Kite

Those exploding red bullets are the coolest thing and seeing the targets just get obliterated in a shower of blood and gore was such a crazy way to start this off

Seeing the way Akai treats Sawa is enough to make anyone feel physically ill, and the fact that he is her guardian makes the whole situation feel ten times more disgusting than a standard revenge story

My heart broke for Sawa when she was just trying to have a normal conversation with Oburi because you can tell how much she hates her life with Akai and just wants to be a regular kid

The saxophone music during the slower moments really sets the mood and makes the city feel so lonely and hollow while Sawa wanders around between her hits

That 90s animation is just on a different level because the way those bullets shred through the environment and the characters looks so much more visceral than any of the clean digital stuff we see nowadays

those exploding bullets are such a cool concept and seeing the aftermath of the hits really emphasizes how lethal she has become under their training

My stomach turned during the bedroom scene, because seeing Sawa endure that is brutal, and it makes you hate the adults in her life

seeing oburi for the first time gives a little bit of hope that sawa might actually escape that hellish life she has with akai

the way sawa stares blankly after finishing a job shows how broken she is and those exploitative scenes with the detective are really hard to sit through

you can definitely see why tarantino liked this because the bathroom assassination scene is directed with so much style and grit

I feel so conflicted, because the animation is some of the best I have ever seen from the nineties, but the way Akai treats Sawa is just sickening to watch. You can really tell the director wanted to focus on her grief and the way she is being used as a tool by these detectives, and it makes the whole thing feel heavy

akai is such a monster for what he does to her and seeing her trauma play out while she carries out those hits is just depressing

the animation during the hotel shootout is incredible and the way the camera moves follows the action perfectly

sawa going from a normal student to a cold killer in those elevators was so intense and the way she uses that custom pistol is terrifying

i was not ready for the sheer amount of blood when those special bullets hit the targets and it makes the action feel so much more violent than usual

Everything about the city feels so dirty and hopeless and that transition when the music kicks in during the kill is perfect

Sawa pulling out that purple gun is such an iconic look and the way the targets just burst into pieces is insane

I really wanted to like this for the aesthetic, but the scenes with Akai and Sawa felt way too long and gross for a story about an assassin

The elevator scene with those explosive bullets was so brutal and the 90s animation style makes the blood look like art

I can't get over how smooth the gunplay looks but seeing what Akai does to Sawa makes my skin crawl because he is just the worst person alive