When I first learned of this anime I was so excited for it to come out. It was one of the anime I was waiting to be released. I mean tattoo’s that give you special abilities as well as enhance your physical abilities? Yes please! What could possibly go wrong? Read below to find out.
- Genre:Ā Action, Comedy, Martial Arts, Mystery, Super Power, Supernatural
- Number of Episodes: 12
- Season:1
- Release date: 4 July 2016
- Animation Studio: J.C.Staff
- Japanese Title: TabÅ«tato~Å« (ćæćć¼ćæćć„ć¼)
About:
Seigi is a martial arts trained middle schooler who often feels driven to protect the weaker people around him. This usually leads to him stepping in to defend others. One day, he defends a homeless man against some punks. To say thank you the man gives him a strange tattoo which is applied on his palm. Not knowing what the strange tattoo is he hears a rumour that the tattoo is a secret weapon produced in the arms race between America and the Serinistan Kingdom.Ā Seigi then finds himself in over his head when a powerful girl, using the same secret weapon, violently pursues him in order to retrieve the tattoo. His skill at martial arts may not be enough to keep him alive, but will he be able to learn how to trigger the power of his tattoo in time and will he be able to keep his childhood friend from being dragged into this?
My thoughts:
The concept of this anime instantly spoke to me and I fell in love. Ā It sounded like it would be so friggen awesome! This anime is packed with so many fights that are incredibly put together and drawn.Ā 
That is one thing, the art work for this anime is good along with the music. Even the dialogue is on key, however so much happens so quickly in this anime that too much happens in too little time that you don’t really get a chance to fully grasp what is happening. No matter how I look at this, the anime was rushed and too fast paced. It felt like the characters were thrown in just to progress the story line and then they were killed off before you even really got a chance to know their names let alone actually develop an attachment to them. It would have been better if the anime had been longer or broken up into multiple seasons. That would have allowed for proper character introductions and development. I was slightly weirded out by the Yuri (girl X girl) action thrown in. It was mainly fan service and didn’t add to the story. I was also surprised at the way they squeezed in multiple time gaps. They even had a year gap in just 12 episodes. It really feels like the whole anime flew by too quickly and held so many scenes that were predictable, which is sad. Taboo Tattoo started with so much potential and they could have done so much with it. Just the characters alone, if had been given the chance for development would have upped this anime so much. Although I will admit I do like the older Seigi and I am a sucker for the longer hair. I so much wanted to love this anime, but I just can’t. I did enjoy it but it will probably be a really long time before I watch this anime again. I would recommend this to someone looking mainly for fights without much else and only after I have recommended quite a few other anime. It is always sad when an anime sounds so good but fails to deliver.
Will you watch this anime? Have you watched it already? What did you think of it?
In the end I just found Taboo Tattoo a mess of ideas and poor execution. The first episode made me want to like the series but from that point on it just didn’t deliver.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on it.