super crooks is a netflix exclusive anime that's an adaptation of an american comic series, which gave the show enough novelty and enough of a distinct feel and appearance in the medium of anime that i decided to binge watch it on a whim. now, does it being "different" translate into it being an enjoyable experience and a breath of fresh air for people who've gotten a bit tired of certain tropes and rehashed ideas across anime and manga? uh, no, it's instead introduced one of the problems i've had with american media over the last few years to an entirely new format. i want to say upfront that i don't mean that in some kind of edgy way, it's not anything about the ideas presented by the story at all since there's nothing of much substance there to begin with, the problem is primarily in how it uses violence, which i'll talk about briefly in the next section. also this is gonna be free of spoilers other than talking about some basic setup and using mostly vague references for the rest like my other reviews
main thing btw
there's a fundamental misconception about why more graphic and darker stories tend to work so well as subversions of the superhero genre. i understand that the appeal may lie in different places for some people, or be completely non-existent for others, but from my perspective one of the biggest benefits to a story being given the room to embrace "darker" aspects including gore is that the product is more complete and realistic than anything which shies away from more difficult ideas and by extension becomes more engaging. over the last several years we've gotten a spate of movies and tv shows like the boys, deadpool, invincible and brightburn that reflect an understanding among major studios that a real market exists for stories willing to go that route and take an r-rating instead of watering themselves down for wider audiences. super crooks feels like the latest addition to that trend, and a failed one, because it's rooted in the same lineage as those stories as an american comic book adaptation despite being packaged in this instance as an anime. the reason i say it's failed is because of the misconception i referenced at the start of this paragraph - the misconception being that simply containing some gore or other such features as the titles i mentioned is enough to actually subvert the tropes of the superhero genre or become an interesting story within that context. what we're treated to here is something hollow, all surface and no substance, and nowhere is that more evident than in its use of gory violence.
throughout this anime, hyperviolence is used as little more than an aesthetic at best and for a rather odd form of humour at worst in a way that really just comes off as childish. "childish" because it seems to have no concept of such a thing as consequences, which really does spill over into other aspects of the story as well. the tone shift between the first two episodes - which just about gave me whiplash - is the first instance of this, as certain events that took place in the first episode have no noticeable long-term effect on any of the characters, and never really got brought up or alluded to again in spite of the very many witnesses and presumably traumatised people. it does this frustrating thing where it shows off brutal, horrific and destructive moments at various points and then effectively just resets everything with the (partial) exception of the last episode and honestly that's something more consistent with children's shows and the kind of sanitised pg stuff it initially presents itself as almost the polar opposite of through that first episode. the show does take a turn that makes the title make sense, and also might initially seem like a novel concept since we're following the villains, but it doesn't quite do anything interesting in that regard either because once again significant moments go by without really leading to anything at all. at points i felt like i was watching half of a more interesting story, and since this is a spinoff that might actually be the case. we don't really have any fully heroic superheroes in the traditional sense, and that sets up the expectation that things will unravel or the story's gonna make some kind of larger point, which "the heat" (dumb name btw) seems like he's built up to convey, but since we can't have anything of substance here he just turns out to be yet another kleptomaniac with very little in the way of redeeming qualities. speaking of kleptomaniacs it's probably appropriate to talk about the cast at this point.
characters btw
there's not a whole lot to say on this front since everyone in this story is written to be as flat as the surface of a koala's brain, with maybe the exception of kasey. i mentioned the shift in tone that takes place in this story and how jarring it felt, it became clear that the story wasn't meant to be taken with the most seriousness, and that's a reasonable enough approach, except even on these terms it was underwhelming and that really begins with how it handles its cast of characters. obviously, since we're following the "villains" in this story from the onset it'd be a mistake to expect paragons of virtue among our main characters. in tone this is the kinda show that makes you support a bunch of lovable shitheads on a series of misadventures, except it delivers on all of the misadventures and none of the "lovable shitheads" because of how frustratingly one-note they are for the most part. johnny's kinda sus friends are really the worst offenders here, because they pretty much just exist to drag him into trouble every once in a while and not much else. the writers seemed to be somewhat aware of this and tried to flesh them out a little bit at the point where they were introduced but that just led to really unnatural and overly expository dialogue to layer on some motivations that didn't amount to anything in the end. we literally have one of them delivering a random monologue about how they're getting left behind by a new technological era or whatever, and i retained almost none of it because of just how out of place it felt to be giving such basic information and perspectives like that to johnny who's only been gone for six months, and if it was for the sake of the audience then it didn't really say anything substantial enough to be noteworthy. johnny himself was kinda all over the place aside for loving kasey and being a kleptomaniac. part of why i say all over the place is because while he's presented as calm and easygoing it seems like in moments where the plot demands it he's prone to outbursts, though this is largely confined to the first part of the story. as an example he lashes out at ghost for no other reason than letting us see his powers, since we'd already seen everyone else's prior to that. like the dialogue, these moments that exist Just for the sake of the audience really disrupt the natural flow of the story.
