Review of Gangsta.

"As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a Gangster." - Henry Hill (Goodfellas) When Gangsta first rolled up onto the scene in its '64 Impala, I thought to myself- wow, this show is going to be great. It wowed us with some cool characters who weren't schoolkids, a gritty underworld type setting, and some ultraviolence not seen in a long time. Surely, this show had the makings of being the new Black Lagoon- an anime held in high esteem by many viewers for its portrayal of a true crime drama and high action blockbuster feel. Well, let's find out. Artworkand Animation: 6

Gangsta is Manglobe's long awaited return to prominence after a run of relative quietness, and they're back with a bang. At times, Gangsta looks absolutely fantastic, with some awesome cityscape drops and dirty, grungy looking streets full of seedy activity. The city of Ergastulum really feels like a haven for criminal activity- and the subdued color mood of the show, lots of greys and browns lend to this atmosphere. The character designs are quite nice as well, no ridiculous spider people like in Code Geass, nor any stupidly disproportionate females. In other words, they manage to make people look like people without breaking the laws of physics.

The other side of the coin is that at times it feels really low budget. Certain areas are reused fairly often, and the character detail level is inconsistent throughout, but overall good.

Sound and Voice Acting: 9

Enter the first anime character I've ever seen with a disability that affects their communication with others. I have to hand it to Kenjirou Tsuda and Brandon Potter for the portrayal of the deaf Nicolas Brown. Ian Sinclair's performance is also top notch with the suave, smooth talking Worick. The rest of the characters are voiced appropriately- crooked cops, menacing sounding thugs, gangsters, and other criminals.

Characters: 8

Gangsta definitely puts two interesting characters in the driver's seat- Nick and Worick. Nick, as mentioned above- is deaf. He communicates mostly with his fists, but also sign language in some more tender moments. We're shown that he actually can speak, but he's been deaf for so long that it's affected his speech, leading to this very slurred manner of speaking. Nick's fighting skills are nearly unparalleled in the city of Ergastulum, and as a member of a group known as "(dog)tags" or "twilights", he's a very respected fighter among them.

Worick, on the other hand, is much more of the cool man, and much more thoughtful and less impulsive than Nick, making them excellent partners. Worick handles the business deals of their illicit activities and keeps up appearances with mafia bosses and persons of influence- all while making a few bucks on the side with some bedside business. He also keeps Nick in check when tensions run high, and others get higher.

One issue that I do have with Gangsta regarding characters though is the introduction of lots of new characters right before the ending of the show. Over the course of 12 episodes, it had picked up a lot as it were, with multiple crime families, factions, and other random people, but the ending is just silly with new characters that I don't have time to care about, let alone know their names.

Story: 5

Gangsta started off as a gritty tale of a pair of criminals who would do dirty jobs that even the crooked cops wouldn't touch. Doing jobs for friends, mafia bosses for that almighty petty cash, anything goes in the underworld. Murder, sex, drugs, alcohol, prostitution, It's all there. We really get a feel for how seedy this city is- glorifying violence and just how much money really talks. Where it started strong, giving us a very detailed background on the city and how each other players in it came to be, once again, approaching the end it all started coming unraveled. Take Black Lagoon, for example. It manages to introduce multiple mafia factions and bosses, interesting/nasty arc-based villains, a lot of side characters, and kept them relevant to the plot throughout the entire show. Everything was tied back to these characters who managed to survive.

In Gangsta, there are a ton of loose ends left just because they tried to shove so many different characters in to make the story stretch out just a little further. When a show gets so convoluted that I lose track of who was with what group and what was happening- then you have a problem. I take shows like Serial Experiments Lain and Ergo Proxy as examples here: they're intentionally made to be complex and intricate.
Gangsta gets needlessly complicated at the end, for no real reason. As the great Mr Plinkett once said: "You're not making "The Usual Suspects" here, so keep it nice and simple!" With a lot of good violence and characterization with characters we already had, there was no need to cram 10 more in there behind them for some semblance of depth.

Even after the ending, I still don't remember which of the myriad of characters were associated with what faction and trying to defend this or that, or who were important twilights, or what their ranks were or if any of that even mattered!

I don't see why it couldn't have just stayed a core group of individuals involved in an arc based, or even one single cohesive conflict. Instead, we get an anime that has no story direction. I don't know what the conflict in Gangsta really was, because violence against Twilights was always there. It didn't just start in the course of the show.

The final strike against the story, though is that nothing is resolved at the end. It loses a lot of focus around episode 10, and ends in a very unraveled set of threads. I don't know if it's a setup for a second season that's not been greenlit, but it's got a total non ending. Not even an open ending, just a non.

Enjoyment: 6

As I said above, Gangsta started out very strongly, and I was really into it. I liked the action, how it didn't pull any punches with ultraviolence, and that it was gritty and unapologetic. I still like that about the show. However, what was a bit offputting to me was the inclusion of superpowers. In a gang based crime drama set on the mean streets of anywhere USA (or Japan, whatever) you generally (read never) have superpowers factor into the equation. The fact that characters in this show could take drugs and then turn into a super hero with Spiderman-like jumping, strength, and sensing abilities, and incredible, greater than human reflexes, it kind of killed suspense in several parts of the show. Then came the Tokyo Ghoul style one-upping of each character's power. "Oh this guy's a rank SuperUltraMetaOverkill?" "Well, this chick is a HyperUberMonsterBoss class!" and it just went on and on from there... totally ruining their hierarchy/scale of skill and abilities.

There's a lot to like about Gangsta though- it's a very serious show with no fanservice, no horrifiyingly bad dialogue, and a good basis for a tale, it's just a shame that it kind of wraps its 64' Impala around a telephone pole at the end. Oh well, like Eazy said- just say "oh brotha. Throw it in the gutta, and go buy another."

tl;dr

+ Good characters and a very cool setting
+ Good action and visual effects

+/- Pacing is iffy, and side characters appear once and sometimes never again, leaving a lot of side stories unfinished

- Non ending, show gets derailed and unfocused starting about episode 10

Recommend?

Yes, definitely a standout of the summer 2015 season, but not great enough to be a new Black Lagoon.

"Damn it feels good to be a gangsta" - Geto Boys