Introduction
Super Crooks, airing in 2021 and made by Bones, is a polarizing show for me in almost every aspect. While I enjoyed it enough for it to be an actual decent show, I have a super hard time recommending it to others.
This review will be slightly different from my other reviews as it is mostly just a list of the good and bad of the show.
Cast
Undoubtedly the strongest point of the show, Super Crooks' cast works so well because its likability is not limited to its Pro and Deuteragonists only, an aspect many of my top shows share.
- Despite featuring a ton of characters, and much of them with their individual backstories (which some may find annoying and a point I'll address in a bit), most, if not all of these characters are really easy to get into and root for, no matter which side of the story you come from. And a large part of this is due to said backstories - although overdone with its quantity, the well-done ones are divine in their own right, ingraining their respective character into the viewers' minds fairly easily and effectively.
Scenes/Directing
- Not many praises to give here except for a couple of well-directed scenes and segments that flow fluidly into each other.
- While I praised Super Crooks for having some good scenes above, in reality, the structure of the show is more like 3 parts well done and 7 parts meh. The not-good scenes of this show are way too cramped, messy, and random. At times, one may wonder why the fuck they're looking at a scene completely unrelated to the previous one.
- Moving on from messy scenes is the repetition of the worst parts of this show. For further clarity, I would suggest one watch about 10mins of the first episode but really, save the trouble. This show is chock full of "fanservice". The reason for the quotation marks is due to the message it's trying to send, it's not fanservice in the sense that the low shots or sex is to please the fans (though some may see it that way) but rather, it's used as a way to push the "maturity" level of the show up and I think it's fucking ridiculous. We get it, it's a series about villains but not every scene with a female has to involve sexualization or just straight-up sex. It's borderline unpleasant to sit through some of the scenes where this is present - and it is present a lot. To me, this just looks like the show is trying too hard to prove something it doesn't have to prove, and in a wrong way anyway.
- Last little point is the amount of gore too since it fits with this narrative of "trying too hard". I did enjoy it and thought it was great mostly but I can totally see how some people may be turned off from it.
Dialogue
Second to last point will be on dialogue but with a fair disclaimer that this is probably my most subjective take of the review since I was heavily inspired by another reviewer's take.
- I didn't think I had a problem with the show's dialogue up till a certain point in the show, where it all fell apart and made me realize that all along, the dialogue is essentially the same as the breaking point, just with lesser intensity. Characters and their dialogues can be completely outrageous and I have no idea how a script like this was conceived but seriously, these characters (ESPECIALLY the main 2) are the most obnoxious beings I've seen in a while. If these dialogues were intended and meant as part of characterization I'd be okay with them but looking at the situations in which they're used, it's hard to have that faith and hope.
I won't go deeper as there are story spoilers at stake so I'll just finish off this point with one word - "Undeserving"
Misc
For the final bit, some words on the events leading up to the end of this show.
- I happened to stumble onto some extremely minor spoilers of the show and context and it absolutely brought to light how atrocious episodes 8 and 9 are as transition episodes. I won't say that I wish I didn't see those spoilers so I could enjoy the show more, in fact, I'm glad I did because those episodes sucked - and I'm not even a fan of the source. I can't imagine what fans of the original comic have to go through when they see this abomination of an excuse for content filling. I guess some praise has to be given to the studio for trying at least but honestly the salvage job was just awful.
Spoiler, click to view
The original Super Crooks material was only the last 3-4 episodes, with the first 9-10 being original.
Conclusion
All in all, Super Crooks is a show where there the GOODs are good, and where the BADs are aplenty, and bad.
If there are any questions of why my score is still a pass, it's because I think this is a show where if people can see the good in it, can be enjoyable.