Knight Hunters (Weiss Kreuz), Volume 2

Ryu (Former Staff) — May 20th, 2002
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The saga of the florists by day, assassins by night continues in Knight Hunters #2, Lost Boys. The TV series continues with five more episodes on this disc, detailing more of their assignments.

The first episode deals with the popular urban myth of people being attacked and having their organs stolen for the medical black market. Someone is attacking young girls and taking different body parts. The Weiss step in to stop them.

Next comes a series of kidnappings, where the children turn up not only dead, but mutilated. Omi begins to have flashbacks to his own kidnapping and begins to realize that he has suppressed many memories.

The next two episodes are a story-arc that ties many of the previous evil deeds together. Someone is experimenting on people and creating monsters. Weiss attempts to find out who, only to be attacked by a team of female assassins known as Schreient that seem to be their equal!

The final episode is about a human hunt for those of power and privilege. People are taken and dropped in a wilderness and hunted as the ultimate prey. Not only will a member of Weiss have to serve as bait, but a shocking revelation will change the group forever.

The animation in these episodes has become even sparser than the first disc. Scenes are obviously reused, and the dramatic, repeated, panning towards someone's face shot is used a few too many times. For a newer show, there is nothing here that shows any technical merit.

The stories are poorly plotted, as well. For example, the first episode had great potential and even seemed to be going quite well. Unfortunately, the resolution was so ridiculous that it took you right out of any acceptance that these guys are competent assassins. The whole deal about people mutating into monsters from genetic manipulation turns this into some sort of messed up fantasy story rather than a cool look at the lives of an assassination team. Why create a real world scenario and then blow it with stupid plot contrivances? Wouldn't simple illicit pharmaceutical tests that make people psychotic serve the same purpose? Instead, we get tentacles.

As far as extras go, there is nice voice actor interview sequence, as well as outtakes, production sketches, and textless closings. The roundtable with the voice actors is the highlight, though, and it does show that these guys are good friends.

Overall, this disc has to be ranked lower than the first. The animation is worse. The plot is ridiculous. The only redeeming quality is that a true storyline is beginning to form. As with the first disc, the best story is the last one, which makes you interested in seeing the next, hoping that the quality will be kept up.

This is a definite rent before you buy. Anime Dream will continue to review the series, regardless of how stupid it gets, so keep checking back. We'll let you know if it improves and becomes a worthwhile purchase.

Video Quality: B
Audio Quality: B+
Presentation: B
Content: C-
Overall: C-