Furu Anime Panikku

As much as I’m in love with the series, I can’t help but frankly admit that episode 4 was the most boring episode as of yet. While the past 3 episodes have been decently on par, if not slightly more interesting than the original manga, this episode was sub-par.

To begin, the action only consisted in the shooting of guns and some scuffling around. This means that hacking was totally absent in this episode. I mentioned before that the main motivation for me to watch this was the hacking. The hacking scenes are precisely why Bloody Monday is one of a kind. If I just wanted fights, guns and mind games, I would just go watch movies such as Infernal Affairs instead.

The first 2 episodes did depict those hacking scenes better than I had expected. In fact, they were much better than those in the manga, since you could recognise familiar stuff such as the shell in Linux, and even some programming too. Even if all that hacking was just a glorified buff, it surpasses the manga in a sense, since it doesn’t even display codes running on Fujimaru’s screen during his cyber infiltration.

The plot covered in this episode wasn’t great either. Although it’s a fact that Fujimaru was whiny and helpless after the tables turned on him, and Maya escaped, it seems that the live action Fujimaru played his role as a little too well, and his whining got a little irritating.

Someone set us up the bomb!

Nothing interesting really happened, except that Kirishima’s fiancée has now been infected with the virus due to the bomb Houshou set up in Third-I’s basement and will soon die. Besides that, the rest of the episode was pretty much just yakking away, and it finally concluded with Houshou’s death and Fujimaru’s kidnap. Maybe my tolerance level for this episode would have been higher if I didn’t have a freshly installed Red Alert 3 just one click away.

Also, some things left me with question marks. I’ve not the slightest idea how Fujimaru and the male agent survived. Although they didn’t seem like the bullets ate their heads, they were just left as they were, without being checked for the certainty of their deaths. If I was a spy who has been exposed, I would ensure the death of the parties who exposed my true identity, in order to continue hiding the truth from the rest’s knowledge. This means double and triple checking after I’ve killed my target.

*Edit: I just read volume 5 of the manga on the train to school, and everything was cleared up, such as why the two of them didn’t die. The bullets were shock bullets that functioned like stun guns. However, something  I didn’t like was how they swapped the role of the characters when they could have just stuck with the original roles.

If the hostage was the Asada from the manga, Houshou’s ass would have been kicked

The next episode seems like it’ll pick up the standard of the show, since Fujimaru will be meeting J, the leader of the terrorists, who happens to be a brainy mathematician as well. Well, it better not disappoint me any further. I desire for more hacking and mental battles.