Gangsta

What Happens In Ergastulum, Stays In Ergastulum

What the f*ck?! WHAT THE FFFFUUUUUUUU???!!! Do you call that an ending?! Was that even an ending?! Man, it felt like there was actually an extra episode and perhaps it was cut from the TV series to be added as an OVA later on but nope. I triple checked that this is just where it ends. I can see why this cliff-hanger got a lot of people mad. Somewhat reminds me of Mahou Sensou too. Yup, this kind of 'ending' is the worst. In fact it just killed it for a lot of us. It is sad that it had to 'end' this way and could have been better if they had taken care to wrap things up. Uh huh. Me saying that ending it in a cliché fashion of hinting of another possible season isn't so bad compared to this cliff-hanger crap. Yikes. Perhaps everybody is doing that middle finger to this series at this point! You don't need to learn any sign language to know what that means!

One of the biggest problems about this series is that we don't know what the plot is about nor where the direction of the plot is heading. It looks like it started to get interesting when Esminets were introduced and started making their moves but by that time, the series has already ended. F*ck. It had only just begun and the show is over. What the f*?! Really?! Damn, it didn't even get off the ground. Overall, the story and direction of the anime feel somewhat lost and casual fans who do not know anything about the manga that it is adapted from will surely be lost. Because I did a bit of reading up on the internet (albeit just very briefly) and interestingly there are a lot more details concerning the workings of this town, the layout of this town and even the rankings of the Tags. I'm sure the manga would have had more materials by this time and perhaps back in 2015, nothing was this fleshed out yet. But anyway, a dozen episodes and adapting just a few chapters from the manga didn't do the anime any justice. It is to no surprise that many called it a disappointment in this sense.

So is Ergastulum one big giant prison? A safe haven for Twilights? It seems like a country of its own with its own 'government' overseeing things. People can just walk in and walk out and there are so many Twilights here, you'd really think that Ergastulum could actually be a country on its own and not some fictional Italian town. After all, the origin of this word is a building Romans used to hold or punish dangerous slaves. So I guess the concept of the anime was built around that notion. It is interesting but again as I've said, the lack of explanations and fleshing out of important details would leave casual viewers very confused. Some things cannot be explained briefly in a sentence or two and might take a whole episode or something. Yeah, puny brains like mine might get even more confused! So it took me a while to get the gist of that and even so, I was still generally confused. I suppose this anime is somewhat like X-Men because you know, those born with superhuman abilities are being hated and discriminated to a point they're being hunted down even right in their sanctuary.

Thus if you're disappointed with the direction of the plot, I'm sure the badass violent action bits can satisfy your bloodlust. Well, if you're into that kind anyway. So be warned here. There are lots of gory and violent actions with bloods splattering around, limbs being cut off and dead bodies piling up at every alley. Thugs getting butchered left and right while bullets fly in every direction as a few hapless henchmen get taken out like trash. Well, it's that kind of place to begin with. Might be horrifying to those not used to see such murderous killings but hey, it's just another ordinary Tuesday for these people! The name of this anime should have given you enough of a hint to stay away if you're the kind that is weak to blood and violence. For me, of course I enjoyed these fantasy killings like seeing Nicolas going into overdrive mode and cutting down ruffians armed with guns because it's like telling us nothing beats a Japanese katana. Or Sig going around carving up the mercenaries like as though this is all just warm up for her. Literally this is what you call painting the town red!

Another downfall of this series are the characters themselves. Once the series gets rolling, they introduce us more and more and by the time the series ends, I think you'll have a handful of them. I believe they're important but too bad there is not enough time to flesh them out. Like Delico among the many others that came into the story too late to make any difference as far as the anime is concerned. So yeah, he's got a younger sister who is hunting down Twilights. So what about it? Some past institution they're from felt like a teaser than revealing anything satisfactory. And also Marco and Connie with Beretta and Striker. Oh, too late now. Anime has ended.