this section is really running on now so i'll end it with a return to that line about it being half of a more interesting story and how praetorian's character is probably the best example of that. he's very clearly got an overly inflated ego and a penchant for violence that omni-man would be proud of, and since the heroes had already been shown to be pretty uncaring when it comes to collateral damage and even the wellbeing of the "villains" by the time he made his first appearance, it seemed like he was being set up to have a larger arc at the vanguard of the issues with this world's heroes. he did kinda have that arc, but it took place almost entirely off screen and if that's not disappointing i don't know what is. in some contexts i might actually praise this kind of approach and appreciate that the storytelling is really efficient and narrow enough in scope to really give the protagonist and rest of the main cast time to shine, but johnny's just not an interesting or likable character in any capacity because even with the story built entirely around their experiences they don't ever develop or grow or show any amount of depth with the exception of kasey. so you're sacrificing the benefits of a story with a broader lens while not getting any of the benefits of a story with a narrower lens either. oh yeah in case it isn't already clear i actually did appreciate kasey and how there was more to her than anyone else in terms of background and even character flaws, though her power was a bit too much.
general stuff and final score btw
beyond kasey, other plus sides were really just to do with the visuals. the animation is pretty good with the exception of some more spotty moments where they try to blend some cgi in there in a way that didn't work out so well, and it's definitely work worthy of studio bones. the fights were handled reasonably well too even if i wasn't necessarily invested in what was happening most of the time. also the designs of all the hero and villain costumes were pretty great, some of them looked a little goofy but that's unavoidable in this genre anyway. another positive is that even though as i said before the use of graphic content here was appallingly bad, the show at least didn't feel compelled to go for gratuitous sexual violence on top of that like other similar stories do, with the exception of some sexual assault that does occur towards the end but honestly the framing of it is probably debatable and i was just too grossed out to want to think about it. for the sexually suggestive framing of the op, super crooks also now has the distinction of being the anime with possibly the worst opening i've ever laid eyes on in my life and the only instance of me being glad netflix prompts you to skip intros. the song itself isn't bad, but the visuals are just weird, off-putting, and mostly not relevant to anything that really happens in the story. depending on who you are though i guess an opening that doesn't contain any spoilers at all is unquestionably a good thing, but it really could have tried anything else.
humour is a subjective thing, so you might find some value in the attempts at comedy throughout the show. i definitely did laugh a bit as well, but it was usually At the writers rather than with them. some of what happens is just so predictable and overblown that i laughed out loud when it happened, but for the most part this show and its humour isn't the funny kind of bad. a situation that unfolds with one of the characters comes across almost as a "it's funny because he's gay" kind of moment, and i personally didn't appreciate that even though i disliked that character in general. that might've just been a dub thing though because there was a kinda weird contradiction between the dub lines and the subtitles, since i don't speak japanese switching the audio wouldn't have been helpful either so i guess i'll never know. while i'm talking about the dub though, i should say that some of the voices didn't quite match the characters, and even for the ones that did - which were by far the majority - the performances weren't the best. i'm not an expert on voice acting by any means so i don't know whose responsibility that sort of thing is, but nonetheless you're probably better off watching it subbed if you can, i personally didn't have the attention span to do so.
i wasn't entirely sure about what kind of score to give this story, or whether to give it a score at all, but considering how things like praetorian's arc and johnny's development into a villain were almost completely glossed in a way that was almost like the writers went "to show you the power of flex tape, i sawed this story in half!" there is only one possible score i could give. that score being an exact 50/100, which works out because while there's a lot about it i didn't like it also had enough to it that i bothered to watch it through and that's gotta count for something, right? if you wanna see a more positive review, check out the one i wrote about parasyte right here. also if you're wondering why i didn't mention the primary antagonist of this story at all, it's because that part of the story unironically gave me a headache, and this review is too long as it is
