Get Backers: volume 1: G & B On the Case

Reviewed By: Carla Land

ADV Films DVD

Review based on 1 disk (episodes 1-5)

Rating 15+

What it’s (basically) all about: Ginji and Ban are good at getting things back for other people. In fact, they are so good at it that they are the Get Backers. For a price, they’ll get back anything that’s been taken from you. And since they have a near 100% success rate, you’ll be sure to be a happy customer. That isn’t to say that things always go well for them- Ban’s car is always getting towed, they usually have nothing to eat, and they have absolutely no luck with money.

Nitty Gritty: Ban and Ginji both have dark pasts that are slowly revealed over the course of the show. Ban is implicated in the death of a former friend’s brother, and Gingi was the leader of a street gang. They also have superpowers, which contributes to their high success rate. Ban can hypnotize you and have complete control of your mind for a minute, as well as having a superhuman grip. Gingi is like an electric eel, and can create and control electricity with his body.

The show gets a little violent at times. Gingi and Ban are often up against hardened criminals, dirty cops, or just plain creepy masochistic slime balls. Things can get pretty hairy, especially when dealing with Jackal, the creepy masochistic slime ball, who appears in episode three. Overall though, the show isn’t very gory, and there are only a couple of sequences where a bullet goes through someone’s forehead or something similar. Interestingly enough, there’s not a lot of blood when that happens.

The language isn’t too much of the four letter variety. "Bastard" and "damn" seem to be as hard core as it gets.

Hevn, a liaison between the Get Backers and some of their clients, dresses on the fan service side, but she’s not outrageous. She also hasn’t appeared too much as of episode five.

Special features include Anime Network and Newtype Magazine promos; clean opening/ closing; a behind the scenes interview with the cast; ADV previews for Aquarian Age, Neo Tokyo, Dark Water (a live action psychological thriller), New Fist of the North Star, Mezza (which is VERY heavy on the fan service), and 2009 Lost Memories (another live action cop drama); DVD credits; and audio commentaries on episodes 1 and 5- both of which are kind of boring.

Survey says:  I personally felt this was fine for teen collections.  The violence can get intense at times but the friendship between Ban and Ginji is very well written and established. The only thing to watch out for is the violence, and if the 15+ rating is a concern, then it might be better to put this in adult collections.

Personal Ad: I thought Get Backers was pretty good. The back stories for the two main characters are intriguing, and the characters themselves are appealing. Even though they have shady pasts, their friendship is clearly influenced by their good qualities, and there’s a lot of merit in that. You just have to get past the electricity- hypnotizing things and a tendency to get in dangerous situations.