Opening Songs
OP 1 - Renegade (STEREO DIVE FOUNDATION)
Ending Songs
ED 1 - Country Of The Night (Annabel)
Genre: Action, Drama
Episodes: 12
Like me, many were impressed by "Gangsta" when it first came out. After the gigantic amount of cliche animes we finally thought that we'd be getting something a bit more different than the others. "Gangsta" started off pretty nicely as were introduced to the nasty, crime-riddled city of Ergastulum and its inhabitants. It felt like it was going to be a pretty dark show that discussed and touched on some pretty nasty topics. However, we were quickly fooled and lured into "Gangsta"'s pace. Sure, its not cliche and doesn't hold itself back, going all the way with its themes and characters. Honestly though, they're just not very f**king interesting. While it shows promise, "Gangsta" just never fully lives up to it, bringing forth a lot of questions but never fully answering them. It soon becomes another simple matter of good guys vs bad guys, with the occasional OP fellow that shows up taking on enemies 10 to 1 in a head on fight. Nothing really..."gangter-ish" here, honestly.
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| Pimpin' all f**king day. |
For a show about gangsters, mafia life and the dark side of shady organizations, I expected something a little bit more badass for "Gangsta"'s opening theme. "Renegade", while alright on its own, just didn't bring the hardcore or awesomeness that I was looking for. The ending theme, "Country Of The Night" by Annabel, is just a generic, slow ballad of an ending song. Nothing much to talk about, but I guess it does fit a LITTLE bit.
Rating: 7.0/10
Basically its a show that TRIES to be dark and serious. In a way. it is, but not so much so. In the first few episodes we get a glimpse of how f**ked up the world of Ergastulum, but that's pretty much it. Even when the show tries to dive deeper into the darker themes of the show, it doesn't get serious enough to hype up the drama or tension level. In a way, the show plays it too "safe", and as a result, its quite boring when our handymen don't tackle anything different or interesting at all. Instead of proper mafia fights, negotiation and turf wars, it all boils down to...you guessed it, super powered, genetically modified humans to single handedly turn the tide of battles. Instead of clever planning or making full use of the mafia/gangster theme....that is just...kind of disappointing. That said though, the overall show is all right and it does heat up towards the end, though character development overall save for Alex is pretty weak. The action scenes are average, so there's really not much to say here.
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| Wrong part of town, asshole. |
Worick and Nicholas are nothing much but a couple of stooges running a service in the most scum-bag infested city in the world, Ergastulum. A place where gangsters, mobs and mafia runaways go wild and do whatever they want. Kill, steal, rape, so on and so forth, the police are always busy, but they can't touch some of these guys because their mafia leader counter parts are immune to the law. That's where Worick and Nicholas come in, the pair are also pretty much law immune, and they get the green to go on a killing spree on the idiots who try to break the peace. The law that has been set up by the great 4 father figures of the 4 ruling families of Ergastulum, if those are broken, these 2 get the easy pass to go in for some murdering on the poor bastards who crossed the line. Thing is, one regular day on another job, the 2 manage to pick up a stray prostitute, Alex, who's being used by the guys that they happened to be after as a cash whore. After saving her by killing her former employer in cold blood, the 2 take her in as she seemed to have nowhere to go. What seemed like a kind deed quickly turned sour as Alex is plunged into Nicholas and Worick's world of shady dealings.
"Gangsta" just didn't quite live up to its massive potential IMO. It still is and looks cool, though that doesn't get you very far if you can't keep people interesting. There is a whole lot of build-up for usually a whole lot of mediocrity, even the ending was wishy-washy. A season 2 would certainly clear things up, but honestly, this one deserved better.
