As all my reviews go. This is just me turning what I felt into words. So, please don't consider this anything more than a fan talking about what they love. Meaning, constructive and flawless criticism is already out the window.

Haven't watched the show yet? Then get the hell out of here. I will be spoiling the living Jesus out of this show.

Ever since I was a wee child. I used to climb this tree that was in a far corner of our front yard. The tree had since been cut. Though I still cherish the memories of the fruits I used to eat from it. It's a tree with small oval-shaped leaves that give off the colour yellow. Its fruits are like small green pumpkins hanging in the hundreds from each branch. When fully ripe its full size is only an inch in diameter. As if the colour had a say in the taste. The fruit is at the pinnacle of what you'd consider, sour. The Nelli tree and its fruit which bears the same name. Is one of the sourest fruits I've ever tasted. Even if eating it means your teeth going numb and your tongue slightly burning from the acid. I loved it. I ate it straight from the tree. I ate it crushed. I ate it mixed with sugar, water and spices (achcharu). I ate it in all the ways I could find. Though, even if the method I ingested changed. One thing didn't. It's how sour this fruit really is.

If a person hasn't eaten a single pea-sized Nelli before. They would wonder at length the reason why I would even eat such a fruit. If it pains to eat it, why eat it in the first place? To that, I would say. Because it's bittersweet. I love it and hate it at the same time. I love the acidic taste it has while I hate its bitterness. Watching Akudama drive reminded me of this fruit because the show itself is very reminiscent of Nelli's taste. There are things I love about the show and there are things I utterly hate about it. The show really is a mess. Not in a sense that it messed up when it came to delivery or visuals. But rather, it sometimes enforces what makes it good by sacrificing itself to the devil. The result, however, can be superb at times and devastatingly futile as well. I really don't understand how a show can be this indecisive. When it excels I'm simply blown away and when it fails. It fails like a cook who's so bad at cooking, they have to use the smoke alarm as a timer. Yea, it gets that bad.

Let's start off with the OP. It's simply magnificent. This is the kind of opening I expect from a cyberpunk show. Okay, I'm not gonna lie. The song sort of sucks big time. But the visuals dammit. It's enough to more than forgive the poor song choice. Its neon-filled ruthless aura is exactly what a merciless show like this needs. And doesn't it fit well?

One of the first things I came to love about the whole show is its colour palette. There are only a couple of anime I can say, I loved its colours. One is Bloom Into You with its pinkish tenderness and then there's Akudama Drive. I'm simply in love with the neon colours it uses. The show doesn't use the whole neon spectrum but a specific portion of it. Hell, if you were to only watch the OP itself. You'd fully understand the whole colour palette of the series. Yea, that's how good I think the opening is.

However, it's not just how the anime uses colour, I fell in love with. It's how the show uses it in different contexts. The perfect example of this is the fight to the death between Kenkaya and Shishou. May their souls rest in peace. Well.. when you think about it. May all souls of the Akudama rest in peace. Anyways, when the two monstrosities were fighting to their death in the old amusement park. They were having the standoff of the century. And right behind them was a freaking Ferris wheel. Now, anyone who's watching would be like. Why the hell isn't that thing lit up. There's a fight going on here. Who forgot to switch the lights on? Then out of nowhere came a bolt of lightning. I'm sure you can guess what kind of chaos ensued afterwards. The Ferris wheel lit up and with it, the silence was lost and the fight resumed more ruthless than ever. This is one of my favourite scenes of the whole show. Especially the choreography and the rain. Oh man, the rain. It was so satisfying to watch the whole thing. From its hues to the slow-motion to the fighting to the goddamn rain. A touch I love about that scene is how the Ferris wheel loses all its colour when the opponents are at their weakest level really made me love this scene even more.

Then there are the characters. I've sort of got mixed feelings about each and every one of them. But all in all. I love how the show managed to give them a good amount of spotlight while having that whole Kansai vs Kanto thing going on. Man, the show is a lot to unpack. No wonder it's a mess. One of the most memorable things that come to mind when thinking about character development in the show is when Courier and the Swindler with everyone else enter the decontamination zone. I loved how the show not only progressed the plot and the world-building but the characters as well through that one plot device. The sneak peek into Courier's life through the simulation was really smart. Considering he was almost the only Akudama left in support of our best girl the Swindler. And we knew nothing about him. The best way to pierce a rock-solid man is by opening it up from the inside.

