Another anime I have found thanks to netflix. This one has a plot right out of the gate. Plenty of action and the introduction isn't super lame like some other animes I know.
This anime takes place in a city somewhere in China. There is a massive wall that makes a boundry between the city and 'hells gate' ...which is an area where odd things happen. Apparently one day it just appeared and things began to change. The sky fell and all of the real stars vanished. The real stars were replaced by 'fake' stars, each one corresponding to a contractor.
There are these humans, kept secret from the masses, known as contractors and some know as spectors. Someone who is a contractor has some special ability, but at a cost. They are know to have an involuntary need to pay some price each time an ability is used. This is very interesting to see a reacurring idea of equal exchange across all sorts of stories. Contractors are known to be cold and methodical...with no regard to emotions
Anyhow the first episode show a man running from something and he is on a roof of a tall building, he gets cornered by some sort of police. The man begins to glow blue, which means he is activating his special ability, and he flies into the air. A few blocks away on another roof he lands and runs to a secluded area. This contractor then takes his own finger and breaks it. Our main character is there waiting for him and makes a remark about his 'price' ...the viewer now learns special abilities, like levatation, come with a sacrifice....sometimes that sacrifice is extreme and sometimes it is subtle. The man gets dealt with and the main character dissapears into the night.
Contractors are still mostly human...except they have lost all empathy and compassion for anything. Contractors are thought to be methodical and relentless by the rest of the world. While spectors on the other hand are more like dolls/robots with a human shape. Spectors can move outside of their body through a medium, water or even electricity, and can watch or spectate the things around them. The government has a massive network of these dolls keeping track of the contractors through some odd link to astrology. Every contractor has a star that appears in the fake sky that will 'activate' when that specific contractor is using a special ability. The story revolves around the a syndicate...some mysterious power pulling all sorts of strings. The main character is a unassuming school boy. However when he works as an assassin for the "syndicate" he is known as 'the black reaper'.
Examples of the price to pay:
There is a duo that works for the government and the male has the control over water....his price is smoking cigarettes. The female, who can manifest a storms, must drink beer. Those are the best prices I have encountered...
There is another male who works as a mercenary and his ability is to detonate any blood that is outside of his body...the price to be paid is the initial cut to get the blood flowing so his price is paid before he uses his ability. On the command of his finger snap anything that has his blood on it will explode.
Another woman has the ability to vibrate anything to any frequency using her voice....she has an interesting price. Her price is perpetuated from the previous life she lived....he daughter choked and died on cigarette butts and therefore he price is to swallow and hack up cigarette butts.
Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.4
No comments:
Post a Comment