#you’re telling me this Japanese man was removed from his elite law enforcement position because of his relation to a yakuza officer

[unmarkedhelicopter]

it’s so insane and funny how yakuza 3 becomes a metal gear game halfway though. daigo was shot by the cia

[thatawkwardnerdytomboy]

My Review of Neo Yokio (Spoilers!) Episode 1.

So, I first learned about Neo Yokio via Facebook. My friends were posting about this and when I saw the trailer, I thought “Ah, this looks really kind of cool. The protagonist is black, Jaden Smith is voicing the character and I really liked his character on The Get Down so I’m definitely going to check this out.” Then I started hearing about all the negative reviews and I reserved judgement simply for that fact that I wanted to see it for myself. When I finally saw the show, however, I was more than disappointed...after the first episode. I’ve seen all 6 episodes already and I don’t know what to think about it other than it not being good. So, for those who haven’t seen the show, I’m going to torture myself and review this show episode by episode. I’m going to break everything down from the animation to the dialogue to the plot and then summarize all of my thoughts with a final review. So this is my review for episode 1. 

Episode 1.

So in the series’ intro, we are introduced to what exactly New York, I mean -clears throat- “Neo Yokio” is. It’s basically New York but the name is mixed with Tokyo which is strange and makes no sense to me because we don’t get any references to Japan or Japanese culture in the city whatsoever other than the fact that this show is supposed to be an anime. It seems as though they were trying to reference San Fransokyo from Big Hero 6. However, we actually see Japanese architecture, culture and people in this well-integrated city. In Neo Yokio, we don’t. A very disappointing missed opportunity. We next learn that Neo Yokio is constantly under attack from demonic entities because of the city’s prestige. This is reminiscent of 9/11 and the various attempted and successful terrorist attacks on NYC and it makes sense to me that evil entities would want to seek to cripple and destroy NYC’s power seeing as how we’re one of the largest financial and social epicenters on Earth. We’re told that to combat these demons, the mayor who looks suspiciously like FDR, invited a class of exorcists to become citizens of Neo Yokio so that they could fight off these threats and that because of their growing status in the city, they became part of the elite in the city which I also thinks makes sense. It also reminds me a bit of Pacific Rim where the jaeger pilots became famous heroes for their victories against the kaiju. 

So we are introduced to the main character, Kaz (after getting an unnecessary butt/crotch shot of one of the girls playing tennis) on a tennis court. The first thing we learn about him is that he has recently broke up with his girlfriend Kathy when his mecha butler, Charles returns his watch to him that is engraved with her name. Kaz then throws this very expensive watch onto the street to be run over. I guess removing the engraved words and pawning it were out of the question? We then meet his friends, Lexy and Gottlieb whose jarring use of slang reminds me of The Boondocks. Except that it doesn’t seem to fit with the tone of this show so far, or at least, not to me. Although Kaz has prior commitments like his field hockey game, he asks Charles to cancel his appointments, tells his friends that he’s dropping out of their field hockey tournament and sulks over the end of his relationship by spewing a bunch of poetic nonsense about death and feeling like going through the daily motions of life are like navigating through a maze. Like, jeez, I know that break-ups are depressing but it sounds like the writers were trying to force his depression on us without really showing that he’s depressed.

We then find out as Kaz leaves with Charles (it’s so suspicious that he flies on Charles the way that Hiro flies on Beymax when we already have the San Fransokyo reference, like they’re intentionally trying to rip off Big Hero 6) that there is a board in Times Square that ranks the city’s most eligible bachelors and although Kaz claims not to care about it, he’s disappointed to find out that he’s second to his rival who is number 1. He goes to meet up with his Aunt Agatha who reminds him that he has work to do fighting to protect the city and that he’s been wasting his time with frivolous matters. Kaz laments again about how depressed he is over his girlfriend to which Aunt Agatha replies that it wouldn’t have worked out because all people like her will see in their family is that they are “neo riche” rat catchers despite the prestige and elegance they have achieved in society. She tells him that Helena St. Tessaro, one of the city’s top fashion bloggers has been possessed which for some odd reason, is good news. Kaz, still sulking refuses until she yells at him that he has no choice and that he’ll lose his extravagant lifestyle if he doesn’t do this job. 

