Bullet/Bullet

The most fun 6/10 anime I've ever seen.

The clear PROS are that there's a lot of creativity on display here and some legitimately fantastic directing. Tons of great ideas and a lot clever visuals, as well as some great animation, fun character designs, good worldbuilding, etc... The OST and OP is legitimately fantastic. I enjoy the characters quite a bit even if they aren't the greatest ever.

The first few episodes were a bit slow to me and it seemed like the story was going to be super basic. Then the story started really progressing, reveals were made, and twists occurred that got me pretty invested ... into the show. About halfway through the season is where this show peaks in it's writing quality and I really loved episodes 6 and 7 and thought they were genuinely good. Once the finale of the first batch of 8 episodes hit, I thought it was a pretty great show. It twists and turns it's way from action into heist to political thriller etc...

Now that I've watched the final four episodes that just dropped, I'm realizing there was just way too much this show had to do at that point to really give a "well written" ending. Dues Ex Machinas everywhere, skipping side characters getting from point A to point B, etc... Ultimately it didn't have enough to time to really sell any of these ideas that it was playing with, and I thought that throughout the show Noah really didn't get enough time to shine for how badass she is.

That being said, if you can just sit back and accept the writing isn't the greatest thing ever, I gotta say: I LOVE THIS SHOW for some reason. Despite all it's flaws and silly ridiculousness, it was just pure fun and really entertaining and was always throwing new things at the viewer. If it had got 24 episodes I think this would've been a legitimately great show, but as it stands, probably falls in the bin of super fun as long as you turn off your brain.

Bullet/Bullet seemingly is Mad Max inspired setting where civilization has crumbled expect for this cities of scrap collectors. Gear, our 15 year old garbage-collecting, mechanic expert, heist-extraordinaire protagonist, is one of those scrap collectors but we first see him participating in a heist. The first episode is dedicated to the heist and then spends a lot of time retroactively trying to explain how they got to that point. I understand the importance of having a big hook in the first few minutes, but dragging the viewer through a poor explanation does the opposite in my opinion. Very quickly we go through Gear's backstory and his ... relationship with his adopted father figure, just for him to leave his life behind in episode 2, which is treated as this big emotional moment, for characters that we don't know and don't care about yet.

The rest of the show is just as confused. The car focus gets dropped for more than half the show to bring very cookie-cutter revolutionary-coded story beats. Don't get me wrong, the show obviously has something to say and that something could have been more impactful if it was written or directed better. It seems the plot looses itself and what we get is a ham fisted plot that neither delivers the message correctly nor paces its actions scenes the proper way. They're literally all in the beginning and end, with the middle of the show feeling barren.

Is it a "bad" show? Maybe not. I think something enjoyable can be derive from it, but I do think it is subpar. Enjoy at your own risk.

This anime is just embarrassing. Nonstop overreacting wacky humor and none of it is funny. It's like a horrible mix of clown world action and soap opera drama. The show feels more like a Tom and Jerry cartoon than anime. Yes, there are some serious parts, but also five seconds later it's back to clown world. If you are watching this for the action then you will be bored out of your mind during the drama therapy sessions. The car CGI is low-budget and already looks dated. My overall impression is they were trying way too hard to appeal to a western audience and completely ... missed the mark.