Yugo The Negotiator
Continuing my streak of wanting to watch some kind of a short political drama which turns out to be really mid, we have Yugo The Negotiator.
I don't remember how this anime found itself on my ptw list. I struggled to find a download of it, I couldn't even find where to watch it online. Honestly, in my history of watching anime I don't think I ever had this happen to me. At the very least, I'd find a torrent. Luckily, youtube didn't disappoint.
Before I start talking about the anime itself, I need to say what got me hooked into it once I started watching... It was the first frame of the opening sequence - there's a visible Bata logo lmfao. You see that tiny red logo on the right side of the image? Yeah.
Seeing that logo really threw me in for a loop. Bata is a Czech shoe company that had a factory in Croatia and the factory still makes shoes today, for our market specifically I think, it's called Borovo now. The two companies have very similar logos due to this shared history and for whatever reason this fact takes up more space than it should in my brain. I also always loved that logo...
This story is divided into two arcs, with distinctively different artstyles for each arc. The first arc happens in Pakistan, and the second arc happens in Russia. I actually really loved the artstyle for the first arc, it reminded me a lot of texhnolyze and those early 2000s gritty, muddy and depressive anime in which you can't see shit. The second arc takes a totally different approach. At first I really didn't vibe with the art shift but it grew on me eventually.
Story quality wise.. ehhh... The basic premise is that Yuugo gets paid to go negotiate for a hostage in situations that are often dangerous due to geo-political reasons. In the Pakistan arc Yuugo had to negotiate for the return of a Japanese guy from the hands of Dacoits, a type of bandit gang thing. However, in the story these Dacoits are more presented to us as terrorists/freedom fighters, and upon doing some basic research it seems that often times these revolutionary groups in Pakistan/India get branded as Dacoits. The youtube comments for this arc are really hilarious and added to my enjoyment, because they're full of Pakistanis being overjoyed they're getting some anime rep for the first time ever lmao. Despite this, I didn't really get too immersed into the story and the characters, it was all kind of shallow. In the second half, Yuugo is sent to Russia to retrieve a young heiress of a fortune to Japan because her family was exiled a long while ago... however it all turns into a much larger intrigue because the fortune is apparently is very huge. This whole arc is frankly filled with many inaccuracies that are easily disproven by some basic knowledge and googling so I couldn't suspend my disbelief enough. It was also just not very convincing negotiation wise (yknow, the whole point of the story) that Yuugo survived so many torture and questioning attempts and all that. If you're into male ryona, check out this second half though, it's really something at parts ha ha... Jokes aside, the first half had Yuugo "proving" himself in a more meaningful way so I could let him not being killed easily slide, but not so much in this arc. The only entertaining part negotiation wise was when they truth serum'd him. The scene where they sleep deprived him was also fun, but mostly because of the torture.
Slightly better than Rideback, but it didn't blow me away or anything.