English Dub Review: No Guns Life “Extended Remote-Control Device”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

After derailing the train carrying Tetsuro with a single punch, Juzo boards it to give the kid a piece of his mind. Specifically, that he should be willing to ask for help, which Juzo happily obliges. Another mission successful, though now he has to figure out where to put the kid. Although, he can’t help but notice that Berühren has already begun covering the incident up AND that Tetsuro shares a name with the CEO’s son.

Juzo takes Tetsuro to Mary Steinberg, a back alley expert on Extended maintenance, to fit him out with workable parts. But what’s REALLY bugging Juzo out is that he can’t find more of his favorite brand of cigarette. Seems this is no accident, as Cunningham, an associate of Beruhren, has bought out the company and taken all the remaining boxes, planning on a trade for Tetsuro, or even willing to destroy whatever he cares about to take him. This confirms to Juzo that Tetsuro really IS the CEO’s son, but it seems not even thought can stop him from being experimented on. But Cunningham assumed that the cigarettes were for numbing Juzo’s pain, when really they were about taste. He promptly beats them all up with Mary’s help, but it seems Tetsuro has finally woken up.

OUR TAKE

Aside from the first few minutes resolving the last episode, this week shows us more of what Juzo’s normal life is like. Hanging with friends around the slums, but primarily smoking his favorite brand of cigarettes and pretending not to care. When really, he’s just a big ol softie looking out for the little guy, even when said little guy is the son of the CEO of the company that controls everything. Yeah, that was an odd thing to learn about Tetsuro, as usually son’s of the CEO are pampered douches who need to be convinced that the world is actually tougher than they thought, but it seems he’s already gotten his fair share of that. It definitely raises questions about what is going on at Beruhren that even their boss’s son is getting experimented on, but I imagine that’ll be a primary plot thread as the show goes on.

There’s also a bit more insight into what Juzo’s life is like living with being an Extended. Without a human face, it’s admittedly pretty easy to dehumanize him off the bat. I mean, who could blame you for being initially afraid of the dude with a gun for a head. Because of all of the modifications he went through, he basically looks like an armed killer robot instead of a living human people. Add to that the fact that his specific kind of Extended are known for needing someone to properly use them as a weapon and it seems like society is more than ready to just cast him aside despite what he went through in the Great War. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if these Extendeds aren’t a metaphor for how poorly veterans are treated coming home from traumatic experiences in war. Signing up to protect people from a bigger conflict, have themselves irreparably changed and scarred for the sake of it, but once the fighting is over they’re basically treated as either scary vagrants or painful reminders of people left behind by a poorly managed system.

Getting into that was probably more interesting than stuff about cigarettes or what’s happening with Tetsuro’s dad and the mystery about how or why he was experimented on. It’s just that I am very intrigued with Juzo and his deal a lot more. Which is probably good for now, since he’s the main character, but hopefully things will become more interesting as the story develops the world around it.