#ALTERED CARBON REVIEW MOVIE#
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Given that the latter half of Altered Carbon: Resleeved merely enacted the aspects of the succession ceremony that most viewers had already guessed, this extra reveal helped temper the predictability somewhat. All of these touchstones help fans of the source material accept the place of the anime in the canon.Īs twist endings go, the fact that Holly was actually a young sleeve for the original tattoo artist, Margot, wasn’t much of a surprise, but it was a nice touch nonetheless.

#ALTERED CARBON REVIEW SKIN#

There was also the welcome reference to the memory of the skin as Kovacs complains to Tanaseda that the sleeve he was given has a significant smoking addiction. Ogai may be a bit more of rule follower, but loopholes in his programming make for some wonderful fireworks (pun intended) later in the movie. The AI of the hotel that serves as the Mizumoto headquarters is another successful nod to the live action Altered Carbon since Poe is a fan favorite character in the series. Gena, as she is known in this sleeve, would otherwise be an over-sexualized soldier with no real investment, and although not much is done with the hidden relationship, the subtle shifts in her motivation, both when she understandably seeks to destroy as many Yakuza as she can and when she encourages Kovacs to walk away, are appreciated. It was particularly effective to inject an alter ego for Reileen Kawahara into the mix as another bodyguard for Holly alongside Kovacs. Meanwhile, there were plenty of action-packed fight sequences with tech ninjas, CTAC soldiers, and Kovacs himself to satisfy the many violence junkies in the Altered Carbon fandom. Viewers are left to puzzle, along with Kovacs who has been hired under the alias Ken Kakura to protect the girl, why Shinji, who is next in line, would want to interfere with the tattooist who is part of his rise to power.Īltered Carbon Season 2 Review (Spoiler-Free) By Michael Ahr In that sense, the central mystery of Altered Carbon: Resleeved is a bit predictable, but the conflict is cleverly disguised behind the attempt to kill a young tattoo artist, Holly Togram, who would at first seem only incidentally involved with the succession ceremony in which the new boss of the Mizumoto clan receives the same tattoo as the previous kumicho. Altered Carbon viewers might not be all that familiar with the idea of a “kumicho,” the head of a clan within the larger crime syndicate, but they certainly can see why it would be so unusual for each boss to choose “real death” to command the respect of their men in this time where eternal life for the rich and powerful is the norm.

#ALTERED CARBON REVIEW MOVIE#

It works on one level because Takeshi Kovacs is himself of Japanese origin, a fact that has been downplayed by the Joel Kinnaman and Anthony Mackie incarnations of the character but corrected here in this movie with an Asian sleeve, and it’s not as if we haven’t seen plenty of Yakuza in the live action series. On the other hand, the organized crime story involving a Yakuza boss and rituals of succession, honor codes, and sword battles dives deep into the Japanese origins of the story form and appeals to a distinctly different audience. Is Altered Carbon: Resleeved an anime in an Altered Carbon sleeve or Altered Carbon in an anime sleeve? On the one hand, this animated tale incorporates plenty of elements we’ve come to recognize in a story involving the last Envoy, Takeshi Kovacs, including digital consciousnesses, hotel AIs, and even some underlying backstory involving Kovacs’ long lost sister, Rei. This review contains spoilers for Altered Carbon: Resleeved.

Altered carbon review