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... you score Hamatora? Click here to vote! ⏎Theron Martin ⏎ Rating: 2 (of 5) ⏎ Review: In the world of Hamatora, super-powered individuals named Minimum Holders exist, ones who must perform some kind of rudimentary action – such as chewing gum or shocking themselves with a taser – to access their powers. (Really, the original manga-ka could not come up with anything better than that for a name? That almost makes “Needless” look good by comparison.) The Hamatora Private Investigation Agency, which operates out of a coffee shop, has several such individuals in its motley staff. What initially appears to be three separate cases tackled by different one day instead turns out to be just different aspects of the same case, which results in a series of confrontations between Hamatora and a super-strong Minimum Holder. ⏎ While I suppose the need to take some action to activate one's powers, rather than compulsively perform the action after the fact (as is the case in Darker Than Black) could be considered a new twist, this is really just a stale concept that the producers and original manga-ka are trying to spruce up with a slightly involved and seedy mystery angle. So far it is not succeeding terribly well, although this is more a case of lack of originality rather than specifically failing at anything. Hero is living from yen to yen? Colorful individuals with varying temperaments and powers? Been there, done that, many times before. The first episode does offer a couple of small doses of mature-leaning fan service, and there is at least some attempt at decent humor (the joke about the old maid and the school girl uniform is actually rather funny), but the visuals do not impress enough to offset other shortcomings and drop the ball in a big way in one scene; the character Koneko, who basically collects and distributes jobs for the agency, seems to have a cat tail that can move, though one shot makes it look like it's coming out of her left pants pocket rather than her backside. ⏎ Maybe the detective angle and the bit about the Minimum Holder serial killer (another tired plot twist) will get interesting enough to carry the series, but it will have to try harder than this. ⏎ Hamatora is currently streaming on Crunchyroll. ⏎ Rebecca Silverman ⏎ Rating: 3 (out of 5...