English Dub Review: Drifters Episode 1: “Fight Song”

Marilyn Manson, much?

Spoilers

The series is first told from the perspective of a red-clad Samurai Baddass, Shimazu Toyohisa aka “Toyo”. During the Battle of Sekigahara in the year 1600 to kill the enemy general and distract enemy forces in a valiant effort to help his uncle escape, but in the process Toyo ends up getting himself impaled on many spears leaving himself filled with more holes on his body than Tokyo Ghoul‘s plot.

After achieving victory by shooting what looks like a short-range rifle in his arsenal, and despite being turned into a human pin-cushion, he manages to make a clear shot at point-blank range at the general’s heart and the troopers flee in an attempt to give him medical attention.

Afterwards, you’d think he’d die from extreme blood-loss after what just happened but instead, Toyo finds himself transported to a long white corridor with a chain-smoking bespectacled man who sits on his desk and forces him through one of the doors while Toyo is understandably angry & confused by where he is and begins to bombard him with questions while covered in his own blood before being forcibly sucked into a magical door.

He awakes in a cliche middle earth-like fantasy world of elves, dwarves, hobbits and dragons, known to natives as a “Drifter”. Dragged to safety by two small elves, Toyo is dropped off at an abandoned castle where two other Drifters reside and give him proper medical attention.

The two people are revealed to be legendary figures, the first is Japanese Warlord Oda Nobunaga and other is an effeminate-looking archer named Nasu no Yoichi. And much like our protagonist, neither of them knows why they are here, just how they got here.

Toyo tells Oda news of his son who fought bravely and was killed by Akechi Mitsuhide trying to avenge him. Oda reacts to it with a sarcastic joke at first but you can feel Oda’s grief in his tone of voice and to a degree it’s soul crushing. I’m sure it’s relatable to anyone who has possibly lost their son/daughter in a war but it’s at least properly balanced with comedic moments like Nobunaga missing Ranmaru in a sexually subtle way or a scene where Yoichi asks the two to help him cook 3 ducks he killed out of survival.

Outside of their hideout, a female spy in glasses and dressed in a white militaristic uniform with Binoculars monitors the Drifters and is contacted by her boss via a magical crystal ball to check on her status. The man in white decides to meet the Drifters and mobilize their men, known as the Octobrist Organization, to prepare for the upcoming war with the “Ends”, which in a nutshell, is an opposing force advocating for the destruction of the world with an army slowly approaching and random shots of the Ends arming themselves without fully show their faces.

Overview:

In the anime & manga (both the subbed and dubbed versions) the world of Drifters has established that there’s sort-of a language barrier between the people native to the middle-earth-looking fantasy world and the main protagonists who are understandably from other time periods and of different nationalities & cultures. So I when I first heard a dub was announced, I wondered how they were going to handle the barrier in such a way that it made sense and much to my surprise, the Dub executes it perfectly by giving the Elves their own language subtitled in a Yellow text throughout the entire episode.

The main English dub cast does a fantastic job, especially Josh Grell as Toyo who has a charismatic voice that makes you wanna follow him to battle. Robert McCollum’s performance as the Legendary Nobunaga is quite fun and gives a bit of a laid-back Jack Sparrow Vibe, but is intimidating when he needs to be.  Justin Briner who voices Yoichi, also does an excellent job and finally David Wald’s performance as the mysterious chain-smoking and bespectacled Murasaki giving a comical deadpan performance.

The music is handled surprisingly by two composers who both worked with Hirano in the past including  Yasushi Ishii and Hayato Matsuo who both worked on Hellsing/Hellsing Ultimate while the credits song was made by the band Vermillion which has beautifully stylized art from the show with the music and gave me chills.

There’s clearly something compelling about bringing history’s greatest warriors & killers from different times and place together; it’s a premise that pops up in all kinds of genres, from action to comedy. Drifters may try to throw in a joke or two, but it sits squarely on the “action” end of the spectrum. If you want to see dudes kill one another in graphic fashion with swords, spears, and guns, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Director Kenichi Suzuki (Golgo 13 and Jojo Part 3:Stardust Crusaders) has done an excellent job capturing the stylized look of Hirano’s manga, which matches up well with the aggressively cool tone of Hirano’s previous series Hellsing/Hellsing Ultimate. Drifters is going for a very particular style here and it more or less nails it in this episode.

An action series, especially one that strives solely to entertain, needs to have a distinct visual style and high production values if it’s going to work. Thankfully, Drifters has both in abundance. This episode’s bloody battle scenes are well-directed and paced, and it’s a good example of the difference between just throwing violence at the screen and putting serious thought and effort into each shot. The show also makes good use of color, with the dark reds of Toyohisa’s outfit standing out in contrast against bright-colored blood splatters and the more muted bluish backgrounds when it’s night time.

The animation is great, there’s a fluidity to the bloody violence with action scenes spot-on to the manga it’s based on. It’s good break from all those hopeless-emo protagonist-types I’ve been seeing lately that have been reaching unwarranted popularity thanks to Hot Topic and Tumblr (I”m looking at you Deadman Wonderland, Tokyo Ghoul and Arrow).

Our main cast this time were transported into a fantasy-like world with their amazing “talent” or fighting skills. The reason why they were sent to this world is still unclear, but like every other like genre, I’m pretty sure it’ll be because they’ll have to fight against a major power in this world. The catch is, knowing these characters, and I doubt they’ll be easily convinced to do any fighting when what originally motivated them to be this strong is no longer around so I’m realy interested to see how things will unfold from here on.

As a longtime fan of Kouta Hirano’s previous works, I’m looking forward to seeing how spot-on they’ll stay to the manga and so far it doesn’t disappoint.