Then there's Chinpira. For some reason or the other, I found myself sympathising with him a lot. There used to be a time in life when I was forced to wear a mask like the one he's wearing. A mask made out of desperation to help you survive. To help you make it until sunrise tomorrow. Even his connection to Kenkaya. I found it utterly wholesome. A real bro to bro tag team. This reminds me of that scene at Expo Part. The Japanese name for it is simply hilarious. Anyways, when the gang is heading towards the launch platform. When Chinpira gets excited by the relics, in excitement he starts telling his best buddy about how interesting everything looks to only look behind and be reminded of the brutality of reality. Once you die, you're dead. And just like that, every 60 seconds in Africa, a minute passes. Jokes aside. That scene almost made me shed a tear. For some reason, I got attached to some of these characters way more than I ever hoped I would.

It's not only the characters. I got attached to the whole show in ways I never thought I would. This was really surprising to me. Considering how bad at times the show is. Even when I'm reminded in each episode how shitty some parts of the plot are. My mind simply washes it away like a dirty cloth being washed clean by a mother's delicate hands. Yea, I know I'm weird and I agree with you a 100% on that one my friend.

Alright, now to the nitty-gritty. Let's get down to the shitty aspect of the show. First of all the plot. Like WTF. There are so so many plot holes and logical inaccuracies. The best example of this is when the Akudama first boarded the Shinkansen. Firstly, everyone from the cat-kid to the genius Hacker considered the force field at the front of the train to be basically impenetrable, right. This is what gave Swindler's whole, weighing less than hacker scene all its value. So, after the train left the station. How did the Executioners board it? They literally came in through the forcefield. And how did they come in? By using their very very cool looking plasma blades. Now, if it was that easy to cut through the barrier. Why didn't the Akudama do it in the first place? It isn't like it's hard to acquire one. Well, you could argue that they didn't know much about the Shinkansen, to begin with. But wait, I'm just getting started here.

After both Executioners boarded the train. Hacker and Swindler started hacking the doors leading to the vault. Courier decided to stay back to reunite with his bike even though two highly trained killing machines were in his way. Talk about loving a bike more than a wife. Get it. Anyways, the door-busting team decided it's not worth waiting for him. While they were out busting the doors. The two alphas are down fighting to their deaths again. And guess what happens. They literally bust through a couple of doors like it was literally nothing. Now, if the doors were pitiful enough to break because of two monkies fighting. Why didn't the door beaking team consider using the rail gun mounted to Courier's bike to vapourize all the doors at once? I mean, they did end up using it at the end to kill off that robot thing. So, why not earlier?

I'm just scratching the surface here when it comes to stupid plot directions the whole show takes. Stuff like that's littered literally everywhere.

Another part of the show I wish to pay special attention to is how governance is handled in the show. To start things off. Let me tell you a story. Consider you one day you wake up to a world with no consequences to your actions. A world where there exists no laws or punishment for actions of immoral and illegal nature. Do you think people would go through their day as nothing if happened? Or do you think they will condescend into a state of anarchy? As human nature goes. The most probable answer is the latter. Even if people do not wish to be as such, a minority of the population would force them to. A world amidst people who no one can trust. To solve this issue people came up with a sort of contract. Think of it like a three-sided agreement.

Take for example the cliche movie sequence where the protagonist has the briefcase full of money and the antagonist has the protagonist's wife at gunpoint. They would spend an eternity arguing about who to give what first. The antagonist would be asking for the briefcase first and the protagonist would be asking for the girl first. It’s a stalemate that cannot be broken through words alone because none of these two people can entirely trust each other. So this is why there’s the other guy with an AK47 pointed towards both the protagonist and the antagonist to ensure the transaction goes smoothly or they both die. This person holding the AK47 is the authority or what we'd call a government.

