Black Cat - 01 October 6
OP Sequence
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Summary:
Train Hartnett is the legendary assassin called Black Cat who works for the Chronos organization. His partner is Creed Diskence, a man with a taste for blood and death. In the same city, there is a bounty hunter by the name of Sven Volfied. He’s tracking a corrupt politician, Lib Tyrant, with a high sum on his head. Sven is currently pretty broke, but luckily gets some free food after he helps a waitress with some unruly customers. Still following his target, he infiltrates a celebration party. After getting into an accident with a drunkard, Sven is cleaning up in the restroom when he sees Lib walk by with his bodyguards. Sven’s right eye can briefly see the future (when Sven doesn’t have on the eye patch), and Sven gets a vision of Lib’s death. This vision comes true when Sven returns to the main party after a run-in with one of Lib’s bodyguards. He sees a man move lightning fast through the crowd toward Lib and then shoot Lib in the back. Sven follows Train outside, and tries to stop him, but their conversation is interrupted by a giant boomerang. One of Lib’s bodyguards also chased the Train outside and he targets and hits Train’s cheek. Train catches his boomerang, and then uses it to pin him against a tree. Sparing him, Train simply walks away from the scene, with Sven following soon after. We see Creed appear from the darkness and smash the boomerang into the bodyguard, killing him. Sven later learns from a store owner that the assassin he met is one of the Chronos Numbers, specifically number 13: Black Cat. Meanwhile Train, who has returned home, remembers seeing his dead parents when he was a child and all of the death that his own hands have brought. He is awakened from his memories by a girl singing from a nearby rooftop.
ED Sequence
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OP: 「ダイアの花」 by より子
ED: 「ナミダボシ」 by パピーペット
The OP is decent fast song and the OP sequence shows a montage of the entire cast in action. The song and ED sequence are very cute, with the ED sequence showing various characters in cat form. I’m not very familiar with either Yorico or Puppypet, but I don’t find either of these songs very memorable.
What the heck is this…?
I was looking forward to seeing the Black Cat anime, having read a large part of the manga. But I really was not prepared for all of the changes that they made for this animated adaptation. For starters, they moved the beginning of the series to before Sven and Train had met when Train was still part of the Chronos Numbers. They also already show a lot of the big players of the story in the first episode, including Creed, Eve, Sephiria, and Saya. They do hint that Creed and Train fight over something in the 30 seconds before the OP starts, so I guess it’s possible that this is all flashback.
This episode is basically original material with the main characters and their stories basically the same. In the manga, the first chapter starts with Train and Sven already a sweeper (bounty hunter) team. Train’s past arrives in flashbacks that occur a lot later. What they’re doing in the animated version is rewriting the timeline so that everything happens relatively close to each other. I’m not very happy with this way because the manga’s plot is already fairly strong, so there is no need to change the order that the events occurred.
Fujiwara Keiji voices Sven very similarly to how he voiced Hanamoto-sensei in Honey and Clover. Whether that fits the character remains to be seen. Train only gets a smattering of lines, so it’s hard to judge how well Kondo Takashi is doing. The only other person who got a significant number of lines is Miki Shinichiro as Creed, and he does a pretty good job sounding evil and lunatic.
I’m pretty split on this series. I want to continue to watch it in the hopes that it’ll get better and merge with the manga storyline, especially once Eve permanently joins the cast. But the combination of a not so impressive first episode and an incredibly busy Thursday schedule makes me want to not blog this. It all depends on if this gets better in the coming weeks or not.
Kuniyoshi Chiemi at 12:17 am on October 7th, 2005
I cant seems to remember any party scene inside the manga >_
Kira Takuto at 12:27 am on October 7th, 2005
This doesn’t seem to start at the beginning of the manga. There is however a party scene where Rinslet takes Train to a party and it ends with a T-Rex crashing the party.
moyism at 12:31 am on October 7th, 2005
I was discussing this with Omni and we’re pretty much in agreement it’s an anime original episode. They’ve really messed around with the timeline so it’ll be interesting to see how “bad” it’ll get.
Unforunately I’m already having bad feelings about this
estella at 1:41 am on October 7th, 2005
The first 30 seconds are - as far as I can tell - the battle at the end of volume 2 (with first Train and Creed fighting and then Train falling down the Lunafort tower(?)=last scene before the OP). I also think it’s odd that they are starting with his past. oO
I liked the manga-beginning better (with Train and Sven being a team and the flashbacks later on). The preview for the next episode looks weird. I WANT TRAIN AND SVEN AND EVE!!!!!! Okay, well, guess I’ll have to wait and see.
Taurus at 10:46 am on October 7th, 2005
Oh! My next anime target will be this.Anywhere can i download?
Suginami (rus) at 11:48 am on October 7th, 2005
After manga to this is one of my main targets.
Omni, do you know anything about subbing this series?
estella at 4:24 pm on October 7th, 2005
And btw: I REALLY like the opening
“Ha-ji-me-te …….”
Especially the part at 1:12, it’s just AMAZING!!!!!
whatever
I haven’t heard anything of a subbed version yet. (Give the subbers some time, it just aired yesterday…)
Kira Takuto at 9:26 pm on October 7th, 2005
Personally, I thought the episode was ok, but I thought that Sven’s hair color would look better blonde and Eve’s would look better with slightly whitish hair.
