Akame ga KILL!

Episode 23

The rebels are making their push into the capital. Night Raid embarks on its final mission: to kill the Prime Minister. He is not about to go down easily, however. As Najenda orchestrates the attack from the outside and Tatsumi, Leone, and Akame infiltrate the palace (using Lubbock's mapping), the Prime Minister is left with no choice but to play his final trump card: manipulating the young emperor into summoning Shikoutazer, a giant mecha-like Imperial Arms which is supposed to be the most powerful of them all and is usable only by a bloodline descendent Imperial Family member. While Leone and Akame deal with other problems, it falls to Tatsumi, with the unexpected (by him, but almost certainly not by the audience) help of Wave, to stop the Emperor's rampage, whether by force or by making him realize that he is betraying his responsibilities as a ruler.

In some respects this is the climax of the series, as it involves the culmination of everything that has happened so far. At stake is nothing less than the fate of the rebellion, the fate of the capital city, and even the heart and soul of the empire, as represented by the misguided young Emperor. This is not a time for stealthy assassinations or bloody mayhem, but instead for determined heroism on the highest level, and no character in the series fits that role better or more satisfyingly than Tatsumi.

That he (apparently) doesn't survive the effort is the biggest surprise that the series has thrown out to date and with little doubt the biggest surprise death of the year.

Of all of the characters in the series whom I had thought might have “plot armor,” Tatsumi's was the second-thickest, behind only Akame – and she only won out by virtue of being the eponymous character. Even despite all of the deaths in this series, I never expected it to go this far. Killing Tatsumi would be about equivalent to killing off Kagome in Inuyasha, yet it seems to have been done. If it stands then death scenes don't come much more heroically than his does, and it does set up an interesting but also potentially problematic final showdown between Esdeath and Akame; interesting because everyone has probably wanted to see these two fight directly, and problematic because Akame having a powerful reaction to Tatsumi's death has not been especially well-established. But that is for next episode's true finale to show.

While the series has always been prone to occasional rough character rendering, it sticks out more in this episode than normal, especially in the early shots of the Night Raid members on the hilltop. This is less of a problem (or at least less readily noticeable) once the action sequences begin. The mecha-like Imperial Arms initially looks like a rip-off of the caped Guymelefs from Vision of Escaflowne, but that is trivial compared to the wealth of flaws among the final details; that the participants in certain conversations could actually hear each other despite how far they are apart strains credulity past the breaking point, for instance. That the series would toss in a mecha on top of everything else is less of a problem, since it has pretty much thrown in everything else anyway and mecha in fantasy-like settings are hardly rare.

Can the series top with its finale what it has done here? Hopefully it will at least incorporate fewer visual and logical flaws.

Rating: B-

Akame ga KILL! is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.