When we bring real-world ideologies into the equation, the role of the guy with the AK47 is fulfilled by the state. If this were medieval times. It would be the king. It is his duty to uphold the natural rights or the safe exchange of goods and services between parties who do not trust each other. This adds another question back into the equation. How can the people trust the state or the person in charge? This was achieved by showing the people what happens when a person defies the state. And how did they show it? Public punishment. Think of cutthroat's public execution. A state does this to show its people its power. Inturn giving the people a reason to trust the people who are in power.

There were however other reasons authorities in the past chose to opt-in for public punishment as well. Take this for example. Say you're a poor peasant with no job nor coin. Across the road you see a bakery selling fresh bread. Felling an intense growl of hunger. You consider stealing a loaf of bread to satisfy yourself. But the shop is empty except for the Baker. Thinking it's too risky to pounce now. You, decide to wait a couple of minutes till it gets crowded and provides you with cover. Fifteen minutes pass and you see that a lot of people are gathering next to a towering building just a few spaces next to you. Still in hunger and eyeing the bread on the baker's stand. You see there's still four left. Thinking it's alright to stall for a few more minutes. You decide to go and check out what's causing all the commotion. So, you start walking off towards the now, large gathering. You wonder what's happening. Eying for a clue, you find a poster attached to a candle pole. Seeing it you understand what's happening. A man is being executed for having sex with the wife of a senator. Seeing as you've got nothing much to do, you head towards the centre of the gathering. At the heart of the commotion, there's a thinly built wooden podium. On it, you see a fully naked man. With red scars going all throughout his back. Seeing this makes you question if he even deserves more punishments. Then two men who looked like they were of the royal guard climbed onto the podium. On their hands, each had two jugs. They were full of something but the wooden stage was too far to see it clearly. Feeling an uneasiness you turn your head to look back at the way you came. Even now, no one occupied the bakery's premises except for its owner. Everyone is supposedly joining in to watch the punishment. Then you hear a sudden scream. The uneasiness you felt before started to turn into fear. Knowing where the sound came from. In a flash, you turn your head towards the nude man. With his inexhaustible scream filling your ears. You see that the two guards were pouring a liquid from the jugs onto the man's skin. It boiled the moment it made contact. That's when it clicks. They're pouring molten wax. Unable to look at the sight before you. You decide to head back. At that moment a thought comes into your mind. What if I got caught stealing. Would I have to go through punishment as gruesome as what he had just witnessed?

Woah, why did I even write that paragraph to prove such a small point? I'm an idiot. Anyways, for a state. Corporal punishment has many benefits. It ensured people's trust was kept in them. And it also made criminals think twice before committing a crime. Less crime there is. The easier it is for everyone.

However, there's an issue with this whole power dynamic. It introduces volatility for those in power. If the people of the state consider those in power are somehow not able to keep the populace safe. Like when the public execution of cutthroat failed catastrophically. Or when the shinkansen, an object of spiritual significance is blown to pieces. It is very easy for people to assume that the state is not capable of fulfilling its end of the bargain. Plus for the people, there is no confusion at all about who's calling the shots and who's to be taken down if they don't feel like the current sovereign body isn't acting accordingly. This made the job of being a person of power a seriously risky and insecure thing to do back in the day. The person who's taking that seat in the anime is Boss. She's literally at the top of the food chain in Kansai. So, when people see an issue. For example, after they deemed rioters as Akudama and decided to kill innocent people. The people knew exactly who to target to bring about a revolution. Boss's order to turn ordinary people into Akudama during the raid is in my opinion one of the stupidest writing decisions of the whole show. What leader would think such a decision would not backfire.

I'm surprised at how the show managed to show handled the gradual change in how people think. How they lost their faith in the state. Kudos for that. However, this also brings into question a major issue with the whole anime and its power dynamic. It's the question of whether authoritarianism would exist in a cyberpunk world. As mentioned before, the three-sided contract was enforced by the state by using violence as a catalyst. But do you see public executions now? No, why? Because the way people saw punishment changed. With the renaissance, humanist movements started to develop. This made the usefulness and effectiveness of keeping crime at bay through the fear of punishment diminish with it falling out of favour by the general public.

