^{Stray Dogs Howling In The Dark}
Gun Smoker

Badou, the information gatherer, is working on a normal adultery case when, because of a cigarette, he almost dies, then he accidentally finds a Don playing bondage. He takes a photo and is now running from the mafia and again almost dies after slipping from a rooftop to a market below. He ends up escaping and meeting Mimi, a friend of his. I really liked the beginning of this episode. Although not convinced at first, I eventually started laughing. It was really funny.

The animation continues kind of low-budget-looking but, every thing is still done nicely enough. Anyway, the mafia finds him again and he’s saved by Mihai this time. Badou tries to get Mihai to help him further but, he refuses, which doesn’t matter since the mafia finds their bar first and comes killing. In the middle of everything, Badou is running more desperately for nicotine. He eventually hits some state where he snaps and starts killing everybody.

The action scene wasn’t great. Although everything had style and was cool, once he started shotting, it’s not anything special. Probably because of the animation budget, it’s plain, boring and slow. Even gives the idea that anyone could have killed him lots of times where he just stood still shotting.

So, everything ends up more or less resolved. This episode was basically Badou’s introduction to the story. It’s obvious Badou has some special training, skill or whatever, concerning assassination, like Mihai. Not sure how it all comes together.

Overall, I really liked this episode, only the action and animation are lacking but, that’s not the focus of the show for now. Everything else was well done and entertaining.

If you want an anime with some similarities to Baccano!, Tarantino movies, (and I mean just some, it’s actually very different lol), and stuff like that, this anime may interest you. It’s kind of like a light noir story lol, if that makes sense. The next episode preview seemed really interesting. I’m looking forward to it.

^{Stray Dogs Howling In The Dark}
Weepy Old Killer

Studio: David Production
Year: 2009
Genre: Action, Science-Fiction
Length: 4 OVAs

Director: Tatsuya Abe
Screenplay: Kiyoko Yoshimura
Sound director: Satoshi Motoyama
Original Creator: Shirow Miwa
Character Design: Kumi Ishii

Synopsis: Sometime in the future, where a certain European city extends far underground. There lye secret, dark levels that have the key to the past. Ex-assassin Mihai has returned and is living with Kiri, who now runs a restaurant. Sword-wielding Naota, Haine, a mysterious product of genetic engineering and his partner Badou, not to mention the scary but cute twins Luki and Noki, hang around plying their dangerous, and often deadly trades.
(adapted from Anime News Network)

Well, I’ve been wanting to read this manga for a long time. And now an OAV gets released :). So, the manga is actually two series. The first one, is comprised of just one volume. This OAV is based on that one. The second series that continues the plot is called Dogs: Bullets & Carnage. Not sure if they will adapt the second series too. Anyway, I may start reading the manga in the near future. I’ll be able to compare it better then. By the way, decided to leave some links on the info section above. It’s all to animenewsnetwork.

So, Mihai an ex-hitman comes to visit Kiri, owner of a bar. When he was younger, his boss forced his own son, Ian, to become his apprentice. So, Ian became a hitman too. Kiri, along with Milena, Mihai’s past love, were prostitutes in that same bar. At some point, when Ian was a little older, he snapped and killed Milena for some unknown reason. Ian and Mihai both attacked each after that and Mihai was fired. Now, some years later, Ian has killed his father and took over the family business.

Anyway, Ian learns of Mihai’s coming and decides to "meet" him. Some of his "employees" take this chance to try and kill Ian, probably so they can lead the organization themselves. Kiri, also goes, fearing for Mihai’s safety. Things go south and everybody shoots at each other. In the end, Ian is about to die and finally talks to Mihai. He killed Milena, because he was afraid he would lose Mihai to her. It’s kind of stupid but, he was a very troubled child, and was even being trained as an assassin, it’s complicated lol

The action scene wasn’t much. It’s like it was a little hard to look cool, and the kind of low budget didn’t help. It reminded me of Cowboy Bebop for some reason though.

After all this, something strange happens. A boy goes deliberately against Mihai, on the street, and says "now everyone that knows the secret will die". Not sure if he did something to Mihai or if was bleeding just because of his wounds from the past encounter. It was a nice cliffhanger to end the episode.

Overall, nice episode, not much exciting but, I’m expecting it to get better. Although Ian’s story was kind of strange, and his personality had some inconsistencies. They probably condensed a lot of manga material into this episode, and things got rushed and lacking in development. But, as I said, I’m expecting everything to become better with the next episode.