Mica at 2:25 pm on October 10th, 2005
Have you seen the terrible character design? I watched the trailer some time ago and made my mind: I won’t watch this anime. They killed the awesome manga even in the character design…imagine in the story!
Dawn at 6:48 pm on October 12th, 2005
Can anyone PLEASE tell me where i can download this anime? I came upon this site by chance
and was so surprised that Black Cat was made into an anime…i can’t wait to watch it….^_^
Omni at 6:50 pm on October 12th, 2005
Please read the third bullet on the About This Site section.
darK at 10:31 pm on October 20th, 2005
haha! My thoughts exactly. I’m not sure how they’re going to continue it or rather, get it back on track with the manga. Rins/Eve is introduced even before Train/Sven are partners; so that means that the whole fight at the mansion is going to be sort of screwed up…yeah.
I prefer the timeline of the manga a lot more than whatever the heck they’re coming up with now.
- darK
Spookia at 5:35 pm on October 25th, 2005
I was soooooooooooooooooooooo disappointed. I told myself not to be, because for almost all mangas that become animes, the manga is better. (I was really disappointed with Bleach, Mahou Sensei Negima, Mai-Hime etc.) The only animes that I’ve seen that are better than their mangas are School Rumble and Elfen Lied. (Elfen Lied is only because the art is sooo much better.) Black Cat anime is going to be a mess. WHY DO THEY ALWAYS RUIN EVERYTHING???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Faust at 5:42 pm on October 26th, 2005
Well I never acutally read Black Cat but do u have a general idea where I can get it?. Sometime mangas are BETTER than anime other time its the other way around. Bleach isnt that bad you know. Now Naruto they kinda killed it but I still love it no matter what. Black Cat seems very interesting maybe bc I’ dont pay much attention to the plot/storyline/details and among other things. It does look like a good series to watch. Hopefully I’ll be able to read more on the next episodes. keep up the good work. love ur site.
Omni at 5:46 pm on October 26th, 2005
I’ve already half-dropped this series. There are a couple of major things working against it: it airs on Thursday (as do several other shows I watch that have much higher priority) and it doesn’t follow the manga (this was one of THE series I expected to do so). If I continue blogging this series, I may only do the subbed episodes (allowing me greater flexibility in my own schedule), but no guarantees.
kiera at 8:32 pm on October 28th, 2005
I love Black Cat! I haven’t gotten to read all of the manga, but I love it!! and I really need to see the anime, even if it got kinda destroyed.. my problem is that my Bit Torrent is weird and doesn’t really let me watch what I try to download, and all the other places with the anime available in another program say that I gotta pay! is there any place that I can downloading it using a program other than Bit Torrent? (realone player for example)
bakaro at 6:25 pm on November 1st, 2005
too bad you dropped this serie to write it in this blog page but well >_>
left-hand at 2:10 am on November 4th, 2005
O_o Well, I am very surprised with the majority of the comments. I read all 20 volumes of Black Cat, and I thought the story was mediocre… Only the drawings make up for it and perhaps some character designs are appealing, but the story is nothing original, nor it’s something that makes me want the next volume badly. The story is quite dragging, and a lot of earlier characters are just never shown again throughout the whole series. What happened to the assassin guy who appear around volume 5?
I actually like the anime better. It has better organization. I thought they deal Sven a lot better than in the manga. In the manga he is sooo side character =_= I couldn’t like him because of his lack of story. And then Saya is so much better in the anime. She is like non existent in the manga, but they make her so cool in episode two. The actions in episode 4 is great too. Sure, I do miss some jokes that exist in the manga, like fake Train sleeping in the vas, but they make up a lot of other new jokes that fit very well to the show.
The opening music is great, and the ending is pure genious. I just can’t see why people hate it O_o
The only thing I didn’t quite like in anime is probably Rins. She looks better in manga ^^”’ But the rest, I must say it’s an improvement, not deprovement.
Boo-chan at 9:52 am on November 25th, 2005
I agree with Left-hand-san, and believe that the anime is better.
The anime starts with a more dramatic way and a darker theme. I really prefer the way the anime starts, and I sincerely hope they’ll change the manga ending as well. Train is by far more interesting and profound on the anime and Saya, as Left-hand-san pointed out, is much more characterized on the anime.
The Op and Ed are awesome although the soundtrack isn’t as good. The character design was screwed, yes, but it was enjoyable nontheless. The animation is fluent and I find it quite interesting.
Rin IS way worse on the anime, but not bad enough to make you hate it or to transform the anime into something non-watchable.
I actually started enjoying Black Cat more because of the anime. I never actually payed a lot attention to it(although I did buy all the volumes) until I got my paws on ep.1. I think it’s it that brought me to the Black Cat-mania.
This is all my opinion though… >>
and I still love Train~… *jump-tackles*
AznSoulBoy at 4:29 pm on December 8th, 2005
well my opinion is really great. it looks like kenshin. and the opening music is really good ;D hmm the episode 10 creed going to attack right?