Akame ga KILL!

Episode 9

Akame ga KILL! has always had a current of familiar humor coursing through it. Boob jokes, slapstick, goofy cutaway gags—all these tired staples of lighthearted shonen comedy saw occasional use throughout its first eight episodes.

One problem: Akame ga KILL! isn't lighthearted. It's chock-full of degeneracy and misanthropic violence so overbearing that you can practically hear shouts of “the horror, the horror” at each gruesome turn of events. Juggling jokes alongside that kind of gore-splattered content requires a breed of tonal finesse that the series doesn't have. Its bouts of attempted humor have felt out of place as a result.

Suffice to say that laughs did not seem like a probable product of this episode. Between Bulat's dramatic end, Tatsumi's new Imperial Arms, and the looming threat of General Esdeath, a storm of bloodshed seemed more likely. Instead, the series takes a rare moment to breathe. The Jaegers—Esdeath's personal squad of assassin hunters—are established, and their formation is shown through the eyes of a naïve country boy who is more entertaining and more personable than Tatsumi has ever been. Esdeath's quest for love manifests in a strange and amusing way at the climax of the episode. Best of all, the show's nagging air of “the world is a terrible place please believe me” is kept on a tight leash. For once it treats itself like what it is: a largely braindead action-adventure romp with weird characters hurtling headlong towards each other in the most calamitous of ways. There's no shame in being that show.

If you're hunting for the serious stuff, this episode is loaded with missed opportunities. Esdeath doesn't yet make sense as a character. Some of the Jaegers seem too silly to be threatening. The presence of Akame's sister as a servant of Esdeath is ignored when it could be used as a suspenseful time-bomb. There's not been a sudden turn in the quality of the writing, but the whole package was self-aware and honest in a way that Akame ga KILL! has never been. That's deserving of some credit.

This episode is an anomaly; it seems worlds apart from the last and there's no evidence that the next will continue the trend. It's not sustainable. It's impossible to reconcile the airy entertainment produced by these characters with the tone-deaf and overwrought schlock which came before and which may well arrive again in the future. But it's still nice to see Akame ga KILL! stop taking itself so seriously, if only for a moment. Rating: C+

Akame ga KILL! is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.