English Dub Review: No Guns Life “Phantom Limb”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

A funeral is held for Tokisada, though some heavily protest it because he was not so secretly working for Berurhen. Tetsuro and Mary wait for Colt and are nearly taken by a security Extended, only saved by Tetsuro using Harmony to control it and a mysterious explosion which they soon find Colt fleeing from. They soon meet up with him, where he admits to causing it in order to send civilians and Berurhen folks onto a train that’s rigged with a bomb he intends to detonate. He’s doing this to lessen the amount that’s taken from people like him who live in destitution, including his little sisters. Before they can continue talking, a Berurhen goon stops them on top of the train who tells Colt that his targets, Berurhen’s executives, have been left behind on a different car out of precaution. Who’s really on the train now are a bunch of innocent civilians whose deaths will make Colt’s group out to be terrorists. Colt tries to disarm the bomb, but is gunned down and fails to throw the bomb away, forcing Tetsuro to throw it himself. Unfortunately, Colt’s injuries are too much and he dies in front of his family’s house, though not before telling Mary that the part that matched her brother’s work was actually stolen.

Meanwhile, Juzo milks a guy named Saryshagan who set Colt up for all this in order to increase discrimination against Extendeds, but he does drop a name for Juzo: Victor, Mary’s brother. Juzo then returns to his office, only to find Pepper waiting for him.

OUR TAKE

Huh, well that’s egg on my face. I figured this matter with Mary’s brother would be going something bigger or at least be longer than a couple episodes, but really it just came down to one guy feeling forced to do a horrible thing to horrible people because he needed money for his family. A pretty easily sympathetic motive for a still heinous act. And yet, the fact that Colt was forced into that position helps to shine light on the cracks in this show’s world, particularly in how Extendeds are treated and how Berurhen is targeted by groups who see them as a blight on the people cursed with using Extended tech. And opposite of that are groups like Spitzbergen, who are primarily against the existence of Extendeds. Despite it still being horrific, it’s sadly no surprise that, in a world where a group can easily be made alienated due to looking like weapons, that those people would be seen as worth destroying for their intimidating features.

We also unfortunately don’t get a whole lot of development for Tetsuro or Mary this episode despite them basically taking center stage. Tetsuro is certainly continuing on his assigned character arc as he finds ways to use Harmony for the benefit of others, sometimes at the potential cost of himself, but we have seen him on this for pretty much all of the series so far. And for Mary, everything interesting we’ve learn about her is what we got last episode with all the info about her brother. Although while I am pretty disappointed that this story didn’t end up leading to us meeting said brother properly, I have no doubts that we will most likely be meeting him sometime in the second half of this season coming in April. And even with the minimal progression, the two kids are a pretty good double act, as the innocent Testuro tries be responsible with his great power while Mary is still crafty but not so subtly flirting with him.

And with the end of this episode, it seems Juzo will finally be making contact with Pepper and Seven, which has been hyped up in the OP for quite awhile now. Seems like an appropriate way to cap off this half, so I look forward to us doing just that as we get closer to the halfway point, which is slowly but surely getting in shooting distance.