I’m tired, boys and girls. These old bones have seen too much; too much pain, too much hardship, too much hair and bruises and bodily fluids. I’ve done the best I can, and I’m proud of every damn minute – proud of all of you. I wouldn’t take this bizarre and sexually confusing journey back for the world.
We began as humble explorers, keen on striking out for new horizons. A compelling soundtrack, a few strange and irreconcilable visual details – these were our clues, the breadcrumbs that led us to this winding, treacherous path. How could we have known the perils to come? The lines crossed, narrative rules broken or fundamentally misunderstood, yearnings awakened, never to slumber again? And yet, each turn of the screw held its own strange and rarely mentionable pleasures. Hair as sex object – haircut as virginity proxy. A deaf piano tuner. A moe needle addict. A witch named Witchy. A loli assassin. Each new tangle in the weave added subtleties to the glossy sheen, braiding itself naturally into locks fortified by random misappropriations of genre conventions and a fundamental certainty that everything happening could not conceivably be any more erotic.
My friends, tonight our journey comes to an end. But let us not dwell on that – nay, let us consider it a new beginning; a revision of the world we knew, now colored by our common pilgrimage. For the moments we have shared will stay with us, connecting us like shimmering ebon tresses no matter the distance. Though our paths may diverge, our common ends will never split. Though our time together may be shorn, no Goods may sever the time we had.
Let rise the curtain, friends. Let our final hour be bright and soft as silk.
Episode 13
0:25 – The Hair Queen gazes at the loli, at the flames, at the loli. Gritting her teeth, she comes to a decision. To hell with Gossip and all the rest of them. She has her principles
0:53 – Really? Greyland is in the House? I mean, I know you never intended to be classy, Crime Edge, but…
Gah, fine. Whatever. Raise the roof, Greyland is in the house
1:11 – “Hey, Lolino. Now that you’re delirious from blood loss and unable to actively murder me, I figured we could have a bonding moment.”
1:38 – I had to backtrack to confirm he was wearing half a pair of glasses. Ain’t give a damn.
2:07 – “As for how or why she was found, most members of Gossip don’t have a clue.” The joke is that there are actually people who care about the exposition and world-building in made-up nonsense stories like these ones. I had an argument yesterday with someone mad that the technology in frikkin’ Gargantia doesn’t make scientific sense. Because clearly that makes the point of that show come tumbling down
2:20 – “He was looking for something miraculous… something that could cut my hair.” “Dear god, let me find a tool to cut my daughter’s relatively inconvenient hair!” Fucking first world problems…
2:44 “I was jealous… and so I decided to end your life.” “I see.” Man, Iwai is just #1 at bonding with people who try to murder her. It’s the shounen protagonist gift
4:34 – And it all comes down to this. Can the love of such a pure maiden tame the savage beast?
Wait. Iwai isn’t pure in the slightest.
Well, we tried
5:02 – Is it just me, or does Kiri’s berserker crab walk look exceptionally silly?
Also, while we’re here, might as well mention that this whole “spirit of the killer” thing is taking the sex-fetish-as-addiction thing to staggering new depths of creepiness. At this point, any attempts to say this show is a metaphor for anything will probably make it come off as more rapey than it already is
5:42 – Yep, things are getting pretty weird
6:17 – “Savagely, like a wild beast… he violated my hair.”
There it is, folks. Pack it up, get the gear in the van. Not sure where we can go from here
8:54 – Aaand her hair starts growing again.
I mean, does the show want me to actually articulate the idea it’s getting at here? Regarding how the Hair Queen thing is a metaphor for her comfort level with her self and sexuality, and how her relationship with Kiri has changed and subsequently regressed that sexual identity? I’m not gonna do it. This show just said “he violated my hair.” It has lost all analysis privileges
9:27 – Well, it’s nice to see Iwai and Emily are getting on like a forest on fire in which someone’s hair was just violated
10:02 – SERIOUSLY? We are SERIOUSLY following up that scene with a bath scene starring Iwai and Lolino? Crime Edge, you don’t give a single fuck. And by that I mean take a seat right over there
10:07 – “I lost my motivation. I wonder what I was hung up on all these years?” Well it’s nice to know your desire to murder an innocent girl wasn’t just an errant fancy or anything
13:32 – “It’d be easy for me to say killing is wrong.” On the one hand, what the fuck, why are these characters naked for this entire fucking episode. On the other hand, it’s refreshing to see a shounen protagonist admit that people have different circumstances, and sometimes moral high grounds are just convenient disconnects from the world. On the third, fourth, and fifth hands, why are these characters naked for this entire fucking episode.
Maybe it’s a metaphor for my fist in the author’s face
15:16 – “This hospital is run by Gossip.” Yes, that makes sense to me
16:28 – More exposition. This isn’t even pretending to be a last episode. Fuck you, Crime Edge. You can’t keep doing this to me. I’m under no obligation to cover your goddamn second season
17:17 – Why does she keep attacking him with her boobs when she knows he’s into Iwai? Shouldn’t she be smothering him with her hair or something?
19:27 – Dat piano ballad OP arrangement
19:41 – “You will fight many more enemies…” Wait, what? We’re getting the ending speech now? They haven’t even fucking made up yet! You can’t do this to me, Crime Edge! You fill your last episode with random nudity and pointless exposition and don’t even have the main characters share a conversation GAH, CRIIIIIME EEEEEEDGEEEEE!!!!
20:33 – Wait, final haircut appointment? Oh thank god
21:50 – His shears sing out, cutting softly, deftly, like a gentle breath of wind. It feels good. It feels right. -FIN-
22:45 – Except for this montage of batshit insane images from the extremely presumptuously expected sequel
And Done
Well.
Jeez, I don’t even know.
Was it good for you?
That show, guys. That show. When it wasn’t incoherent it was offensive, when it wasn’t offensive it was inept, and when it wasn’t inept it was actually kind of touching. I dunno. It’s too stupid to be problematic. It’s too strange and personal to be satire. It’s too Crime Edge to be anything else.
Our story ends where it began, with two young lovers sharing the innocent joy of cutting hair, changed by their journey and yet somehow still the same. Their path has led them through many trials and a rogues gallery of memorable acquaintances: Sharktooth, Fishwoman and Sis, Ragemaiden, Lolino, Glasses-pusher, and all the rest. They’ve learned… well, they haven’t actually really learned anything, the themes have been pretty incoherent all along. They’ve learned cutting hair is sexy. I guess they already knew that. I guess the sexiness was inside them all along. And that’s something we should all take care to remember.
Anyway. I enjoyed this demented little shounen-drama-mystery-romcom-erotica. It was weird and disjointed and sometimes troubling and always extremely honest. I think honesty is a good thing to strive for in art. And in the spirit of practicing what I preach, I’d like to honestly say it’s been a pleasure writing these, and hearing that some of you enjoy them has meant a lot to me. Thanks for reading. Fuck you all if you think I’m covering another season of this lunacy.
Regards and love and all my shears,
Bobduh