Season Review: Scissor Seven Season 5

Scissor Seven returns for another snip, this time with the subtitle “Memory Fragments”. Last season, Seven and his friends went all in on fighting the agents of Shadow Killer, with some even taking the fight to where he lives on Chicken Island. However, Seven got taken out of the battle part way through, having to deal with both a poisoning and coming to terms with his mysterious past self when he was a master assassin. This season picks up where that left off, with Seven fully recovered and still on his journey to understand himself and defeat the Shadow Killer group, while the residents of Chicken Island rebuild and think about what’s next. The result is a season that feels like an odd, uneven mix of the laid back comedic misadventures of the first two seasons and more serious action of the third and fourth. And while it’s nice to have a bit of levity to break up the more dramatic moments, and check in tertiary subplots like with what happened to reformed villain Redtooth (who has a surprisingly wholesome and funny resolution to his arc), it ends up feeling like a pretty low stakes season, which is a bit disappointing after waiting over two years for a follow up.

That said, a lot of what made the previous seasons stand outs is still present here, aside from Ronny Chieng, who has been replaced by Cobra Kai actor Daniel Kim for unknown reasons. The simplistic animation giving way to insanely detailed action is still fun to see, the comedy is still on point, and the story and character arcs are intriguing and complex enough without tipping over into overly complicated. As was present across the story, there is a theme of characters either committing their lives to endless vengeance and violence or letting that rage go and moving on, something Seven grapples with as he learns more about his past, especially once he learns about the incident that led to his amnesia, which acts as the climax of the season. In the last handful of episodes, we finally check back in with Shadow Killer, whittled down to a scant few members and one new opponent named Nine who, based on the number name, likely has a connection to Seven. But alas, we end on a cliffhanger, and it looks like the next season won’t be here for at least another couple of years. So, overall assessment is that, if you liked the previous seasons, you’ll probably like this too, but don’t be surprised if it comes up short of your expectations after such a long wait.