English Dub Review: Blood Blockade Battlefront & Beyond “Bratatat Mom”

It isn’t easy to save the world and still be a good parent.

Overview (Spoilers)

Stephen and some Libra mooks are taking down a major drug syndicate before their latest batch can hit the streets. Problem is, they’re pinned down in a fire escape by an overage of goons with tachikomas and a lack of defensible cover. They need KK for fire support! Bigger problem: she’s at Parents’ day at her son’s school. A week ago, she had tried to back out of this op. She had missed the last three of these events with her son, but Stephen guilts her into taking part. She heads home to apologize, and her kids are pretty upset about it. Her husband explains the situation to their youngest boy and bolsters her aching heart. While he hugs her, she comes up with a plan. It’s expensive and scares the crap outta Patrick (Libra’s munition’s expert). But, it at least saves the day. Those strange shades she’s been wearing? They’re her link to an auto turret with a specialized scope. Her son is suspicious that she may secretly be working. After a bit, the mooks meet up with Stephen, but they get pinned down by mechanized units! KK runs off to the bathroom and launches a flying drone to aid them. On her way back, she runs into another parent. He regrets how much work keeps him from his daughter. The two return to the group… and the baddies attack Stephen again. She launches a missile at what appears to be an armored suit. But, this suit has no reflection and doesn’t show up on her systems. It’s a Blood Breed! There’s no way she can take this out from remote. She hugs her son, apologizing with all of her heart. As she races off, she notices the other father. She doesn’t see his reflection. He too is a Blood Breed, and the two meet on the roof to talk at gunpoint. Ultimately, though, KK lets him go. He is, legitimately, a father. Her own feelings as a parent leak through. At the same time, the suit that Stephen is fighting has a blip of inaction, giving him all the time he needs to end it. It just so happened to coincide when the parent/monster spotted his daughter. Interesting. He takes his daughter and runs, leaving the town behind. Fortunately, the daughter and KK’s son are pen pals on Facebook. She may not have killed the blood breeds, but at least everything ended well.

Our Take

There are two things I loved about this episode. For one, the character writing for KK’s family is deep. They don’t feel like a bunch of tropes slapped together and given the same last name. Her husband feels like he’s been giving her emotional support for the rigors of her job for eons. He’s warm and nurturing, but still takes problems head-on. Their two boys are blends of the two of them, with slightly different balances. They feel like a real family that has been living with each other for a long time. Because of this, my view on KK has completely changed. She’s gone from a gung-ho, guns blazin’ sniper to a complex character at war with her own motivations while at war with evil. She fights at a near rage not because she’s out of control, but because she’s constantly desperate. Desperate to get back to the ones that really matter. She isn’t just a soldier. Her heartstrings are so easily manipulated, and that hasn’t really shown up in previous episodes. This episode opened her character up and made her much more worth watching to me.

The second thing I loved about this episode was the animation. Yeah, this was a character development episode that is tangential to the plot. That meant nothing to the animation team. They saw this as an opportunity to show off and went hog wild. The simple conversation between her and her sons popped off the screen because of the punchy “1 Hit” graphic, and how it jumped into the shot. The direction of this scene gives us some dynamic angles and great action as she… reacts to her kids’ guilt trip. It doesn’t stop there, either. The battle between Stephen and Maestro exactly the level I had come to expect from this show. Fast-paced, punchy combat that moves around the camera to keep you in the middle of the action.

To go with all of this, Stephanie Young gave an amazing performance as KK. She ran the gamut of emotion during this episode, and never once gave us too far or too little. Every word she had KK say sounded exactly as it looked in her expression on screen, and added an extra layer of… something… underneath it all. It felt as if there was a second line of thought going on in her head, even under the inner monologue. It felt like a person who was holding a chunk of their mind in reserve for something else. Also, the voice actor who played her husband (Robert McCollum? I’m not sure) was perfect. His voice acting made the character’s warmth come alive.