Another horror offering, this one approaches it with a different angle. Is there blood? Not as much as you may think, but there is still a large caliber of terror and destruction.

The proper title for this show is “Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge” or “The Severing Crime Edge”. Let’s talk about Kiri Haimura. If there is anything he loves most in the entire world, it’s cutting hair. He will cut anyone’s hair and he does a fabulous, fabulous job with it. He then sees this girl, Iwai Mushanokoji. She has hair down to the ground, because it is cursed. It cannot be cut by any means (chain saw, blow torch, laser beam). Yet, somehow, Kiri can do it with his simple scissors. But we learn these are no ordinary scissors.

These are “Killing Goods”. People in and of themselves are not killers, but when they come across the implement that will allow them to become killers, they are possessed by their tool of choice. That pair of scissors (and why is it a ‘pair of scissor’ when there is just the one? Is it odd to call it scissor?) belonged to an ancestor of his, Norma Grayland, who owned this pair of scissors which could cut flesh and bone and he purportedly killed over 200 lost souls in the 1860s.

Iwai is known as the “Hair Queen”, whose ancestor, Zewulfa, the original Hair Queen, left a curse to her descendants (now currently Iwai) which gives them uncuttable hair, and she is the origin of the Killing Goods. There is a kink, which is similar to the “Casshern Sins” problem: whoever manages to kill her can have a wish granted, even if it means destroying the world. This makes her a target of “Authors”. No, she is not getting chased down by Dean Koontz and Stephen King. “Authors” are the people who wield the Killing Goods.

So, since Haimura now has all the hair he can cut (the curse also causes the hair to grow back every night), he will now protect her from all of these homicidal misfits, and there are acres of them out there, lurking in bushes and dark alleys and the attic and the basement and the halls of Congress.

You have the Byouinzaka sisters. Yamane is an Author and her Killing Good is a hypodermic. She injects people all the time, but the weight of this curse has given her severe bags under both eyes and a jittery personality. Houko is the older sister and allows herself to be injected by Yamane (as a way to ease the pressure of wanting to kill; it’s just a saline solution), but it weighs on her as well. This makes her an “Instead”, rather than a victim, I assume. Can I get a glossary for all these silly terms used? Must it be so convoluted?

Then there is Emily Redhands (no relation to Edward Scissorhands). OK, here is where it gets complicated: she is a professional foreign killer and the adopted daughter of Iwai’s father, making her Iwai’s little sister. Her Killing Goods is “The Opener of Bloody Dissection” a collection of knives that inflicts the wounded victims with endless bleeding, unless treated with a special cure. Now, Emily detests Iwai and has no qualms in killing her, in order to ‘win’ her father’s love, even though Dad is dead.

Ruka Shihōdō, owner of the Killing Good “Pet Whip of Submissive Butchery” is a whip that manipulates people with a few slaps from it. (She could be making serious skin in the S & M trade with that tool of hers, rather than messing around with this junk).

Seigi Nakajima shows up and his is an odd one. He owns the Killing Good “The Rulebook of Sentencing and Execution” and enjoys killing various other Authors who go after the Hair Queen. He just cites a rule or regulation out of it and a rope magically appears around the neck of the perpetrator. If you are deemed good, you live; if not, then……….

Although there was a good premise there, it got a bit overboard, with the group that oversees the Killing Goods, Gossip. They are kind of like the head honchos of the NFL. They will step in if they really have to, but for the most part, let things unfold as they do. That means Iwai is under constant attack and it takes all Haimura can muster to break curses and protect her, but he ends up absorbing a huge amount of damage and abuse. And when the Witchy Woman finally makes her appearance (no, seriously; Lady Violet Witchy) who holds some kind of massive hatred against Iwai, things get decidedly weird.

I just wish that in a show like this, they were more straightforward with the nomenclature. It seems that they give these cumbersome or non-descriptive titles to people and events and actions to make it sound more important than it really is, so a good tale is muddled and obfuscated and with the naked coupler out there, we await the second season, which I hope is not more of the same of fending off Authors who come out with even more ludicrous weaponry.

Can I expect the “Letter Opener of Painful Paper Cuts”? Look, dude, that would hurt a whole lot! Or the “Ball-Peen Hammer of Smashed Thumbs”? It’s just that, at its core, it is a story of hope and redemption and being free, but it just goes off on its own, so you have to decide to keep watching. The fight sequences are interesting, but they still get too talky while having at it (it’s not quite monologuing, but it’s damn close). For me, this was a mixed bag at best.
On a scale of 1 to 10:

Artwork 8 (It does a good job)
Plot 6 (An initial good start, but weighted down)
Pacing 7 (Matches to what the show is doing)
Effectiveness 7 (Tied to the continuance)
Conclusion 2 (We got a frustrating coupler point)
Fan Service 0 (A similar show would be “Honey and Clover”)

Overall 6 (Second Season Blues)

And remember, it’s first run until you’ve seen it. “The Sledgehammer of Crushing Disintegration”?