Mystery

The Severing Crime Edge

Dansai Bunri no Kuraimu Ejji

Studio Gokumi

Directed by Yuuji Yamaguchi (Angel Links, Strawberry Eggs, Fate/stay night)

Music by Yasuhara Takanashi (Gantz, Beelzebub, Fairy Tail)

The Severing Crime Edge, based on a manga by Tatsuhiko Hikagi, tells the story of Kiri Haimura, a young man with an insatiable desire to cut people’s hair. After his family had had enough of his weird hobby/obsession, he was lucky enough to stumble upon 14-year-old Iwai Mushanokouji. Iwai seems like a normal enough girl, until you learn that she is cursed with floor-length hair that can never be cut. Fortunately, Kiri’s flamboyant scissors are also cursed with the ability to cut anything. It’s a match made in heaven; that is, until psychopathic murderers start coming after poor, innocent Iwai. You see, Iwai is what’s called the “Hair Queen,” and anyone who can kill this helpless young teenager will have their heart’s deepest desire granted to them. The murderers are known as Authors, and their murder weapons are called Killing Goods. Lucky for Iwai, Kiri’s magic shears just so happen to be one of these famed murder weapons passed down to him from his ancestor Grayland, a man responsible for some 200 deaths. The scissors even have a name: The Severing Crime Edge. Can Kiri protect Iwai from these impending dangers?

This show is very much anime. I don’t mean that as a compliment, nor do I intend it as a criticism. This kind of show is every bit the reason I started watching anime in the first place. The story is wacky and all over the place but mature in tone. The characters are young, naive, and often emotionally and sexually stunted, but the nature of the show’s violence and subject matter suggests that it is for a much older audience than that which would relate to such character traits. As an adult, I’m not sure who this show is for, but as a young teenager, I could have sworn this kind of show was for me, but I better not show it to my parents.

That said, I can’t make heads or tails of the main relationship in this show, which, other than the action scenes is the only reason you’d watch something like this, I imagine. In a scene near the end of the season, Kiri confesses that he can’t take it anymore and straight up mounts Iwai. After licking her chest, nibbling her ears, and tasting her hair (?) he ultimately ends up kissing her on the forehead and says he can’t do any more than that. She swears that her lips will be waiting for him when he is ready. I am now confused. The scenes in which Kiri cuts Iwai’s hair are kind of amazing in all their visual embellishments. They feel like the only moments where these two characters are developing together, and they’re clearly more expensive than most of the rest of the show.

The animation quality is all over the place. Aside from run-of-the-mill still frames and your expected corner cutting, there are some weird inconsistencies between shots. The outlines are inexplicably thicker and more pronounced in some scenes, whereas they’re very thin and unnoticeable in others. Even colors can vary and change within a single scene. Aside from the hair cutting sequences, the action scenes stand out as some of what the show has to offer visually. The animations are fluid, and the blocking and movements are very coherent.

The show is chockablock with fan service. Besides your typical panty shot fare, there is a bit of nudity that was censored in the version I watched. All of the censored nudity comes from the flat-chested 14-year-old Iwai and an even younger character who appears late in the season. There is also a character who has huge bouncing breasts, but the shine drawn on the tops of her boobs are an unfortunate rosy red with solid white center, making her tits look like two giant pimples ready to explode. As an aside, this might be the first anime I’ve seen that uses the white censor bars to cover something other than nudity. There is a scene in which a character draws her own blood with a syringe and injects it into another character. In both moments where she inserts the needle, the white bar appears to cover it up.

Throughout the brunt of the season, I was pretty sure this show had nothing to say thematically. In the last couple of episodes, I may have found something interesting to latch onto. You see, the Authors, owners of the Killing Goods, are constantly being manipulated by their murder weapons. The disembodied voices of the tools’ original owners is constantly whispering in the Authors’ ears to kill and kill again. Therefore, the Authors must exploit Insteads, people that they can use their Killing Goods on in some way to sate their murderous desires. Iwai is Kiri’s Instead, and allowing him to cut her hair everyday eases his need to murder. The show establishes these original owners as more than just common criminals. They feel like legends and in that light are almost justified for their actions. So by the time a late season twist reveals that Crime Edge’s Original, Grayland, may not have been all he was cracked up to be (perhaps he randomly and ruthlessly killed two people instead of the reported 200), you really feel the guilt of these crimes starting to weigh down on Kiri. The quip that popped into my mind when all this came to light? The Sins of the Father. Or maybe I’m just reaching, because this show really is crap.

The show’s biggest crime is not the homicide, but the tedium and stupidity. Even the visually exciting action beats can be logically confounding. For example, an Author fighting Kiri uses a book of judgement to summon a noose around his victim’s neck. Kiri is hanging from this rope holding his scissors that can cut literally anything. What do? Cut rope? Nope! When there isn’t an action beat in progress, the characters are constantly dumping information about rules of this world that never end up mattering one iota. And the whole hair cutting thing just feels like an excuse to sell a wider variety of PVC figures with different cute haircuts.

I can see this being appealing to a young teenager, but it’s just not for me. I don’t think the show really has anything to say, despite accidentally stumbling upon some weighty themes. And ultimately, when a show doesn’t have anything to say, all it can do is entertain, and The Severing Crime Edge isn’t very good at that either.

1.5 breast pimples out of 5.

[starrater]