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July 20, 2007

Black Cat Review

Posted in: Reviews

Black Cat Train Heartnet

In a nutshell

The story follows a legendary assassin who later on became a sweeper (a bounty hunter) following a fated meeting and some shocking events. A little while down his path as a sweeper, he is once again forced to face his past and began to get obsessed with getting revenge on his worst enemy.

As a sweeper, he joined Sven Volfield and Eve. Sven was an ex-detective before he became a sweeper and possesses the Vision Eye that can predict the future while Eve is a young girl who was created to be a bio-weapon using nano-technology.

“Train”ed Assassin

Train Heartnet a.k.a the Black Cat was a former assassin working for the elite assassination organization, the Chronos Numbers. He was legendary even among the elites and is easily recognized by his Chronos mark on his left chest, the roman number XIII (13) despite the fact that Chronos Number should only have up to 12 members at a time. This goes to show that Train was that good to be made an exception to the rule.

Black Cat Train Heartnet

Each member of Chronos Numbers is given a preferred weapon made out of Orichalcum, a legendary metal that can be compared with Mithril from Lord of The Rings. Train’s weapon of choice is the Hades, a large decorated gun with his mark, XIII, engraved on it.

First Impression

Black Cat Train Heartnet

The anime starts off with an intense battle scene between Train and Creed, which would only take place a few episodes later, but is enough to intrigue anyone to continue watching. Creed’s speech would certainly confused those who are not familiar with the series with phrases such as “that witch”, “those eyes” and “the spell”. I had actually thought that there was a witch who casted a spell on Train, giving him special eyes that made him the legend he is. Boy, I couldn’t have been further from the truth! Luckily, though, everything would make perfect sense by the time the actual battle occurs.

The Fun Stuff

Black Cat Train Heartnet

But it’s not all serious stuff, the anime has plenty of hilarious moments, especially after Train became a sweeper. He pretty much did a 180 degrees change in his attitude, going from a no-nonsense super serious assassin into an idiot full of nonsense. He returns back to his old self once in a while when he needs to be and that is usually when he needs to deal with anything related to Creed.

Black Cat Train Heartnet

Anime and Manga

The anime is significantly different from the manga. Personally, I prefer the timeline in the anime as it is more straight-forward and builds up a solid background for the main plot of Black Cat. In the anime, Train seems to be younger and more serious compared to his manga counterpart. Oh, he also looks cooler here too 😀

However, while the starting of the anime was better (in my opinion) than the manga, the ending is a different case altogether. The ending for Black Cat in the anime left much to be desired and just doesn’t give any satisfaction at all. The manga, on the other hand, had an awesome ending.

Organizations

Black Cat Chrono Numbers

The Chronos Numbers and the Apostles of the Stars (Creed’s group) helps to add to the variety of characters in the anime. There are also appearance of some Chronos Numbers members who were not shown in the manga, such as No. VI, Anubis.

Verdict

Awesome anime. Great animation style, good OST and compelling storyline. Only real problem I have with Black Cat’s anime is the ending. If you’ve never watched or read Black Cat before, go get the anime first. After you’re done, get the manga 😀

If you’re interested to add Black Cat to your own collection, you can check out the following places:

Play-Asia Black Cat DVDs, OST and Games (DS)

RightStuf Black Cat DVDs and Manga

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