This season’s Akudama Drive comes straight from the mind of Kazutaka Kodaka, the creator of Danganronpa—and it shows. The show is filled with over-the-top characters, each with a special title and near-supernatural skills to go along with it. There’s even a seemingly normal protagonist. But while this young woman may think she is nothing special, the name she chooses for herself, “Swindler,” is far more apt than she realizes.
Akudama Drive is set in an 80s-themed cyberpunk future. At some point in the past, a civil war occurred and the people in Tokyo were the winners. Now, the rest of Japan work as little more than slaves to support the Tokyo utopia.
In the Kansai region, the subservient society has in turn given rise to the “Akudama,” criminals with skills that border on the supernatural. While these criminals are fiercely independent (as they’re generally obsessed with reveling in their own abilities), they occasionally have cause to work together—like when a time bomb is strapped around several of their necks.
Image source: TVアニメ『アクダマドライブ』公式 on Twitter.
This is exactly what happens in Akudama Drive. Four Akudama—“Courier,” “Brawler,” “Hacker,” and “Doctor”—are hired to break into a police station and save “Cutthroat” from execution. Along the way, two more people are caught up in the caper: “Hoodlum” and “Ordinary Person.” By the end of it, they (along with the other five) find themselves wearing bomb collars—forced to help in one more caper before they’ll be set free. There’s just one problem, “Ordinary Person” is not an Akudama.
Ordinary Person is just a normal office worker in Kansai—and a good person to a fault. When she meets Courier by coincidence before the Cutthroat Rescue operation, he drops a coin—but speeds off before she is able to return it. A few minutes later she realizes she doesn’t have the cash to pay for the meal she ordered (and the shop owner won’t let her hit the ATM) but she can’t force herself to use someone else’s money to pay—even though she could just pay them back later. So she is hauled off to the police station.
Image source: TVアニメ『アクダマドライブ』公式 on Twitter.
Before she is fully processed, the breakout begins and she finds herself an unwilling accomplice to it. In the end, surrounded by amoral killers, Ordinary Person realizes that to survive, she must pretend to be one of them. Thus, she makes up an Akudama name to give them, “Swindler.”
However, while Swindler may think of herself as an ordinary person, the first six episodes have proven her new name to be far more fitting than her old one. After all, she is literally “swindling” the group of Akudama by making them believe she is one of them.
Image source: TVアニメ『アクダマドライブ』公式 on Twitter.
But more than that, she is able to manipulate them in certain ways to get what she wants at any given moment. Now, while she wouldn’t classify herself as manipulating anyone—she’d just say she’s being a good person—treating these criminals with respect and kindness is exactly the way to handle them. After all, most people treat them with only fear and aggression. Moreover, by knowing their skills (read: obsessions), she is able to phrase things in such a way as to appeal to them—well, at least those most suitable for combat.
While “Hoodlum” is using lies to flatter those around him for his own benefit—as most of the others can clearly see—Swindler is using her own heartfelt feelings to sway the emotions of those around her. Thus, her connections are so much stronger than Hoodlum’s and her words carry even more weight. It’s gotten to the point where Doctor is aware of the emotional manipulation on display—and while she dislikes it, she still respects it as an Akudama level skill.
Swindler has truly become an Akudama, whether she believes she is one or not.
Image source: TVアニメ『アクダマドライブ』公式 on Twitter.
However, there is one extra wrinkle to Swindler as a character. Remember, Akudama Drive is a Kazutaka Kodaka work (which is only halfway through airing at the time of writing) and his stories are known for directorial misdirection—even when it comes to the personalities of main characters.
Therefore, there is a very real possibility that Swindler is not the innocent girl we saw in episode one. It could be that manipulation is her forte and everything has been a con from day one—that she has been “swindling” both the other Akudama and the viewing audience. The funny thing is that even if that turns out to be true, her way of manipulation is still by appealing to the good in people and emotionally connecting with them. The only difference is in her intent.
I can’t wait to see how it all turns out.
Akudama Drive can be seen on Funimation.
Top image source: TVアニメ『アクダマドライブ』公式 on Twitter.
She kinda annoys me