You know what? Every so often I get sucked into something. It starts as a whim, and then becomes kind of an obsession. That’s really my deal with High & Low, but I’m going to be lazy and copy and paste from the Wikipedia page:

“High&Low(stylized as HiGH&LOW), is a Japanese action media franchise centred around the Exile Tribe. Produced by Exile Hiro, the High&Low entertainment project consists of television series, various films and other media, including music, live tours, official SNS accounts, mobile games, books, manga, anime, and temporary themed establishments, comprising an all-encompassing fictional universe.^[1][2] In 2016, it grossed 2.7 billion yen and was the 15th-highest-grossing media franchise of Japan that year.^[3]

The High&Low franchise started in 2015 with a television drama High&Low :The Story of S.W.O.R.D., which was broadcast in October.^[4] One of its slogan was that every character in the franchise was a leading character.^[5]“

The whole damn thing is on Netfix, and I’m about halfway through. I’m going to hold off for now on what I really like about it. Right now, let’s just say it’s a shit ton of fun. I’m probably not their target audience, but I’m enjoying it nonetheless.

My brain is mush right now but given the time committed to watching it would be a shame to go through it with nothing to say about the time spent, so this initial post is more of a commitment to get further in. It’s corny at points and silly. It’s everything you might expect anime to be, but there are good messages about friendship, family, loyalty and sense of place and belonging. It’s about all that good stuff triumphing over evil, which in this case manifests as big business and development, gentrification, greed and selfishness. How can you not love that shit?