Anime Series: Black Cat
First off, I seem to have a fondness over cat-inspired boys. I love Fruits Basket's Kyou, I find Loveless' Aoyagi Ritsuka adorable (complete with ears and tail) and somehow I find Saotome Ranma's phobia over cats funny (but I love it when he got possessed by the cat and he snuggles to Akane, hee!). So when I found that there's a series by Gonzo about another cat-inspired dude, I checked it out as soon as possible.
The story of "Black Cat" started off as somewhat cliche to me. The main character, Train Hearnett (ze cat boy), is a lone wolf type of guy who works as a member of an assassin organization called Chronos where he is known by his number "XIII" and the code name "Black Cat"). But after a twist of events and tragedies, Train realized that he would very much prefer to have freedom and he'll be able to get that by leaving Chronos. Unfortunately, the organization and its members are not willing to let him off that easily - especially his sort of partner-in-crime Creed Diskenth who became so obsessed with getting the old heartless Train back (really, he's an obsessed freak when Train is concerned) that he ended up being quite a delusional character.
Train has his own band of co-members to join - the eccentric but well-meaning Sven Vollfied, the innocent bio-weapon Eve and the busty and energetic Rinslet Walker. Together, they meet more comrades (some were former enemies) that came in handy when they discover that what they were actually fighting a much bigger opponent than what they expected.
Perhaps what made me a little disappointed of this series is the slow pacing of the story. Too many characters were introduced but not much about their background was revealed and you're left wondering if they even had a role at all. All in all, it was somewhat a forgettable series for me.
The background music was satisfactory - the composer was the same person who did the jazzy music of the "Read or Die" series. The graphics and art were of course, very good since "Black Cat" was handled by Gonzo but other than that, I'm afraid I wasn't too impressed with this series.
A-chan's rating for Black Cat: 6.4 / 10
