Review of The Severing Crime Edge

Blood, gore, violence. Did any of these words attribute to what you read the synopsis or upon first glance of the accompanying image? Well this is what the anime is truly about, not some oversimplified plot where a guy with a hair-cutting fetish protects a girl who has long uncuttable hair. That's just the pretence set by the first episode, and due to this pretence it shatters the actual story of the anime; a murderous life-threatening game of protector vs protectorates or the so-called Gossip. Story. If you watched the first episode, it doesn't do ANY justice to this anime whatsoever. The story is not aboutsome maniac who wants to cut hair to the point where the stupidly ignores reality. No, this story is about how ordinary people who learn about their criminal ancestors get thrown into a game of life-and-death, and the consequences stemming from each decision. But also, it is a story of Romance. Romance is portrayed quite readily throughout the anime, as a soothing position between the violence. The romantic link between the two main characters, strengthens the story's credibility, meaning that the boy with the hair-fetish, isn't protecting a girl out of simple interest of cutting hair, no that's just not credible. Although I'm making a few round-a-bout points, the simple statement is thus. The story is not about what the first episode implies, it's much more than that. And it's so refreshing to see that the main character isn't some push-over chump who gets beaten to a pulp by every villian he encounters; he's actually quite a 'badass.' So for those of you who want to watch a gore anime filled with violence, romance, and fantasy. I invite you to watch this anime.

Moving on, the Art in this anime is quite buoyant (cute) in that it seems much more 'kinder' and attempts to reconcile it's very dark themes with a familiarity of simpletonism (gullibility that the world is kind). In that it tries to warm the audience to the very troubling, gore scenes of the anime that nobody would've guessed would become due to the very contradictory first episode. I think this is a small mistake, but in all honesty, it doesn't detract much from the anime much. For example, the main character, who is probably the most 'evil' person in the anime, doesn't appear evil in fact he seems like a wimp more than a brute. But that's just a minor detail.

Sound is quite well done in the anime, there are times where I felt my heart skip a beat due the circumstances of the situation, and then I realised, it was the music. The ending and opening seem to be quite well done, but it was quite confusing, for the same reason as above, it seems so melodramatic for seemingly for reason, but made perfect sense as the anime progressed.

Kiri-kun, the main character. I liked the fact that he was such a strong protagonist as he started off, but in all honesty, it made no sense why he was so powerful the moment he started fighting, though the anime explains it in terms of 'killing goods' and bloodlust and etc. It didn't all mesh together quite nicely. But it did explain 'kind of' how Kiri was so strong as he started fighting the 'authors' after his precious queen. The characterisation seems to quite strange, in that he was able to so easily move from normal life to killing and bloodshed with no conscience and then ironically in the final episode states that authors have "no sense of life and death." It pricked my sides a bit in that regard, but just another minor detail. On a side note, the narrator at times seems to be quite worthless, and side characters in the anime seem to be almost ephemeral, you only ever see them once. The characterisation of the 'hair queen' seems to be almost impossible, how could a girl who has never had outside contact with the rest of the world, magically blend in to society within hours? And then go on to having a boyfriend, and becoming a popular girl a school. Very incredible. But she was no doubt crucial to the story, I believe the author wanted to show that she was re-integrating into society, but at such a fast rate seems to be impossible. While it did try and show her struggling at times, it didn't seem to be any difficult hurdle; in that it was passed almost instantaneously. Lastly though, Kiri-kun simply becomes another overpowered character such as ichigo in Bleach, while it's awesome to see strong characters, allowing them to actually have wit in fighting situations or overcome difficult fights without giving another power would be much more interesting. So characterisation is very poorly done.

Enjoyment, I loved the anime, though I can see its innumerable flaws. It has many, many mistakes which detracted the feel of the anime, and for some scenes it seems like it was entirely useless in explaining the anime's story or revealing the past. So I can say that I really enjoyed the anime, its story, and the romance and to a lesser extent its characters.

So the verdict. Due to the impossible characterisation of the characters, as well as the purposeless art details, I would give the anime a 5. But the anime has quite a good story, it had great depth, and had a thorough explanation of everything that occurred in the anime, as in it explained the enemies' powers, whom they got it from, etc. It had great detail and put great effort into putting detail into its story and overall the anime is a 8.

If you've read this far, as always, thanks you for reading!