Hamatora and Re:␣Hamatora: Let’s keep this nice and quick…

NB: Hamatora is another of those mixed media projects, though as far as I can tell, it only had a complementary manga…?

(Summary from ANN) “Minimum” – a special inborn power found in a limited number of human beings, known as “minimum holders.” In Yokohama, the detective team Hamatora, formed by two minimum holders named Nice and Murasaki, comes across information connected to a serial killer being pursued by their old friend Art. It turns out all the victims are minimum holders like them. Unwillingly at first, the two detectives become involved in the investigation.

Admittedly, the chibis were cute…

The only reason I finished this entire series was probably because the writers managed to keep my interest in the mysteries of the Minimums — where they come from and why particular characters have particular powers. I wasn’t particularly invested in any of the characters, though I did want to find out more about what happened to Art’s brother. That part of the story ended up being quite fulfilling by itself…but I’m not sure it was really worth two whole cours… I really wish I’d been more invested in Art and Nice, around whom the story was centred. But whilst I do appreciate the message of ‘everyone is unique and irreplaceable, no matter how strong or weak they are’, and think it worthwhile for school-aged audiences, it’s not the kind of message that really stays with me any more.

And Nice’s fights were always quite fun to watch…but…

In the end, unfortunately, the thing I remember most about the Hamatora franchise was the irritating scene transitions in the second season. I probably wouldn’t have even noticed that the animation company had changed if not for the fact that these transitions became a lot more flashy. Admittedly, I was thankful that the fluro colours of the first season had been replaced…but those darned transitions and the BGM that it came with stood out way too much, because there were just so many of them!

I’ll stop this mini-rant here, because I don’t really want to spend any more time on it. I’ll grant that some of Nice’s fights were really cool to watch — I especially liked the one at the end of the first series, which showed why he has the reputation he’s got — but they only just barely prevented this from being a complete waste of time…for this viewer, at least…