The Severing Crime Edge (Anime Series)
Directed by Yuuji Yamaguchi
Animated by Studio Gokumi
Suitable for 17+
To outsiders looking in, many anime series can seem incredibly bizarre. Anime often mashes together different themes and genres that would make any reasonably sane person say, “what the fuck?” In most cases, anime fans will rebut with statements like, “if you just watched the show, you’d like it” or, “it makes sense in this case.” Still, there are those series that even die-hard fans have to admit are a bit of a head-scratcher. The Severing Crime Edge is one such series.
The Severing Crime Edge focuses on Kiri Haimura, a middle school boy who is obsessed with cutting peoples’ hair. He uses a pair of serrated scissors that have been handed down through members of his family for generations. One day, when going home from school, he gets off the bus at the wrong stop and finds a mansion that a ghost with long hair is rumored to haunt. He quickly finds out that the ghost is in fact a real girl around his age. Her hair is dark as a raven’s feathers, and is so long that it curls around her feet on the floor. Of course Kiri’s compulsion kicks in, and he wants to cut her hair. The girl, Iwai Mushanokouji, has cursed hair that cannot be cut. As is probably obvious by now, we learn that Kiri’s ancestral scissors can cut Iwai’s hair.
Seems like a reasonable set up for a bizarre, yet somehow loveable “boy meets girl” anime series, right? Well folks, here’s where it gets weird. Iwai informs Kiri that her caretakers (if you can even call them that) are part of a secret society (Gossip). They are descendants of serial killers and possess their ancestor’s murder weapons (dubbed “killing goods”) which drives them to murder even more people. We eventually find out that these “authors” who wield the killing goods must have “insteads”—essentially guinea pigs that they use their killing goods on without killing—which prevent them from becoming completely overcome with urges to murder. Kiri is the descendant of Norma Grayland, one of the most notorious killers of all time. His weapon was the pair of scissors Kiri now brandishes, which he and Iwai named the “Severing Crime Edge.”
Alright, The Severing Crime Edge: boy meets girl, boy finds out his ancestor was a lunatic who dismembered people with nothing but a pair of scissors, there are other descended killers out there using their killing goods either to spill more blood, or on insteads to keep from going crazy. The eccentric ship has officially sailed. How in the world could this get any weirder? And yet, it does. There is actually a reason for why these descendants must suffer their gory fate. Long ago lived a beautiful queen with gorgeous flowing hair called “Queen of Hair” (no, this is not a joke), and everyone paled in comparison to her beauty. The Queen of Hair cast the curse that created authors and their killing goods. Iwai is the Queen of Hair’s most recent descendant. If one of the authors kills her, they will be granted one wish of their choosing. Seeing as how she’s Kiri’s instead, it’s his natural inclination to protect her, thus making the hunt more fun for the members of Gossip to witness.
That head-scratcher comment is making much more sense now, isn’t it? There’s no denying that The Severing Crime Edge has an unorthodox plot, and while the concept is intriguing, it suffers from a “part of a much bigger thing” downfall. The series is action-packed all throughout, and wants to continue past the end. When the credits roll, you’re left with a feeling of “Seriously? That’s it?” Kiri finally realizes his murderous potential as Grayland’s descendant, and we’re left with the promise of more intense battles in the future, but we don’t get to see any of that. We can only infer that the producers must have left it open-ended with the intention of having a second season, but if we don’t get that, this ending will continue to enrage future watchers limitlessly.
While The Severing Crime Edge’s plot is incredibly out there, it does manage to wrangle all its different genres together fairly successfully. Moments of gore are balanced out by the sweet naivety of Kiri and Iwai’s budding love. There are also some borderline pornographic sequences between various characters. For example, sisters Yamane and Houko Byouinzaka. Yamane is an author who wields a syringe that she uses on Houko, who acts as her instead. She injects her with a harmless saline solution to keep her murderous urges in check. There’s one scene in particular between these two that seriously looks like it came straight out of a yuri hentai (lesbian porn anime). They are laying on a bed together, cheeks flush, breath visible and seemingly filled with lust. In the other porn-y scenes between different characters there will be spit trails, guaranteed. So if that’s your thing, keep a watchful eye out for those moments.
Moving past the plot and genres, The Severing Crime Edge features some creative censorship. It’s hard to say whether this was done internally by the animation studio, or added after the fact, but I’d like to think the studio wouldn’t visually disrupt their anime to this degree. Many gory sequences feature black and white censoring. It’s incredibly jarring and yanks you directly out of the moment faster than a knife slicing through marrow. It also does an incredible disservice to the animation. The colors in the series are fairly vibrant, and to have them suddenly dulled at crucial moments is a total let-down.
Not only do we have this type of censoring, The Severing Crime Edge also has the typical blurry white orbs that are common in raunchy anime series. Oh, Iwai is taking a bath? Well, good luck trying to make out her face amongst all that shiny white blur. Obviously, we don’t want to see a middle schooler naked, but can we be a little bit more subtle in our covering of her? Even more censorship of the series utilizes giant flashes of white across the screen. There’s a scene where Yamane injects Kiri with blood in an attempt to bring him back from the edge of anemia, but a good quarter of the screen is covered in white just to hide the injection site. How about you just don’t have the injection site on screen if you don’t want to/can’t show it? Or better yet, just show it! We’re watching a series that has murderous children in it, I think we can handle a needle. Obviously these latter two censoring techniques detract just as equally from the moment as the former while watching The Severing Crime Edge. It’s possible to look past it for the most part, but there are many shots where it’s simply aggravating.
While all of this has sounded rather negative, The Severing Crime Edge is still an entertaining series to watch. The characters are memorable, with Kiri being the main attraction. The moment when he fully realizes Norma Grayland’s sadistic nature is something to behold. The mixture of genres, albeit bizarre, worked well and offered a pleasing amount of different moods to keep the audience interested. If you’re looking for something non-stop horrid and gory, this will disappoint, but it certainly has its moments. After all it’s got homicidal ancestors possessing their descendants, bringing them to murderous rages, and children forced to become trained assassins. What’s not to like?
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Anime
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