Black Cat

Completing every job with ruthless accuracy, Train Heartnet is an infamous assassin with no regard for human life. Donning the moniker "Black Cat" in the underground world, the elite killer works for the powerful secret organization known only as Chronos.

One gloomy night, the blasé gunman stumbles upon Saya Minatsuki, an enigmatic bounty hunter, and soon develops an odd friendship with her. Influenced by Saya's positive outlook on life, Train begins to rethink his life. Deciding to abandon his role as the Black Cat, he instead opts to head down a virtuous path as an honest bounty hunter. However, Chronos—and particularly Creed Diskenth, Train's possessive underling—is not impressed with Train's sudden change of heart and vows to resort to extreme measures in order to bring back the emissary of bad luck.

This assassin turned "stray cat" can only wander so far before the deafening sound of gunfire rings out.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Heartnet, Train Main

Kondo, Takashi Japanese

Eve Main

Fukuen, Misato Japanese

Vollfied, Sven Main

Fujiwara, Keiji Japanese

Walker, Rinslet Main

Yukana Japanese

Minatsuki, Saya Supporting

Toyoguchi, Megumi Japanese

Diskenth, Creed Supporting

Miki, Shinichiro Japanese

Lunatique, Tearju Supporting

Fukuen, Misato Japanese

Kirisaki, Kyouko Supporting

Chiba, Chiemi Japanese

Arks, Sephiria Supporting

Inoue, Kikuko Japanese

Hazard, Jenos Supporting

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Harp, Clarine Producer

Takano, Takashi Producer

Okiura, Taito Producer

Reviews

Dec 31, 2006

Ceray

Recommended

Gah~ Ceray's Review Time (procrastination in disguise)! Anyway, this is the review for the anime Black Cat. The anime is about Black Cat, also known as Train Heartnet, who once was an assassin for the organization Chronos. Due to events that happen in the story, Train quits being an assassin to becoming a sweeper/bounty hunter.

Plot: Since I haven't read the manga (yet) I can't compare the plots, I do know, however, that the storyline has changed a bit, however that doesn't really affect the story. The main part of the story consists of Train more or less wanting to confront a ghost from his past ... and this takes up roughly a little less than half the series. Though it's good that Black Cat had other small subplots, it felt rushed at times, as if they wanted to get straight to the action, which took away from the enjoyment. That aside, the story was wonderful, and kept me anxious for the next episode (which is why I finished so quickly), wanting to know what would happen to Train and company next.
Score: 7/10

Animation: If you want me to express what I though about the animation for Black Cat in one word that word would be "PWETTY." Not pretty, but pwetty. The animation is smooth and does look all.... icky. Yeah. If there's one thing about the animation that I have to point out is that Train looks younger, a few years younger. I mean, he's twenty three in the manga, but in the anime he looks nineteen (age change could be because of the changed time line...). What else should I say? The ending animation for the first twelve episodes is amusing, but only until... episode eight, but honestly I was missing it after a while. But, that's not the point, and the point is that Black Cat's animation nice... No reused animation, as far as I saw.
Score:10/10

Sound: Ah~ The background music, it's music to my ears. The music pretty much matches the mood of the current scene, for example during the dramatic scenes some sort of opera sounding music plays giving you that... ominous (?) feeling. I absolutely adored the piano version of the song Konoyo no Uta, which plays at certain points in the series. The opening theme, Daia no Hana, is amazing as well... However, the first ending theme Namidaboshi sometimes doesn't match the mood of the episode that it's ending...

Now usually, I don't watch subs, this is because I'd rather hear it in English, with Black Cat, I had no choice but to watch it subbed... And how wonderful it was. Takashi Kondo pulls Train off extremely well, sounding one way when serious and totally lighthearted another way. Also Shin'ichiro Miki makes Creed sound absolutely obsessed, which is good... I guess...Cept, I dun like Creed...
Score:9/10

Character: Ah. Do I have to put this? I totally love the characters of Black Cat... Even Creed, who scares me a lot. They aren't all that different than their manga counterparts, which is... good, and you can really tell the difference between then, Train is Train, Tanya is Tanya and Creed.... is obsessed.
Score: 9/10

Enjoyment: ... Must I explain?... Well... I sorta watched the whole series for Train... So... yeah...
Score: 9/10


Overall:

Yay!: Animation is smooth and pwetty. Smooth animation is good on Ceray's glasses ridden eyes.
Nay!: Plot was way too rushed. Pull it out at least ten or so more episoes.
Score: 9/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Oct 11, 2013

angelsreview

Mixed Feelings

Ok, so before I have told you that I’m not crazy about girls and guns genre, but I guess this could be considered guys and guns. Now in this, it’s a bit different except the concept was the same, guy gets into a organization as pretty much a hired gun and goes around assassinating who the organization doesn’t like. The thing I like about this show is that it doesn’t start there, and most of that is actually back story. This is about him getting out of the group and learning what he himself wanted. The character that actually helps him figure this out is ... ‘new’ code was Saya but it really annoyed me they killed her off so quickly.

