It seems that Madhouse are on a role this season. They’re giving everything they’ve got to each show, and that especially goes for Kurozuka.
Checking out the summary on ANN, and you’ll know the basic story for the series. The first episode covers what’s said, setting us up perfectly for what we’re going to see in the next 11 episodes. Just reading the summary back before this show aired, and i knew it would be something i’d enjoy, though more then anything i wanted to see what Madhouse and the director, Tetsuro Araki could do with the show. The production quality is so damn high you’ll have to see it to believe it. The backgrounds, character models — all of it are outstanding to see, and that carries on in the second episode. I have faith that Madhouse will keep this level up until the end, like they have done in past productions. As for the Tetsuro Araki touch, so far he’s following manga material at a decent pace, though some parts of the manga are going to be cut out. The manga is 10 volumes long, and seeing how the first two introduction episodes weren’t necessarily rushed, he’ll keep at this pace until the end. Just like in Death Note (another Madhouse production Tetsuro directed), we see a vibrant display of colors used, in this case for the action scenes (episode two).
It adds that extra layer needed to fully experience the madness that’s being shown during this fight scene. I do hope Tetsuro keeps this up for the rest of the action scenes in the series. While on this subject, there’s a lot of gore, though you’re to focused on the solid movement’s surrounding by the beautiful animation that you just don’t notice it all. Something i was quite surprised about was the musical score. It’s done by Kiyoshi Yoshida, the guy who worked on the scores for Kaiba and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time — two scores i like quite a bit, though not at all did i think he was the composer while watching the first episode. It’s true that the two scores that i mentioned just now are extremely different from one another, and yet again here with Kurozuka it goes to show how open a composer can be with their works.
Last but not least, the stunning Paku Romi (my favorite seiyuu) voices the main female character, Kuromitsu. The mysterious yet loving voice we’ve heard from her in the past has returned, and it fits perfectly. I’m not going to lie, if even i disliked this show i’d carry on watching for her alone.
I can see this being the underdog of the season. Already it’s not receiving the amount of attention it deserves, though we all know it happens to a lot of the best shows that we rank pretty high. I’d recommend this to just about anyone who enjoys high levels of animation, because you’ll be very pleased with the job done here.
Towards our Memories 