Like I just said, the story is nothing out of the ordinary. Boy gains these unknown powers and is thrown into this battle against others with the same powers. The first three episodes weren’t all that bad, but things changed drastically when the next few episodes came around. I can’t describe it any other way than “things just happen”. I say that from episode four onwards in when the show starts to go off the rails even when it was already a train wreck. By the time all that happens, I lost all hope for the series (of what little hope I had for it, in the first place). The other thing that jarring is the general tone of the series. It will go from serious, in the over-the-top kind of sense, from cringe-worthy ecchi moments that come out of nowhere. Nothing makes any sense at all, and I know why this is, but I will explain that later.
The only thing worse than having a bad story is having bad characters. Boy, were these characters horrendous. There was not a single person from this show that had a single redeeming quality to them. It’s even hard to say that they had any type of personality. As a minor spoiler, there are people who die, but when they do, I get no emotion out of it. The ironically funny thing about these characters are the stupid names chosen for them. Just to name a few we have: Blood, Wiseman, Iltutmish, Aryabhata, and one of our main characters Bluesy Fruesy. There is even a character named Colonel Sanders. Just what the hell is this show trying to be?
There’s also no use in finding anything great animation wise. The overall aesthetics is appalling and ugly with most of its color palate being either black, grey, or brown. The character designs are hideous-looking, but that goes the same with the designs of the original manga, so it’s neither an improvement nor a downgrade. What’s worse is this is an action series, so there’s lots of movement involved. You can only guess that this is done horribly, like everything else. Even if the story turned out to be decent enough, it still wouldn’t save the show from its visual eyesore. That alone was painful to watch each week.
Now, I would like to explain why the series turned out the way it is. It was all in the production choices. The first three episodes covered volume one of the manga, which is the standard way of adapting the material. Episode four, however, covered a majority of volume two with the next two episodes covered close two or more volumes each. This is the first time I’ve noticed something like this (probably because I actually did research). The manga has seven years of content, a rare thing for it to now receive an anime. Normally, a source would only have one to two years of content before getting an adaptation. My only conclusion is the production team wanted to fit in as much story as they could within twelve episodes, which results in this sloppily-paced mess. Had it not been for that, it would have been more than likely an okay show.
There isn’t a whole lot to say about “Taboo Tattoo” other than it’s something that nobody needs to see. It’s one of those shows where I feel has nothing good about it, but still manages to have an audience that genially enjoys it. I don’t mean any disrespect to those who do, but it’s hard to deny how bad it is. The story, the writing, the characters, the animation, and the production as a whole. All of it is just bad. I’m not sure if I’d recommend the manga because it’s not any better. Perhaps no matter what happened in the end, an anime adaptation was doomed from the start.
