(13 episodes)
What’s it about ?
Magic-wielding teenage vigilantes.
Characters
Sakura, out point-of-view character. She’s the perfect idol of her high school (good-looking, great at studying, beats dudes twice her size in the Aikado dojo, etc.), cares for the homeless, and has enough charisma to pull off not being annoying.
Rei, the new transfer student. The bad news is that Sakura is pretty sure she saw him burning five people to death the night before in a park. She’s initially very distrustful of him, although he behaves so nicely throughout the episode that she’s starting to doubt whether she had hallucinations. This is despite the multiple warning signs, such as him never actually denying he killed those guys, and stating that he has a part-time job as a sanitation worker (is the phrase “taking out the trash” ever used straight ?).
Our baddies are the Falcon Gang, a big gang who are in cahoots with the police and doing random evil such as killing the homeless. Rei’s first set of victims were members, and he sets even more of them on blue fire at the end of the episode.
… just before doing the same thing to Sakura, because who needs loose ends ?
The OP/ED feature prominently four other magic-wielding teenagers who obviously share some connection with Rei, and have a cameo at the end to comment on how “it’s begun” after Rei’s outburst is visible from several blocks away.
Production Values
Not very good.
Overall Impression
I’m usually not one for hardcore vigilante shows, but this one isn’t without its charms. There’s some nice comedy in Sakura & Rei’s interactions, especially when their initial confrontation is mistaken by everyone else as a rejected love confession. It’s exactly the right kind of levity to avoid the series being too grim and gritty to be watchable.
Also, I don’t believe for a second that Sakura really dies at the end, but that’s one heck of a cliffhanger and I’m watching at least the next episode just to see how she gets out of this pickle. (If she does die… well, way to lose my interest, show. But I hope it’s better than that.)
