Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge - 08

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For the first time this season, Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge fell short by a noticeable margin.  Just goes to show, a series should stick to its strengths.

In past reviews, I mentioned that Crime Edge one serious flaw; the action.  A detail that's crucial to any series with a similar death game premise, which the series managed to sidestep around by focusing on the atmosphere instead of the action itself.  By doing that Crime Edge compensated for its lack of appeal as an action series and passed itself off as a dark alternative - fetishes and the like also contributed to this.  It was a smart choice for a series so bizarre from the get-go, which makes an episode like this one all the more puzzling.

With the episode being focused solely on the Kiri-Seigi showdown, Crime Edge left itself exposed.  It made a mistake of going for an action-centric episode when that's where its weakness is.  An episode which left me yawning and drifting off at times, regardless of the fact that I was watching it at two in the morning.  An episode which may not have been bad overall, but made it hard to continue to the end when there was no excitement.

Everything else was just as good as ever; the atmosphere and the build-up and even the showdown itself were spot on.  Just the setting - a bunch of people in a ballroom with all eyes on Kiri and Iwai - was enough to make you alert and expect something big to happen. The problem was that every other second I thought to myself, "I would love this so much if the action was half-decent," and that in itself was enough to put a damper on things.  An unpleasant roadblock in an otherwise fine series, which could have been avoided like it was in the past.

Almost all the focus was on the action, but we did get a sneak peek at the next opponent.  A brief appearance from a blonde ojousama was the single new development in the episode, setting up for next week's episode.  Her appearance did come at a timely manner, leaving us wondering if she was the one responsible for Seigi's final injury at the end of the episode.

Not the best offering from Crime Edge.  The series needs to stop doing this if it has any chance to end in the same high quality it's been exhibiting so far.

Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge Episode 09 Preview

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