Story: 3/10
It pains me to do this, but I think the story is flawed in a way that was completely avoidable. The premise of the show is that these highly dangerous criminals are brought together by a mysterious talking black robot cat to secure the goods inside of a vault being transported between two cities: Kanto and Kansai. The characters are from Kansai, and within Kansai Kanto seems to be revered and idolized by the people there, however no one is allowed to go there for whatever reason.
Well, that's the plot for the first half, anyway. After about halfway through, the plot changes quite drastically and abruptly. It's not necessarily a bad premise, just very out of place when compared with the first half. I think I see what they were going for, but it's not communicated well and it'd be subtle enough that I'm not sure that it was necessarily intended.
The second part of the story starts out fine, but steadily devolves into something bloated, confusing, and totally off-theme with the rest of the story. Episode 11 in particular is such a disaster narratively, you'll see what I mean. Things just kind of start happening without any justification as to why.
In the beginning of this review I mentioned Psycho-Pass. I enjoyed Psycho-Pass more than this, however both of them fell into the same narrative problem. They had a grand reveal towards the end that wasn't satisfying, it just made me look at the screen and say "what the f*** is the point of this, I thought this was about a group of criminals"
Both of these stories aim way too big, and the ending is a let down because of it. It seems very common for anime to have this massive twist where everything gets turned on its head and the true nature of the world is revealed... but it is rarely done right in my opinion. If there's one good thing about Akudama Drive, they don't leave a possibility of another season. When you watch this, you are getting the full story.
Kansai is beautifully realized in Akudama Drive. and it feels like a believable and real place in a lot of ways. However, some of the themes feel forced and there's a lot of questions which feel like they'd be answered by the same phrase: "because that's just how it is"
Certain background characters react in very bizarre ways when something happens, especially towards the end. I am doing my best to avoid spoilers in this review, so I can't really talk about what it is that feels out of character. Unfortunately, these moments feel forced so that the show can push some sort of central theme and message, but because the action feels out of character and stupid it has the opposite effect... the themes fall on their faces in these moments.
Art: 8/10
The animation and art is beautiful, the characters are all so expressive and the environments are detailed to really flesh out the scene. The anime has certain stylistic choices that I really enjoyed, albeit minor additions. For example, when a scene changes, it'd frequently drop setpieces and the background onto the screen in layers before beginning the scene. It's hard to describe, and yes it is a small addition, but it's a cool way to transition scenes that I haven't really seen before.
I did watch on Hulu, and unfortunately there is a lot of censorship in terms of blood and gore, which is quite ungracefully covered up by large black shadows. It makes me wonder because there are quite a few moments where blood and stuff isn't censored, so when these black shadowy parts came I was confused whether or not someone actually got hurt or not. The anime's art is beautiful regardless, and for me it doesn't detract from the experience much.
Apart from that, the fights are fast, fun, and engaging.
Sound: 5/10
The sound is a weird topic to discuss... the music is cool and fun, however my god some of the voice actors are so annoying. I watched the dubbed and subbed version throughout my way through and the amount of nondescript, high-pitched, emotionless anime shrieking was annoying to say the least. Any time there is a little girl on the screen, if she speaks you are in for a world of hurt. It's cringe and made it hard to watch. The main character suffers from that as well to a certain degree, but not as bad thankfully. All of the characters do have very distinct voices however, which is fitting due to their diverse traits.
Characters: 5/10
The characters in the anime are basically all able to be understood from the beginning of the show. Courier is a moody but attractive guy, Brawler is a super strong oaf, Doctor's a sultry and selfish woman etc etc. None of these characters really have any development outside of the main character, Ordinary/Swindler. It's fine that way I suppose, and the focus of the show is definitely on its themes rather than the characters, which is fine. The anime is already too bloated in my opinion, so trying to cram development for each character would be ridiculous. The only issue I have is that certain ones are just annoying. Namely, I found Cutthroat to be frustratingly boring. He's essentially a psychopathic murderer obsessed with blood and the color red, and whenever he sees something red you have to endure him freaking out and just repeating "Red" over and over again. I think it's meant to be funny, in the way that Brawler's relationship with Hoodlum is, but it just falls flat for me. Additionally, there's a character introduced halfway which got very annoying towards the end.
Overall: 5/10
Akudama Drive had moments where I really enjoyed following the motley crew of super-badass criminals. I would say that the story loses steam towards the end, but I don't think that's quite it... I think Akudama Drive has the opposite problem, where the writers planned a story too big for a 12 part series to tell. Because of this, characters frequently act in ways that don't fit their traits, story beats aren't properly explained, and you're left with a general feeling of "what the f***"... and not in a good way. On the bright side, the show has a great art style and fun-to-watch fights, so I think there is still enjoyment to be found here.
