Reviews

Taboo Tattoo is one of those shows that starts with promise and then gets devastated by a poorly fitted pacing. The first few episodes set up a fun, if not hugely original, superpowers-and-conspiracy premise with more than enough material for 12 episodes, but gradually, and then faster and faster, it starts complicating things and rushing the exposition, frequently showing you things you have no hope of understanding and then slipping in the explanation for them later in a single line of dialogue or a flashback. If a good show sets you up with mysteries and anticipation, this one gives you FOMO - cause if you blink you're going to miss it.

By the end of one cour, the power levels have inflated 100-fold, every situation is fate-of-the-world-hangs-in-the-balance ungrounded in substance, and the running time is oversaturated with fight sequences. Characters enter, are seen doing things, and subsequently die with too little time for character development or understanding of their contributions to register. The cast is quite large and while it does manage to set up character relationships, they are tenuous. At times it feels like a PV of something that was more properly developed, with a lot of stuff happening set to music or voiceover.

And it's too bad. There is a lot of good material here that doesn't add up. The fights are well-made and can usually be followed pretty well. The detail of the animation only gets a little bit impacted towards the end, and there are a lot of cool character moments to be found. Some of the soundtrack, along with the setting's shadowy conspiracy and top-secret research, gave me a "Deus Ex" vibe. And it has a sprinkling of fanservice, which could have been done pretty well but like everything else is incredibly rushed, often being inserted directly into the middle of one of those high-stakes fight scenes.