I must say that I'm attracted to underrated animes, of course I don't neglect Attack on Titan, Death Note, Full metal qualities and recognize them for it. But Hamatora is different in a way, I read most of the reviews of this first season and all of them have similar points: fillers and lack of development. Which I agree and is understandable, the mangá is not that famous in japan and the animation is even worse in that aspect, it is so obscure that even the game(yes, hamatora have a game) was never realeased outside japan.
My main critic about the animation is the lack of character devolopment by far, every episode it is about a case that is offered to Hamatora to solve, that takes 15-18 to happen and leaves 3 or less minutes to develop the main plot, don't get me wrong, the cases are fun and cool to watch, but none of the episodes took a time to explain the past well detailed or make us care about anyone.
Also, there's this bizarre fact that a great parcel of the characters have english names that aren't even regular names, Nice, Birthday, Honey, Three, Master. We don't get to know if its their real name or it is a nickname and why, they don't even use last names which kinda pisses me.
Looking in another way, the villain was well developed in a way that made you hate him, he was the kind of psychopath who would indulge himself as the savior and didn't look at what he was doing was evil, but only that he was saving and making the world equal.
Last but no least, the soundtrack, really enjoyed that one, the opening is amazing, the ost in the end always kept you until it ended (which nowadays is kinda hard to do, since everyone just wants to jump in the next episode).
They did a good job selecting the best tracks on the battle scenes, when the mystery was happening even the funny moments they got it right.
Overall, I'm the kinda guy who gives lower ratings even to things I loved, I would say my 5 could be easily someone's 9, I like to people know that when I have something 10 is literally the perfection embodied. I'm giving this animé a solid 5. They made a good thing out of obvious low budget, and that got me attracted in 2021. Looking foward to checkout the 2nd season!
