Kurokami: The Animation - Episode 12

After languishing for so long, in recent episodes Kurokami seems to have slowly come to the realisation that it doesn't need to over-complicate itself or drown the viewer in the finer points of the Master Root system - All we're here for is to watch various characters beating seven bells out of one another in a suitably entertaining and spectacular style.

The last episode seemed to be the first to really catch onto this, and now episode twelve follows suit by barely pausing from breath and instead throwing plenty of thick and fast action at us - First with Kuro and Keita taking on the former's brother, Reishin, before Excel and Steiner take over the battle once Keita can no longer continue. It's all pretty gripping stuff in its own slightly mindless way, with colourful and entertaining visuals supplemented nicely by a soundtrack that, I must confess, is growing on me.


Away from the pure action, we did get some insight into the difference in goals between Reishin and Sawamura, although even this is flipped over relatively briefly to give the episode chance to blow up lots of stuff, while also opening up a wormhole to an unknown and foreign place (which I assume is known only as "the second half of Kurokami").

Anyway, now that this series seems to have got a lot of its plot building out of the way, and has finally stopped Keita from being such a miserable git all of the time, it's really starting to grow in entertainment value. Yes, it's as cliche as it gets when it comes to action series, following the tried and trusted route we've seen a million times before (from Naruto, Bleach et al), but you know what - That formula works for a reason, and that reason is that a show like this can be fun to watch. From its languid beginnings, Kurokami is finally staking a claim upon tha fun factor without so much as disturbing a brain cell, and to my mind that's fine for what it's aiming to achieve.