Laughing Target was one that had always caught my eye when I browsed through the catalog, but I never pulled the trigger on it. Now having finally seen it, it was somewhat of a letdown. Granted, this may be my own fault for having built up a massive amount of hype for it over the years in my head (the same happened when I finally saw Genocyber on DVD in the mid 2000's, yet upon a revisit not too long ago, I kinda liked it), but even so, the story here is pretty damn predictable and it doesn't do many different things to break out of its tried-and-true narrative. I can't deny however that the animation is excellent, it captures a nice atmosphere, and there are some well-done moments of suspense and mystery here and there. There is nothing wrong with this whatsoever; it's a perfectly good anime. But taking into consideration how I had yearned for seeing this way back then and imagining how awesome it must be as I stared at the artwork and screen-shots, mid-'90s me is feeling the disappointment of it being "just" good.
