross swords when Sven is hired to rescue the kidnapped sister of one Rinslet Walker, the same girl that Train is ordered to kill.

The first four episodes of this 24 episode series from Gonzo are presented by MVM on volume 1, The Cat Out Of The Bag.

1. The Solitary Cat
The state of his finances persuades Sven Vollfied to take on a seemingly impossible job. A town has just elected a mob boss as their governor, and the robes of office give him a certain immunity. Still, that won`t stop Sven from taking him in. But when he gets into the inaugural dinner, circumstances transpire so that he foretells the governor`s death at the hands of an assassin. Sven has 5 minutes to save his life, and the lucrative bounty, but he`s going up against the Black Cat, an assassin that always gets his victim.

2. The Hesitant Cat
A rooftop encounter allows Train to form a connection to an enigmatic sweeper. But it looks like it will be a short friendship when she takes on the bounty of a serial killer with a strange power. At the same time, a busty blonde in distress named Elena turns up at Sven`s workplace (local bar) looking for help in rescuing her sister Eve from an evil kidnapper. It`s only that Train`s next target is the very same girl.

3. The Cat In The Dark
Don`t you hate it when your clients lie to you? Elena turns out to be a purple-haired master thief named Rinslet Walker, Eve is a bio-engineered nano-weapon, and the kidnapper turns out to be a notorious arms dealer with his own private army. Even the Black Cat will have problems with this mission.

4. The Grinning Cat
It will take all their talents to get to Eve and they will have to work together. Train`s unique talents will be indispensable, but can he be trusted not to complete his mission? For Sven has gotten to know Eve, and rather than just a ruthless killing machine, he`s become friends with an innocent and naïve young girl with no knowledge of the outside world.

Video

Black Cat gets a rather uncomplimentary 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer. The picture seems clear and well defined at first glance, and Gonzo`s usual action eye candy comes across with only the barest of compression. However it soon becomes apparent that there is a problem with the image. Throughout the playback, there are faint vertical lines marring the image. It`s similar to digital banding, but constant throughout, like chunky pixellation. It`s more apparent in darker scenes, but is always present to some degree. It`s like looking through a wire mesh. I`d say it was some sort of compression artefact, but its consistent presence points to a more basic problem with the transfer.

The animation itself is up to Gonzo`s usual dynamic standards, but I found the characters as a little too basic and unmemorable. The more sedate moments in the animation also fell short of the action sequences.

Audio

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.

Features

Just the bare minimum here, with trailers for Basilisk and Trinity Blood, as well as the textless credit sequences.

Speaking of credits, in the show itself, you`ll only find the original Japanese credits, so if you want to know about the English and Japanese casts, you`ll have to make use of IMDB, or even better, Anime News Network.

Conclusion

I hate titles like this. Bad shows I can happily slate, good titles I can gush about for paragraphs, but Black Cat is strictly average. It has a paucity of obvious flaws, and an absence of positive attributes; it`s strictly middle of the road and impossible to find an opinion about. It`s a nice little action show, filled with the sort of characters and stories that you think that you`ve seen before, but will be hard pressed to actually pin down exactly where. Yet it`s hardly memorable. Typing up the episode summaries the following morning, I found it difficult to recall what had actually happened. It does provide 90 minutes of entertainment, and if all you want from your anime is a chance to forget your cares and lose yourself in a fleeting action show, this will fit the bill.

It really shouldn`t be taken seriously, with the occasionally dark moment suddenly leavened with a bit of character goofiness. The characters are also quite stereotypical, with Sven a sort of Vash-lite, an amiable buffoon with a strong core of inner steel. Train is dark and moody, likes sulking on rooftops with passing cats, and his life is informed by a tragic past. Rinslet Walker is the perky female character that will keep the protagonists on their toes. Eve is the lost child who everyone will feel sorry for, and come to adore as she develops in her cuteness. Chronos proves a mystifying monolith of an organisation that is bound to play an ominous part in future episodes, and there are plenty of mysterious characters popping in and out of the story who will come to mean something eventually, but right now just feel like random cameos.

The story is progressing well enough at this point, albeit a random mix of daftness and shadowy drama. The characters are likeable enough, even if they fail to stand out, and I can even forgive the more ridiculous aspects of the show. Sven`s Swiss Army Knife of a briefcase is a case in point. Black Cat is fun but forgettable, and it will do to pass the idle minutes away. The transfer needs to be better however.