Trickster

Episode 8

In a future where crumbling building complexes threatened with urban redevelopment can wall themselves off (complete with rotary cannons mounted on rooftops), it somehow takes a formal declaration of independence for law enforcement and city officials to voice concern. While sci fi is usually better off with some sort of social commentary woven into a story's themes, there's some active suspension of disbelief required to accept the importance of Trickster's utopian commune to Haruhiko without chuckling at the sight of cows casually grazing in the houses' front yards. When the camera just happens to show people with really big rifles patrolling the inner city veggie plots while we listen to Haruhiko and his suspicious mother muse about the wonderful independent states of Kokorogaoka Borough offering a last chance for people with dark pasts to live their lives in peace, I'm not entirely sure whether the humor is supposed to be intentional.

Trickster might try to explain this erratic development by referencing the security robot incident and following police understaffing, but it really all boils down to Twenty Faces' need of a promising playground to take away Akechi's oldest toy, now that he has found himself a new one. Of course, Hanasaki's broken robot wasn't a toy, and to Akechi, neither are Hanasaki and Kobayashi, something Twenty Faces is incapable of wrapping his head around. The broken toy metaphor already comes dangerously close to overuse, a state we are likely going to reach next week.

Along with the frequent visual metaphors in the form of broken items, Trickster's fondness of match cuts - something I remember still being fond of myself earlier in the show's run - is starting to impede the narrative flow. Used indiscriminately, regardless of when they might add something to the story, this powerful device is losing its impact. When Hanasaki trips and falls in two different time spheres, the match cut turns his older genki self back into the scared and lonely child he once was. Unlike his kid version, present day Hanasaki is able to keep on running, yet the following match cut of both Hanasakis bursting into Akechi's office tells us that, despite being stronger and more athletic now, he could not outrun his original fear. Both of these cuts are quite on-the-nose already, but at least their employment is justified by the narrative. When the camera cuts from Haruhiko's flashback smile to Hanasaki's diving mouthpiece, this is not the case, resulting in a cut that wants to say something just hanging in thin air, even diluting the impact of its former uses. If Trickster had intended to make a style out of match cut editing, there should be a narrative purpose to it.

Hanasaki's backstory itself was fairly serviceable. From his perspective, Haruhiko sacrificed himself for his brother's future happiness, prompting Hanasaki to become someone he thought Haruhiko could respect. Constantly making a show of his courage and happiness, his genki-ness is overcompensation - proving to himself and the world that his brother's "sacrifice" was not in vain. Akechi's unusually wise assessment of Haruhiko's priorities provided a nice contrast to Haruhiko's teenage wisdom of accepting pain and suffering as opportunities to make us stronger. Sadly, the complete lack of facial animation for a distressed Hanasaki left a lot to be desired emotionally. With Haruhiko's commune of poor, unfortunate souls having fallen victim to Twenty Faces' schemes, (who else would those cannons have come from?) I'm wondering about the role those omnipresent pigeons are going to play next week.

While Hanasaki's reunion reeks of impending tragedy, Nakamura is off to see a movie, featuring a lady on a rooftop who shoots a helicopter out of the sky while wearing very little clothing. Trickster's characters sure know how to pick the best fiction foreshadowing the events they're caught up in! I'm sure we're all in for a really big surprise reveal next week, given that the guy she's with totally doesn't sound like Gackt, and the care that went into hiding his face was not the least bit suspicious. As Akechi seems to have an equally "unexpected" plan up his sleeve, I'm not too worried about our characters being in any real danger for the time being. Hanasaki might even be spared Inoue's painful physical realization that "Detectives are not heroes."

Rating: C+

Trickster is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.