Hamatora The Animation ran for 12 episodes. It starts out as a quirky show about a couple of detectives with supernatural abilities who use their powers to help them solve cases. But it quickly evolves into a story where the protagonists find themselves in the midst of an investigation of a serial killing spree targeting people with supernatural powers. While the concept of characters with special abilities isn’t unique in and of itself, the combination of these abilities with the tone of the series’ storytelling provides something one of a kind. The animation style makes it stand out as well.
Overview
Hamatora The Animation is set in Yokohama in 2014. In the world that the series is set in, humans with supernatural abilities have been discovered and are referred to as Minimum Holders. Two of these Minimum Holders, Nice and Murasaki, have formed a detective agency called Hamatora. On the surface, the two seem to be an odd pair due to their differing personalities. Nice is impulsive and a bit absent minded, although he’s actually a genius thinker and can quickly assess situations. Murasaki, on the other hand, has a reserved personality and is a rational thinker. Amazingly enough, even with their completely opposite personalities, they are still able to successfully solve the cases that come their way by working together.
Instead of having an actual office, Nice and Murasaki rent a table at the Café Nowhere and wait for jobs to come to them while they hang out there. Birthday and Ratio, their friends who are also Minimum Holders, run their “Odd Jobs” business out of Café Nowhere and sometimes help out Hamatora with their cases. As Nice and Murasaki take on cases early on in the series, they discover the existence of non-innate Minimum Holders; these are people who possess a Minimum but were not born with that ability.
Nice and Murasaki are friends with Art, the superintendent of the Yokohama Police Department. He is investigating a string of murders where all of the victims are Minimum Holders, and Art informs Nice and Murasaki about the investigation in order to warn them of what’s happening. There’s one similarity that Art has found among all the serial murder cases: each Minimum Holder who was killed had their brain extracted by the killer. But now that Nice and Murasaki know about this investigation, they find themselves getting drawn into it.
Nice, Murasaki, Birthday, Ratio, and Art, along with some of the other characters in the series, are graduates or former students of Facultas Academy. This is a place that trains Minimum Holders in secret to develop their potential, and Nice always had the top scores when he was a student there. The academy becomes important to the series when Art connects Moral, a former professor, with the serial murder case.
Moral wants to achieve equality so that everyone in the world can be a Minimum Holder. In order to achieve his goal, he had to kill several Minimum Holders and use their brains to unlock Minimums. Moral used these Minimums to create the non-innate Minimum Holders that Nice and Murasaki discovered. But it turns out Moral has another objective: he somehow believes that Nice is tortured by solitude due to being the number one student from the academy. But before Moral can be apprehended for his crime, he has an associate leak information about the existence of Facultas Academy and reveal the identities of the Minimum Holders in order to cause unrest. The Minimum Holders are ostracized by society, leading some of them to begin rioting and performing terrorist acts on non-Minimum Holders. While the protagonists have to deal with the ramifications of Moral’s actions, it’s up to Nice to confront the professor and try to bring an end to his madness.
Who Should Watch Hamatora The Animation?
Hamatora The Animation should appeal to viewers who enjoy stories featuring characters with supernatural abilities. The series should also be of interest to viewers who appreciate quirky and unusual storytelling methods that help to convey mystery, action, thrills, and even some insanity.
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