REVIEW: ‘No Guns Life,’ Episode 7 – “Overheating”

Based on the manga of the same name by Tasuku Karasuma, No Guns Life is a sci-fi, action/adventure anime. The anime is animated by Madhouse Inc., directed by Naoyuki Itō, with Masanori Shino designing the characters, Yukie Sugawara handling series composition, and Kenji Kawai composing music. The anime is voiced in Japanese; however, English subtitles are available. “Overheating” is the seventh episode in the planned 24-episode season.

Olivier, as we learned in the last episode, has a personal stake in Hayden’s escape and re-capture. Not because she is the director of EMS, but because her father was murdered by Hayden. Due to this conflict of interest, Olivier has been suspended from her job. Juzo and Kronen continue their investigation despite this, saving Mega Armed, a well-known Extended that was originally part of Hayden’s squad during the war, from an attack by Hayden. Although beaten back, Hayden is a master of disguise and a talented assassin. He’ll be back.

All the while, Juzo’s friends are still stuck in an EMS cell. Mary knows Juzo is running low on his medicinal cigarettes, which help him resist the strains put on his Extended body. So, not being one to lay around, Tetsuro takes it upon himself to bring Juzo his cigarettes by using Harmony. Again.

“Overheating” was a bit different from previous episodes. Whereas past episodes were just as serious, the writers broke up these sequences with snippets of silly comments or jokes. This episode, for the most part, is one big sequence of action and serious dialogue. This change of pace doesn’t make this episode bad but does make it stand out from other episodes.

“Overheating” begins pretty straightforward with both Juzo and Kronen fighting Hayden. It seems quite black and white, with Hayden being the antagonist and Mega Armed the victim. However, there are some exciting twists at the end of this episode. Although I don’t want to spoil anything for those who haven’t read the manga, I will say that we see some new, hard truths coming to light concerning Hayden, the government, and Berühren Corporation. Part of the reason I enjoyed the manga, and am currently enjoying the anime, is that No Guns Life has quite a few similarities to Full Metal Alchemist in regards to theme and plot. In both, we see the government, who is supposed to serve the people, have internally become rotten and serve the interests of those in power. Both animes/mangas have dystopian elements to them. Therefore, if you enjoyed Full Metal Alchemist, No Guns Life may interest you.

“Overheating” has quite a few characters involved and I can say that all their personalities and dialogue are consistent with the manga. Personally, I was never fond of Kronen from the manga and the anime is really no different. But, I do enjoy Juzo and Kronen’s bickering. Mega Armed, on the other hand, is very abrasive in his upbeat personality and therefore extremely annoying in my eyes. However, he’s written like this on purpose so what happens at the end of the episode will hit viewers even harder.

Hayden is also very similar to his counterpart in the mangas; he looks like something straight out of a horror movie. Even though this is similar to the manga, it’s even creepier in the anime due to his movements and voice. It’s certainly a difficult task to move a story from one media to another, in this case from manga to anime. But in this case, I think the producers excelled and made Hayden even more spine-chilling.

Once again, the backgrounds are 3D. Although not as bad as the backgrounds from the previous episode, it still throws me for a loop when I see 2D characters on a 3D background. The textures and shadows used in the backgrounds are starkly different from those of the characters. Don’t get me wrong, the backgrounds are beautiful in their own rights, and the characters are drawn very well. But mashing the two together makes for a startling juxtaposition.

“Overheating” introduces some great action but also plenty of suspense. Although I’m not particularly fond of the art style mash-up, I do feel that the general style emulates the manga well and allows for fluid action scenes. Plot-wise, this episode reveals more and more of the corrupt government and corporations that control the world in No Guns Life.  The episode leaves off on a good cliffhanger that’ll have you impatiently waiting for the next.

No Guns Life is available now on Hulu and Funimation.