Get Back to Where You Once Belonged

Ever wish you could figure out where your mysteriously missing socks ended up in order to return them back to your freezing feet? Don't: the dryer probably ate them, and it will only take a few dollars out of your wallet to buy a new pair at the convenience store. But for those precious and valuable things you lose hold of, it can be a bit depressing to think that you may never see them again. But never fear! The Get Backers are here!

Meet the Get Backers: Ginji Amano and Ban Midou!

The Get Backers of the titular show are a recovery business with an (almost) 100% success rate at getting back what shouldn't be lost. For a fee, the surly and temperamental Ban Midou and his happy go lucky partner Ginji Amano will go all out to determine the location of your missing/stolen item, person, or thing, and get it back no matter the risk. Sounds fairly simple, right? Unfortunately, the people with the item don't always want to give it up, and more often than not, the requests for the Get Backers lead them through rather dangerous territory. Luckily, Ban and Ginji aren't just regular guys off the street who can't hold on to money to save their lives: they're high-skill fighters with special powers on their side.

Get Backers is a 49 episode series based off the manga title of the same name, and is one of those lucky few series where I actually greatly preferred the anime to the manga. The manga isn't bad, but as a slightly squeamish female reader who also doesn't like female characters to be boobs on legs, the anime did a much better job of keeping the violence and sexuality more at the Teen level while still delivering a great story. The character designs for Ban and Ginji are also more mature and crisp in the anime, which made my eyes very, very happy.

Now here's my kind of show!

The anime starts off episodic, but eventually develops two major arcs which take place in Ginji's home field, the mysterious and complex Limitless Fortress. At the beginning, we're introduced to Ban and Ginji as two penniless and goofy dudes who struggle to find work, mooch of their buddy at a small cafe called Honky Tonk, and engage in cheesy tricks like dressing up as pizza guys while working their investigations. However, when their first job of recovering a sentimental gift for high school student Natsumi gets a wee bit dangerous, they start manifesting their true powers which make them worthy opponents capable of beating even the baddest of bad guys. Ginji can conduct electricity through his body, electrocuting his opponents with high power volts, and Ban can make his enemies go into a dream like state for one minute using his evil eye called the 'Jagan.' When he uses Jagan, the bad guy thinks he's still awake and the actions in his dreams are reality, meaning that Ban and Ginji can use the time that he's dreaming to do pretty much whatever the hell they want without the bad guy realizing. It can only be used 3 times within 24 hours, however, and can't be used on the same person twice in a row.

The episodic parts of the story are quite fun and fairly lighthearted, with my personal favorite being "Get Backers vs. High School Girl." The episode features Ban and Ginji attempting to recover a client's briefcase from a catty teenage girl who prefers to talk on her cell phone rather than lend them a hand, and who also gives them lip whenever they try to get information out of her. When armed and dangerous criminals show up on the scene, the self-centered juvenile even goes so far as to yell at them for getting in her way and being rude. Forget moe comedies which show high school girls as the cutest most darling things on the planet. As a former high school girl, I'm much more in favor of the Get Backers version being closer to the real thing.

Angry high school girl for the win!

However, the real meat of the story comes with the introduction of the Limitless Fortress. This massive mish-mash of high rise buildings- an abandoned construction project gone feral- serves as a not-so-safe-haven for the outcasts and homeless of society. Formerly controlled by Ginji's gang of talented fighters VOLTS, the Fortress fell into the hands of one of his former sidekicks, a computer whiz kid and prodigy named MakubeX. While picking up the pieces of the VOLTS which Ginji was forced to abandon, MakubeX discovers a terrible secret about the Fortress and the group of people who quietly rule from on high in the Bablyon areas of the tower, manipulating and shaping the lives of its citizens. However, his violent and dangerous solution to the threat brings him into conflict with Ban, Ginji, Ban's friend/foe Himiko (talent: poisons or debilitates enemies with perfumes), Ginji's former right hand men Shido (talent: can call upon animals for assistance, and can make his body take on the powers of certain animals) and Kazuki (talent: attacks using thread to bind people and cut through their skin), and Akabane (talent: fights using magnetic needles and a specialized sword, and is also a backstabbing creeper badass).