Now I do wonder a lot about why Saya is a big part of Train’s life and why he goes out for revenge. He only knows her for about 2 or three days so why does he go crazy when she dies? Is it because she is the only person he cared about that died in front of him? I don’t think that’s the case because they show he has seen others he cares about dieing before then so why? Give us a bit more to work on with her please. I liked the show but I hate that they add Saya only to kill her off in the first 2 to 3 episodes. It’s just not fair to both Train and the watcher. Once I got into her character, then I’m hurt by how she is no longer there. Though there flash backs, we don’t see much of how she affects Train much. It somewhat makes me feel that the first five episodes were wasted on the so called relationship between Train and Saya that had no real reason for being because it wasn’t much of a relationship.

The fighting was rather interesting though sometimes it bothered me that we only got flashes of the fight and not a whole fight. It did get better after a while though. I am also don’t really like the sudden change in Train’s character that seems to mess with me. He all of a sudden is so childish in front of strangers. It’s a complete turn around from how he was in the first few episode without any space in between for growth.

Some of the animation feels much like an opening to a James Bond opening though it has a bit of the same flare as a new-vole in the beginning. And then it cuts that and goes into comic fest with jokes and funny site gags. It has a nice way of taking you into the story line for the drama, then hitting you over the head with a bat continually until it again goes back into Drama mode. But every battle works well with the next, someone studied well when it came to camera angles. Gonzo isn’t known for great animation but this one is pretty nicely done.

The music has many different feels for each scene from the hunting chant whenever Greed (aka Seductive obsessed freak!) to the playful sounds of walking down the street that you normally get for comical affect. Most of them work well with the characters but once in a while… we get something that sounds rather bad or not fitting the area.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jun 26, 2014

PonPonPon

Not Recommended

I’m gonna be straight here – Black Cat is one of the most disappointing anime I’ve ever watched. It’s been two years since I watched this anime and I’m still a little bitter at how much potential remained unrealized at its end.

Black Cat is about this assassin named Train Heartnet (hey, at least he escaped whoever named all the characters in Geass). Or wait, it’s about this secret bio-weapon disguised as a loli named Eve. Actually no, it’s about this bounty hunter dude named Sven. Oh, wait, never mind, I remember, it’s actually about the villain, Creed, who has a hard-on for Train. No hang ... on, it might’ve been about the organization that Train worked for, Chronos…

See, I’m writing all of this as if the abundance of disparate elements in the plot is a bad thing, but the thing is, the story started out with a ton of potential. The first four or five episodes do a great job of tying all these characters together in a sensible and, dare I say, a captivating manner. Seriously, the beginning of this show is excellent. It’s exciting and a bit dark without getting too edgy or angsty, the characters all have good synergy and play off of each other very well, and the pacing is near-perfect.

And then the timeskip happens.

I’ll try to be brief and not spoil anything here, but suffice it to say that a certain main character’s personality does a complete 180 after the timeskip, and virtually zero explanation for the change is given to the viewer, outside of occasional scattered hints that refer to certain events that happened pre-timeskip. This is unfortunately only the beginning, as the rest of the anime devolves into a giant mess of hastily-introduced and poorly-fleshed-out characters, a distinct lack of focus on core plot points that the initial episodes tried to establish, and a ridiculous number of plot contrivances that attempt to reconcile this lack of focus, to no avail. The pacing is haphazard at best and has all the grace of a one-legged donkey at worst. The only relatively consistent character throughout the show is Sven; everyone else undergoes obscenely rushed character “development”, which is really just most of the characters overreacting to major events and, much like aforementioned main character, completely flipping the script on their personalities and becoming the exact opposite of who they originally were. This isn’t even mentioning the staggering number of characters this show introduces. There are like 10 new villains that arrived on the scene halfway through the show, plus all the Chronos assassins and executives, plus the guys who were in charge of those 10 or so new villains I just mentioned…the list just keeps growing and growing, and almost none of them get any kind of proper characterization, let alone development. It’s as if Naruto or One Piece were to condense themselves into 25 or so episodes, and cram their entire casts and plot into that timeframe. It’s insane.

All that being said, the anime does have its good qualities. As I said before, the first part of the anime is very well done, and it constructs a reasonably compelling narrative while introducing a pretty solid cast of characters to drive it forward. The art and animation are also good, although the color palette was a little weird and off-putting at times. The soundtrack is fairly strong as well, and I am particularly fond of the opening theme.

Ultimately, the overwhelming number of flaws prevent this anime from being anything more than way below-average at best. In truth, the last three-quarters or so of this anime are straight up terrible in terms of execution. Still, though…I can only imagine how much more enjoyable this anime could’ve been if they had just stuck to the format the first few episodes had established. It’s a damn shame.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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