==============
Loups=Garous
==============
:CreationDate: 2014-03-19 12:03:33
:Id: anime/review/loups-garous
:tags: - anime
- review
:rating: 1.5
:original: https://www.easternkicks.com/reviews/loupsgarous
Oh my, where do I start describing this thing…
I may start from the translation, where they managed to mis-gender one
of the main characters. She's called KONO Ayumi, which is a girl's
name, she's part of a group of girls, she's clearly drawn with a
female figure, but it's "Mister Kono" and "he", both in the dubbing
and in the subtitles. I don't want to think the error came from her
first line being «Do you love me?» directed at another girl. I doubt
the translation will be fixed before the commercial release,
though. I'd also like to know why the cameras that record everything
everyone does are called "storage devices" (a fansub has them as
"image collection devices", which sounds like a better translation),
but that's just a minor nit.
Then, the setting. Sometime in the future. There's been peace
everywhere for about a century. People tent to interact mainly
on-line, so schools have to convince pupils to have actual in person
contact. Also, food shortages have been eliminated by a company that
makes synthetic meat from plant matter (no, don't ask why they can't
just eat plants). But, violence and murder are still around.
There's a series of murders, and four girls get involved: Yuuko gets
nearly killed, Mio wants to know what happened, Ayumi has witnessed
the scene, Myao has helped save Yuuko, Hazuki (our point-of-view
character) is just dragged into the whole mess because she's part of
the same "in-person communication group" as the first two girls. Their
teacher / supervisor / whatever is asked to cooperate with the
investigation by a shifty figure in the police; her boyfriend (?) is
also part of the investigation. A few things happen: while trying to
discover who's the killer, and to avoid getting killed, the girls
practise a dance routine from an old video recording (no, I have no
idea why, it's totally unrelated to the plot); Mio hacks into the
surveillance network, and near the end she goes around inside a robot;
Myao kicks ass (she's Chinese, so of course she's good at martial
arts); Ayumi rambles philosophically; Hazuki is generically
encouraging; there's explosions and more deaths; there's a vague
explanation at the end, where we discover that the title ("werewolves"
in French) comes from the fact that some people will behave like
beasts for whatever reason.
The drawings, animation, and music are not nearly good enough to make
up for the shoddy setting and plot. I feel, honestly, that I've wasted
a hundred minutes watching this.
