English Dub Review: Estab Life: Great Escape “You Can’t Run from Memories”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Toichi, the boss of the Kanto Union, one of the three major gangs that control the yakuza town of Shinjuku, wants help to escape his home cluster. His reasons come as a shock to Ferez, an extractor who originally hailed from Shinjuku herself.

Our Take:  

Okay, so the first episode of Estab Life: Great Escape didn’t exactly wow me with its animation and rushed world-building. Believe it or not, it also didn’t start the recently created franchise on the right foot. But since it’s only one episode, I shouldn’t be quick to judge the series just yet. Besides, we still got a few missions for the extractors to accomplish before all is said and done.

The second episode sees the extractors journeying through Shinjuku to extract their latest client: Toichi. Toichi wants to escape from his life as a yakuza leader to pursue his dream as a magical girl. I know it sounds weird. Just go with it. During the mission, Ferez comes to terms with her past, as she originally lived a life in Shinjuku as “Ferez the Wildcat”. Luckily, the extractors successfully sent Toichi to a new cluster, but not without giving Ferez a suitcase with magical girl clothes as a thank-you gift.

The only interesting part of the episode that made it a tad better than the previous one is Ferez herself. The episode showcased more of this character by revealing her previous life as a yakuza gun wizard before becoming an extractor. Seeing that the first episode lacked any real introductions to these characters, I was happy to know that it managed to give Ferez’s personality the spotlight. But does it help boost the show’s quality? Sadly, it doesn’t.

While the episode sheds light on Ferez’s past, it wasted the opportunity to have it be the main focus of its plot. Instead, it follows the same routine as the previous episode, which is retrieving the client and a brief explanation of why the client wants to leave, followed by a low-stakes obstacle and a successful extraction. Sure, it also showed a flashback to Ferez being rescued in Shinjuku by Equa, but the context after it is more one-dimensional than character-driven.

I enjoyed a couple of things in this episode: Toichi’s dream of being a magical girl and the sequence with Ferez’s bullet taking out the yakuza in one shot regarding the animation. However, those moments in “You Can’t Run from Memories” can only take it so far. When considering its low-stakes plot and lack of compelling characters, I may feel that this show can only go downhill from here unless they pull off a miracle in one of its upcoming episodes.