Kazuki, Ban, Ginji, and Shido. Akabane is lurking in the back, being awesome.

This is the main arc of the Get Backers, and is a bit on the long side, so those watching for the episodic goodies might not be too thrilled. I personally found it to be pretty gripping, and I also loved how it introduced some fantastic new characters to the plot: Emishi and Juubei, former members of VOLTS, MakubeX himself, his "henchwoman" Sakura, and the kindly medics Gen and Ren. The action in this arc is highly reminiscent of Bleach during the Soul Society sequence: each of the "good guys" encounter an enemy, fight them off individually or in teams, get their butts kicked for awhile before figuring out a winning strategy, and then proceed onwards with their mission.

The truly beautiful part of the arc is near its conclusion when Ban uses a Jagan on MakubeX during their fight. I was nearly in tears at the vision Ban took him through of what is meant by an ideal, happy life, and what needs to be done to obtain that reality. Overall, it does a great job as the show's main arc, and is rife with fascinating plot points and battle scenes.

MakubeX, my new brooding bishie!

The second main arc is fairly similar in content, and introduces an additional crop of former VOLTS members, as well as more shady figures from the Babylon division of the Limitless Fortress. This arc was decent, but not as good as the first, mainly because I spent the whole time a little bit baffled by Ren's behavior. She's depressed because she can't leave the tower due to her nature as a person created by "data," and is led to work for the side of the invading forces seemingly because she has a crush on Kazuki (sorry, sweets, but I'm pretty sure that guy is gay for Juubei) and can't be with him... even though the guys she is working for are trying to kill Kazuki and the others. Huh, Ren? I'm hoping I missed some dialogue during those scenes, because it comes across as Toshiki noticing she likes Kazuki and recruiting her because he likes Kazuki, too (and wants to kill him!) 

The characters are by far and away what makes Get Backers a great title. Ban and Ginji are hilarious (Ginji spends half of his time in chibi mode when acting childish or terrified at the creepiness of Akabane), but can also be deadly serious when threatened or taunted. The former members of VOLTS are also enjoyable and diverse (Kazuki and MakubeX are my favorites), and everyone luckily follows the "grey" principle rather than the "black and white," meaning that very few characters, even the "bad guys" in the Limitless Fortress arcs, are outright evil, but rather have complex and intriguing systems of morals.

Kazuki! Yup, he's a dude!

As I said earlier, the anime is a much tamer version of the manga, but doesn't reach the full span of the volumes released in Japan. The characters are fairly true to their manga originals, however, and I found the anime to be more appealing to a male/female audience, while the manga seemed to aim more at males. That being said, both anime and manga do have treats for both genders: there is heaps upon heaps of fanservice for the dudes, and a cute romance between Shido and Madoka plus subtle homoerotic subtext between Juubei and Kazuki (if you add Toshiki, it makes a love triangle!) for the ladies.

 Get Backers is a title I would recommend to both male and female anime fans. The plot does a good job of appealing to both, as do the characters. The cast is dominantly male (1 point for bishounen fans), but the female cast hits on all of the male favorites: busty (Hevn), innocent (Madoka), action/Tsundere (Himiko), cute (Natsumi), androgynous (Ren), and could-potentially-fight-but-prefers-to-sit-around-doing-nothing-at-the-side-of-a-dude (Sakura). The idea of a recovery service perfectly lends itself to the episodic parts of the show, and the recurring cast of likable characters makes it effortless to stretch it out to a full 49 episodes. I breezed through it in three days, and still didn't want to stop watching!

Get Backers is chibi Ginji's favorite show!

Surprisingly, my least favorite parts were the themes, most of which weren't all that interesting compared to the show itself. The score and OST are amazing, though, and I highly recommend tracks like "Gymnopedie" for your anime playlist!