And now for a completely different show! It’s time-skip time on Super Crooks and after a strangely disturbing-slash-funny origin story, we’re skipping straight through adolescence to rejoin Johnny Bolt as a super cool guy getting out of prison. Alrighty then.
1. Roll credits
First things first, the opening sequence. As an anime fan of yore, I love a good opening sequence. Yes, we all love “Tank!” but do the kids nowadays remember the days of “Battlecry” for Samurai Champloo? What about “the WORLD” opening of Death Note or “COLORS” by FLOW for Code Geass? Not to mention how perfectly the soulful sound of Yui’s “Again” perfectly set up the world of Full Metal Alchemist.
I’m losing myself in nostalgia here but my point is that a good opening can really make you want to love a show. Super Crooks opens with a funky, colorful vibe to the song “ALPHA” by TOWA TEI with Taprikk Sweezee. And while the song is catchy and fun, and the imagery has the sort of retro colorful vibe I want to like, the actual title sequence itself bums me out. Because 99 percent of it is just the main character’s girlfriend gyrating on the street in high heels. Johnny Bolt, ostensibly the main character, shows up every few frames to do a weird hair flip he thinks is cool but the sort of Bond-girl objectification of Kasey takes center stage. And while I’m not so prudish as to not appreciate some cheesecake, this ain’t it! Because Kasey is also stylized in the same angular, retro feel of the show as a whole, so while she’s dancing naughtily, she’s not exactly sexy? The whole thing feels embarrassing instead of titillating and it’s the opposite of the vibe from the song. Maybe the teen boy audience Netflix is going for will appreciate it but it seems like pandering in the laziest possible way.
2. All aboard the exposition train
When the actual episode gets going, we learn that Johnny is getting out of prison after a short sentence for some minor crimes. While he was there, he apparently didn’t learn anything about either the world outside prison or the world inside it, though, because multiple characters do an “Explain like I’m five” to him while he’s getting out. They tell him all about the supervillain world and the boss, Mr. Matts, who runs it via a “Network” of villains who come up with schemes and get the low-level guys to do their dirty work. Later in the episode, just in case you missed it, Kasey explains the concept again after she and Johnny have just had sex. Talk about some lovely and realistic pillow talk.
It makes for extremely stilted dialogue and just … lazy storytelling. I was wondering why the show bothered to start with Johnny’s childhood and I’m again questioning that choice. Because they could’ve set some of this up in a more organic way, split over the course of two episodes that saw Johnny get caught and imprisoned, then released, all the while having flashbacks to his childhood. But they just … didn’t. Instead, we get prison guards explaining things to Johnny like he’s a literal child. It’s sloppy and I hope it improves over the next eleven episodes.
3. Making the Network happy
The supervillain of note introduced in this episode is “The Bastard,” a man who opines about art in the way only a supervillain would. His dialogue is on the nose, but it should be since this is a show about supervillains. The problem is that the show plays things straight sometimes and then other times goes overboard with wackiness, so the tonal whiplash means you’re not quite sure whether to laugh or not. I’m guessing “The Bastard” will be a middle-of-the-road villain used to get Johnny’s gang together and bond them before the real villain shows up, which means I’m not going to spend much time caring about him either way.
4. Ocean’s … what, four? Does anyone care?
Johnny’s friends are a lovable gang of weirdos who get him to rob a bunch of jewelry stores. One of them has ice powers of some sort, one wears a weird suit and only says one word all the time, while the other spreads bad luck. This might be interesting if we lived in the world of a different show but the whole thing seems so predictable. We know Johnny’s girlfriend is going to object to him robbing the bank, and we know the gang is going to be lovable but incompetent without Johnny, and we know Johnny’s going to decide to do it anyway. All of that happens and I just can’t seem to care about the sidekicks any more than I have to.
5. Is this dialogue or is this exposition or is this dancer
I mentioned the terrible dialogue above and I didn’t have a fifth thought, so I’m repeating what I said because it’s really quite bad. I keep comparing this show to other animes I’ve enjoyed and it keeps coming up short. I want to like the style but Tiger and Bunny has a very similar aesthetic and a very similar setup with much more likable characters and a decent plot. Even a show like Death Note walks the line between ridiculous and deadly serious with more precision than this one does. Once it figures out whether it wants to be a parody of Batman or compete with it, maybe things will improve but for now, I’m just rooting for better dialogue and characters that develop beyond their boobs or their one-note character traits.
