Altered Carbon: Resleeved

It took me a while to digest, a very long creative process for me, perhaps.

Visually speaking it is a very beautiful thing. Cyberpunk colors and aesthetics.

But it still makes me think of the big chance that was thrown away. All the phosphory and social criticism that could be embedded in history.

There's really no shortage of fight scenes. It even excited me.

But I remember the times I found myself spying on social media in a constant struggle to not give up watching.

The concept of this universe is so vast that it is difficult to believe that all these characters would meet so easily.

But I like the lack of dates or time.

As soon as the second season of Altered Carbon was released, Netflix followed the story of Takeshi Kovacs with an animated feature produced in Japan, with original Japanese direction, script and voices. And, even better, instead of doing something completely independent of the series, what we have is a prelude to many years before the events of the first season (the action takes place a year after the “deaths” of Reileen and Quellcrist in the World of Harlan ) that talks directly to each of the two seasons.

Using the cel-shading technique (or emulating it, I don't know), very common in games, directors Takeru Nakajima and Yoshiyuki Okada created a vibrant and extremely violent animation that puts Takeshi Kovacs (original voice of Tatsuhisa Suzuki) as a guard the back of the young tattoo artist Holly (Ayaka Asai) who needs to ally with Gena (Rina Satou), a CTAC agent, to unravel a mystery that involves the ceremony of succession of the command of Yakusa on the planet Latimer. The story is simple, even though the script by Dai Satô and Tsukasa Kondo tries, but fails, to give a complex drape to the plot, with everything basically functioning as a great 74-minute excuse for the beating to eat loose.

And she eats loose, you can be sure. Combining a cyberpunk look in the outer shots of the planet where the violence already begins with masked ninjas smashing CTAC agents left and right, with the same artifice of using a hotel - actually, technically, a ryokan - managed by an AI, this time the friendly but hesitant Ogai (Jouji Nakata), where most of the action takes place, the animation manages to fulfill its mission of maintaining an energetic step that drowns out the complete lack of history with hectoliters of blood, sensational full-body tattoos, varied dismemberments, a lot of use of cutting instruments and powerful firearms, as well as beautiful armor adorning the endless ninjas and, of course, the final boss. Only Kovacs' 80s pimp appearance doesn't work very well…

There is even enough time for the great asset of Richard Morgan's books - the cartridges that allow eternal life and the exchange of bodies at will - to be well used as an intrinsic element to the plot, something that is lacking in the live-action series. On the other hand, precisely because the script insists on creating twists within twists to bring a pseudo-complexity to the story, sometimes the action gives rise to dialogues whose sole function is to explain once or twice what had already become naturally clear. They either underestimated the viewer's intelligence, or had to occupy “space” to prevent the tape from being classified as a medium-length film. Or both, I don't know. The fact is that the blah, blah, redundant blah tires a little, even though the normally stunning look helps to divert his attention.

The idea of ​​making Altered Carbon: New Cover another chapter in the live-action series is a good one, as it creates narrative uniqueness and allows Netflix to expand this universe without needing large budgets. The first season gains connection with Nova Capa in the revelation - which happens very early, by the way - about who Gena really is and the second season fits the animation for the hiring of Kovacs by Tanaseda Hideki (Kenji Yamauchi), the same matusa who helps the Last Emissary in the second year of the series. That is, those who care about continuity and connections will have nothing to complain about.

With an open ending that seems to promise other adventures in this period of Kovacs' life, Altered Carbon: New Cover opens an interesting door that could also be used in other series of the streaming service. I just hope that, in the next mission of the protagonist, he will get more inspired cover and costume.