Although I wasn't in love with it, I'll admit that Kill Blue's opening five-volume suite still made for an enjoyable read. Throwing in middle school sports with a hitman story made for an awkward clash at times, but what else could have been expected from the Kuroko's Basketball mangaka? Flaws aside, the manga's sports sequences were at least memorable, and the detail put into them made it clear they were labors of love. That's the major problem with its anime adaptation. The more it progresses, the less TLC is given.

I'll give Kill Blue's adaptation this: the first one or two episodes are great fun and contain the anime's best action sequences, like the opening shoot-out, and a moment when Juzo has to rescue Noren from a gang of thugs. Both moments are very slick and highly animated with their fights, chase sequences, and snazzy jazz soundtracks that liven things up. I liked the rescue sequence a bit more just because of the line Juzo gives right as he's laying waste to one last thug. It's delivered so perfectly: “I know it may sound old-fashioned, but I still think it is true. Any man who doesn't treat a lady with respect is garbage.” Pop off, king! For real. Or should I say, queen? Because I thought this was a guy voicing Juzo in the dub. Turns out it's a woman: Caitlyn Elizabeth! And she delivers her lines with a detached huskiness that makes her dialogue sound so darned cool.

The art style isn't bad at first glance either. As you can guess from the name of this anime, this show uses a lot of blues. Dark blues naturally make their way into more than a few action sequences taking place at night, and their action-noir hues help bring out the shadiness of Juzo's violent run-ins with various hitmen and thugs. They also bring a sense of tranquility to some of the slower scenes, like when Juzo walks Noren down from her uncle's ramen shop. Lighter blues are there as both a playful contrast and to bring out the youthful vigor of Juzo's day-to-day as a re-youthified middle schooler. And with these blues come a lot of other contrasting colors: your yellows, your oranges, your greens. The blues here are appealing and appropriate, which is a good thing. The background art gives a lot of these colors a smudgy look in an effort to jazz up the anime's environments. It works for a while. Until the animation takes a nosedive about four episodes in, and then everything from there feels so off. Especially during the sports sequences! The very sequences I had the most interest in seeing became the biggest letdown, and I'm not even into sports. The mangaka's love of sports feels so disrespected here, because those visuals are just plain rough.

For one, that indoor soccer game. The imagery lacks the kinesis and fluidity needed for a round of the ol' sportsball. Characters run up and down the field without any intensity or looking like they're about to overwhelm their opponents. These guys don't even move a single limb in some of these shots. The smudgy background art is made to bring out the shininess of the gymnasium floor they play on, but it doesn't look natural. It only looks like someone went crazy on the square brush on MS Paint.

Even worse is the stadium fight that sees Juzo and the middle school's triple-threat athlete Tenma square off against rival hitmen. Despite everything, I still had faith in the stadium fight, since it provided some of the manga's best action sequences. I wanted the anime to go absolutely stupid on those exploding balls and Tenma's deadly soccer-and-golf match. Maybe it could have also expanded these tee-offs a bit more since Juzo's gunfight with the hypnotist assassin in the manga interrupted the fun a bit too much. You know, something to get excited about?

The anime does none of this. All of the complaints I had with the indoor soccer match come back here with Tenma's golf-and-soccer match against the competing hitman. For starters, the smudgy background art does not serve the stadium's turf well. It comes drenched in a chunky yellow-green color that looks like an unappetizing bowl of boiled pea soup. The show's dark blue and a better tint of green come back in the next episode for a better look, but by then it's too late, because we've been exposed to too many explosions that lack the same, well, explosive flair contained in the opening episodes. I remember being mildly taken aback by how busy this sequence looked in the manga, and now that I've seen the anime, I am largely taken aback by how this sequence doesn't look busy enough.

The rest of the cour has Juzo try to fit in with the middle schoolers, joining their home ec club, participating in a ramen cookoff, and being told he talks like an old man more times than necessary. It makes the hitman side of the story lose its point. Granted, this was all a problem in the original manga, but chances are that it might take you more time to watch an episode of anime than it does to read a few chapters of manga. And because of that, you end up really feeling the length of the home ec scenes. Really, I don't need to see this kid cook. I also still don't need the arc where Noren becomes an amnesiac and falls for Juzo after denying every boy in school. It wasn't necessary in the manga; it's not necessary in the anime. I want things that go kaboom! I want gun fights, and explosions, and hitmen doing hitman things! If you're going to have sports anyway, give me better tourneys and matches too! These middle school hijinks could have benefited from a little trimming, maybe even reshuffling. It also stinks that the (lackluster) stadium fight is in the middle, because if anything could have provided the big climax that capped off this cour, it would have been that. The introduction of Otohime and the upcoming surf tournament at the end feels dissonant and awkward.

In the end, I didn't dislike this anime as much as I was underwhelmed by it. Not that Kill Blue was destined to be the next great shonen to begin with, but whatever moments of inventiveness the manga had are undone in the anime.