'No Guns Life' Episode 2

We pick things up directly following the events of the first episode where Juuzou is in the middle of saving the boy that had run away from the testing facility. We get a fantastic display of just how powerful of a character he actually is when he gets serious, as in this episode, he is able to derail a train traveling at full speed by punching it. After a brief battle, he was able to save the boy and take him away just as he had promised to do. Juuzou takes the boy to a mechanic/surgeon to have him fixed up while he goes out to find his favourite brand of cigarettes. Juuzou is then approached by the corporation that worked on developing the tech that is on the boy that he saved, and their method of blackmail was to steal all of his favourite brand of cigarettes from the city.

Something that I just realized when writing this piece is just how much the central trio of this show reminds me of the trio in Fullmetal Alchemist in many ways. We have the large armoured one, the smaller overpowered one, and the girl that is always fixing them up after a fight. The only difference is the fact that the boy here has black hair and not blond hair. Despite that, this looks like an intriguing group to follow. The dynamic between Juuzou and Mary is fun in its own right. I am curious to see how the addition of Tetsurou would change this dynamic. From these two episodes, it is quite obvious that they are all very different character from each other, while also being incredibly similar in many ways. They all pretend as if they do not care at all, however they always go out of their way to help others when they can. At least, this is the case with Juuzou and Mary.

What is great to see is that there is some great world-building taking place, such as the fact that Juuzou smokes, not as a habit, but as a need so that he is able to keep his body under his control. This is something many like him need to do. There is a lot of talk about the great war that took place that brought the world to the state that it is in now, and there are allusions to different factions within this world. However, the manner in which all of this is conveyed is through, at times, some very forced exposition dumps from other characters. While at times the characters do call this out by acknowledging the fact that the other is talking about things that they already know, it is still eye-rolling at times. I hope that this is something that happens in the opening of the series so that all the locations, players, history, and the like is established before we get on with the story, rather than a recurring theme that comes about in the remainder of the show.

Compared to the previous episode, this one seems to be a step down when it comes to the animation side of things, in a very odd way. Yet, at the same time, it is effective. To elaborate, in the first episode, there was a lot of activity from the people that live in the city, the streets were packed, and there was a sense of claustrophobia as a result of the buildings being so tightly packed together. This time around, the city is used in a different way. There were no background characters roaming the city at all, despite a majority of the episode taking place in a supposed immigrant sector. That being said, it is interesting how they used framing to show the state that Juuzou is in. We start with an open area where there is a fair amount of negative space, however as the episode carries on and the threat of the corporation draws closer to draw him into a trap, the framing gets tighter and tighter, 'til even the buildings seem to be moving in on him. This lack of people really goes to show how cramped this area is while also serving as a great way of showing that he is being lured into a trap.