Kaz goes shopping for a new suit...to go perform an exorcism...and he shops by touching the suits rather than seeing them. Charles’ positive reaction to this makes me wonder how in the world they got Jude Law to voice this character. We meet Kaz’s rival, Archangelo who after a bunch of classist insults gets himself blasted through a bunch of walls with Kaz’s exorcist powers. Oh, and he’s completely unscathed after this! He destroys a bunch of changing rooms in the process. Does he eventually pay for that? Is he not going to apologize to the salesclerk? Also, I’m assuming that security and law enforcement are going to turn a blind eye to this because Kaz is rich and powerful. After having done this, he claims that performing the exorcism on Helena would be easy. 

Kaz and Charles venture to the scene of the exorcism, 14th street which, for some odd reason is underwater. Is it because of climate change? The two enter the house where they meet Helena’s fans and are told by Helena’s parents that after being offered a Chanel suit, she became possessed. Kaz walks into her room and sees her floating in a ball. He tries talking to her, complimenting her on the suit, casually reminding her about how they may or may not have had sex at another rich kid’s party and when she doesn’t respond to his “charms,” he tried touching her suit which results in him being electrocuted. He gives up after this, so easily. What the hell? Just after he was boasting about how easy it was going to be to exorcize this girl. Not surprised they pulled this cliche. Her parents kick him out of the house. Kaz sulks again. Charles informs him that this failure has taken on a toll on his ranking. How the hell does this ranking system work anyway? How did whomever is in charge of changing this ranking find out so quickly that his attempt to help Helena failed? Did Helena’s fans tweet about it or something? Did her family complain to someone about this? Also, who the hell cares about his stupid ranking? What about Helena? Sounds like this episode is trying to say that if you’re wealthy and famous, it does’t matter if you do your job well, it’s your status that matters. 

After that event, Charles offers Kaz a giant Toblerone (the first of the ever famous Toblerone references) but Kaz declines and asks to go visit the grave...his grave. Yeah, that’s right, this kid is so narcissistic that he created his own grave to go visit whenever he has a problem, apparently. Besides his break-up with his girlfriend and his worries about being considered neo-riche, what could possibly be going on in Kaz’s life that’s so bad that he has to resort to mourning his own metaphorical death in order to cope with it? I also notice that his gravestone says that he was born in 1997. So this isn’t the future? It’s the accelerated present (like with Real Steal)? Also, this means he’s 20? I’m so confused about what time period this is supposed to be. Then to add to his pretentious attitude, he tells an old man who’s spraying his wife’s favorite perfume onto her grave that he should spray a more youthful perfume onto her grave instead. When the old man insists that his wife loved the perfume that he’s using, Kaz arrogantly condescends to the man that the elderly don’t understand anything about style and that the girls of his generation would never use that perfume. Now Kaz is being a straight-up asshole and I’ve decided that I don’t like him. And somehow, the writers decided to use this moment of ass-holery to help him figure out a mystery surrounding Helena’s exorcism. The Chanel suit wasn’t subject to the same security measures as other luxury items! It was vulnerable! The suit was possessed! Not Helena! 

Kaz rushes back to help Helena and fights to suit off her body. We’re subjected to some really terrible voice over effects to convey the fact that she’s possessed and she’s left in her bra and underwear after Kaz fights to suit off her. Fan service? When she wakes up, wet and nearly naked, instead of the rational reactions of “what the fuck? Where are my clothes? Did we have sex again?” I’m guessing she’s a party girl and this happens to her all the time? She casually greets him and says that she hasn’t seen him since that party...ok... Kaz makes it to the field hockey game. He makes such an inspiring and riveting speech about how he was depressed and how it effected his feelings toward field hockey but now that he was there, he knew that they can win the game. Oh, I’m being sarcastic about that last sentence, by the way. And of course, they win the game because they have to because happy ending. 

Stray Observations

-The lip-syncing is terrible; so terrible in fact that I have seen comments from people asking about the original Japanese version of this that doesn’t exist because this is an American made cartoon. Yep, it’s that bad. 

-Why do Kaz and everyone in his family have magenta hair? Not necessarily a bad thing, just curious. Is that one of those typical anime character distinction things? The main character must have an outlandish hair color to stand out!

-I heard that the director who helped create this, Kazuhiro Furuhashi made some animes pretty amazing. What the hell happened here?

-They refer to The Bronx (that’s where I’m from!) as being a “prefecture” in a sorry attempt to make the city sound more Japanese. 

This first episode was so painful to watch... And it sets a pretty shitty precedent for the rest of the series. Will be reviewing the 2nd episode soon.