A solution proposed to this issue was the Panopticon. Philosopher Jeremy Bentham's brainchild, the panopticon was originally a system of control designed for prisons. The basic concept of the design was that a single warden or security guard can from one place observe every single inmate without them knowing they were being watched. And from an inmates cell's perspective, they can never know if they're being watched or not. So they are forced to act as if they are in surveillance at all times. This makes the life of the prisoner one of constant surveillance with strict adherence to a normalized standard of behaviour. Because, if they're unable to tell if they're being watched, how can they behave in a way differing from the standard set forth by the person in charge of the prison. This in addition to rigorous examinations can be used to make sure a prisoner sticks to a set, set of behaviours.

What Bentham introduced was a three-pronged method of retaining power through manipulation. First is the public spotlight (i.e. constant surveillance). Second is a set standard of how a good or well-behaved person should be thinking and behaving (i.e. normalization). And the third is a constant process of examination and re-examination where a score or grade is given to measure how well you correspond with what the person in power decided as what a good person should be a reflection of.

Now apply this same power dynamic to an enterprise for example. If you were in a position of power in a corporation and use these tactics, you wouldn't have to treat your employees like slaves to make them stick to a set of ideologies you want them to maintain. No, no, no, you only have to make the chain long enough so they don't feel the weight of it. They wouldn't even feel it's there. Not only would they fall into the set of behaviours you need them to follow. They would even police themselves to adhere to the normalized standard you put in place at all times. Because their life at work is one of surveillance, normalization and constant examination. Surveillance in the form of supervisors, deadlines, and monitoring software. In addition to this, creating a highly competitive workspace would result in employees trying their best to not get any dirt on themselves which motivates them to adhere to the normalized set of behaviours set forth. Then there are the examinations, with the monthly, yearly and quarterly evaluations or employee of the months to determine how well of a team player or achiever you are or in other words how well you correspond to exactly what the person in power says you should be. China is a country that does this exceptionally well. I mean they are the country that sort of use 1984 as a handbook for how to maintain a country.

Anyways, keeping feelings aside. What I've been trying to say is why and how a society that's progressed far enough as Kansai still uses authoritarian tactics to govern its people. When a much better alternative exists. You could argue saying the disarray the state is facing is stopping it from implementing a panopticon like justice system. But if that's the case. How did it manage to build up authoritarian governance with freaking killing machines? Executioners don't train themselves. You need massive amounts of discipline and commitment to create soldiers like them. Plus look at the economy. It's probably running a cryptocurrency under the hood.

This just screams bad writing. It's like the writers are deliberately making the show stupider to bring about more conflict. I'm not saying it's bad. But doing it the way it was done here just seems lazy.

Man... that felt good. To write down both the negativities and the positivities is like taking a huge weight off my chest. However, it also reminded me why I hate critiques so much. For a work of fiction to improve you need criticism. I'm not saying that people shouldn't point out issues of a work of art. To get better at what you do, you need to know where you went wrong. But... When you try to focus on a piece of art through the lens of objectivity alone. It blinds you from what the stories are trying to say. Your eyes focus on its flaws. This in turn diminishes the enjoyment you can get out of it. Anime is primarily made for entertainment, right? If looking at it objectively decreases the net fulfilment, isn't that the opposite of what we should be supposed to be doing? Shouldn't we be trying to maximize the enjoyment we get out of it? Idk. This is way outa my scope.

Hmm... Now that I think about it. I didn't at all talk about the drive parts of Akudama Drive. Isn't it supposed to be the main takeaway of the show? Huh. I'll probably need to go into human morality and ethics for that.

Woah, I wrote way more than what I expected to write. I still have lots of thoughts about the anime. Like how Swindler's death started a revolution. Or how hopeless the people of Kansai are, because more often than not when a government falls. Their economy and production go on deep dives. Or how hopeless the people of Kanto are, now that they're sort of doomed. It's been a while since I've thought this much about a show. I really gotta hand it to it. Though this show had its flaws. It certainly ended up leaving a mark. Hell, even its issues weren't simple. I had to bring back memories from reading French philosopher Michal Foucault's book Discipline and Punish and English philosopher Thomas Hobbs' Leviathan to even start talking about governance.

I can't believe a thought that started off as a note ended up being this mess of an essay. I really don't think what I wrote deserves to be a review. Anilist really needs to increase the max character count of notes from 6k to huh... I wonder how long this is. Oh, it's 21k. Ehhh.. guess it's me who's problematic.