In the future, mankind has colonized the bleak expanses of the moon. Cities now stand proudly where there was once only desolation and emptiness. But there are alien forces that do not want mankind to succeed and only one man can stop them. He is a member of the Bounty Dog Investigation Unit, a high-tech cybernetic mercenary team.
webm(https://www.sakugabooru.com/data/e443ba9eb494c83ffb86041b9f390b07.mp4) Deeply marked by the aesthetics of its time, Bounty Dog: Gatsumen no Ibu offers you a handful of style and a bucketful of confusion. Its 90s aesthetic and its rare, surpringly nice to look at action scenes treat those willing to pursue the sunk cost fallacy in vengence of their time, though the whole production is a bit too washed out and amber for my tastes. Its story is nothing to call home about and leaves the viewer with a lot of questions. Episode 1 starts with a travel sequence to the moon that mildly peaks your interest, and then begins flinging plot points and images disjointedly and directly into your face. The last minute of this episode is the most coherent portion. That's not to say that you can't grasp a few things beforehand, but it's just...pretty out there. It's like the team had ideas for cool scenes before they had a mild grasp of the events that bring that sequence into reality. Even then, take my definition of "cool" sparingly- the well framed shots are far from one another. It does successfully introduce its main characters- of which the chief character is the best. Even though the team is introduced as some sort of investigative unit, it doesn't ever truly feel like that's what's occurring. It feels much more like a military focused sci-fi space opera than a space cowboy/bounty hunting adventure the vast majority of the time, contrary to what image a title like _Bounty Dogs _invokes. It is a peculiar name for this show. Deep analysis of the characters isn't really necessary, or is it possible. They are all shallow stereotypes that often populate this genre. That's not necessarily a bad thing on its own, but wrapped in the other layers of mediocrity, is just another strike against it. webm(https://www.sakugabooru.com/data/6f3f40565681d04d471278b6ea3fcc3c.mp4) The second of the two episodes thankfully is more coherent, and actually feels like an average episode of anime rather than staring into a strobe light. It's cliche and nothing to call home about, but once you've gotten into it, you might as well finish it. The alien elements offers something the first episode didn't, and there's a good deal of questions raised that you probably would like to be answered if you have gotten this far. The experience feels like you're holding your breath for something to unexpectedly raise the production to slightly above average. The romance (I think?) element is not well executed, and the full explanation of just about everything is not offered. Instead, you usually get scenes that reveal _Bounty Dogs_ to be kind of dumb, solidifying its mid-tier status. It can offer true 90s sci-fi stans something to watch, but I wouldn't suggest it to most people.