Gleipnir opens with a warehouse fire and ends with a boy in a dog suit learning that his own past is the thing he should fear most. The 13-episode anime adaptation of Sun Takeda’s manga ran from April 5 to June 28, 2020, on Tokyo MX, BS11, KBS Kyoto, ABEMA and Sun TV. Pine Jam handled the animation. It is a strange, mean little show, and it earns almost every one of its worst impulses.
Shuichi Kagaya is an ordinary high school kid in a boring little town. That is the setup the series hands you before it takes it apart. When a classmate is caught in a warehouse fire, Shuichi discovers he can transform into a furry dog with an oversized revolver and a zipper down his back. He saves her life. He shares his secret with her. Her name is Claire Aoki, and she is searching for the sister who killed her family. She does not care how degrading it gets. She will use Shuichi to finish the job.
Trailer, via Crunchyroll Store Australia.
Shuichi Kagaya and the zipper down his back
The central mechanic is the zipper. Shuichi’s mascot form is a giant dog costume with a functioning gun and a big smile on the front, and any woman who enters it can share memories with him. Claire does not just ride inside him. She controls his body movement, and the form’s strength and speed jump to superhuman levels. She is physically weak on her own. Inside Shuichi, she is the most dangerous thing in the show.
That is the joke and the horror at once. A nervous boy becomes a vehicle for someone else’s revenge. Natsuki Hanae voices Shuichi in Japanese, with Ry McKeand in the English dub. Nao Toyama plays Claire in Japanese, Brittney Karbowski in English. The performances sell the arrangement without softening it.
Claire Aoki does not hesitate
Claire is the reason Gleipnir works. She attempts suicide when no one believed her. After meeting Shuichi, she becomes obsessed with finding Elena and the truth behind the creation of monsters. At first she abuses him. Later she cares about him enough to swear she will kill herself if he dies first, so they can stay together.
That is not romance. It is a threat with a pulse. Behind her personality sits a determination to kill anyone without hesitation or remorse, and a habit of closing herself off from her emotions to a degree that Shuichi finds terrifying. The show never asks you to forgive her. It asks you to keep watching her.
Elena Aoki, the sister who killed their parents
Elena Aoki is the target. Kana Hanazawa voices her in Japanese, Morgan Laure in English. After receiving the ability to transform into a ghost, she killed her parents. Claire and Elena are paternal half-sisters, because Claire was born from an affair between her father and one of his mistresses. That detail reframes the hunt. It is not just grief driving Claire. It is a family that was already broken before anyone turned into a monster.
Elena is also tied to Shuichi in a way he cannot access. At some point in the past, Shuichi was in a romantic relationship with Elena. He has no memory of it, because he has amnesia he himself is not aware of. The show’s best trick is that its hero is a witness to his own life, not a participant.
The voice cast around the edges
The supporting roster is deep for a 13-episode run. Takahiro Sakurai plays Alien. Miku Ito plays Nana Mifune. Yoshiaki Hasegawa is Abukawa, Shizuka Ishigami is Hikawa, Hiroki Yasumoto is Tadanori Sanbe, Kana Ichinose is Chihiro Yoshioka, You Taichi is Subaru, and Shoya Chiba is Ikeuchi. Natsumi Fujiwara voices the young Shuichi in Japanese.
None of these names are decoration. The show spreads its mystery across them, and the comedy tag in its genre listing is not a mistake. Gleipnir is funny in the way a bad situation is funny when you are trapped inside it.
| Element | Gleipnir (anime, 2020) | Sun Takeda’s manga |
|---|---|---|
| Run | 13 episodes, April 5 to June 28, 2020 | Serialized October 2015 to April 2021 in Young Magazine the 3rd |
| Later run | None | Monthly Young Magazine, May 2021 to April 2023 |
| Studio or publisher | Pine Jam | Kodansha; chapters collected in fourteen tankobon volumes |
| North America | Aired on Tokyo MX, BS11, KBS Kyoto, ABEMA, Sun TV | Licensed by Kodansha USA |
| Shuichi’s form | Furry dog, oversized revolver, zipper down the back | Giant mascot costume with a zipper and a big smile |
A coin that slows down time
Claire later uses a coin to gain the power to slow her perception of time, which increases her speed and reflexes. It is a small, ugly power-up, and it fits her. She does not get stronger by training or by believing in herself. She buys an edge.
The genres attached to Gleipnir are Animation, Mystery, Comedy, Action & Adventure, and Sci-Fi & Fantasy. That list looks like a mistake until you watch it. The comedy is deadpan and cruel. The mystery is the only engine that never stalls. The action is brief and brutal. The fantasy is a boy in a dog suit with a gun.
What Gleipnir actually gets right
The show’s structure is its strongest asset. The manga ran across Young Magazine the 3rd and then Monthly Young Magazine, and the anime adapts a slice of it and stops. That should be a weakness. It plays as discipline.
The mystery holds because the show withholds exactly one thing at a time. Shuichi’s amnesia is not a plot device dropped in at the end. It is the floor the whole story stands on. Every time Claire pushes him forward, she is pushing a boy toward a past he cannot see coming.
The weakness is Claire’s arc. The series wants her obsession to read as tragic, and it does, but it also wants her cruelty to read as love. Those are different claims. Gleipnir keeps them tangled on purpose, and the tangle is more interesting than any clean answer would be.
What matters most here is the mechanic, not the monster. The zipper is the thesis. Shuichi is a container. Claire is the will inside it. Elena is the thing they are both chasing, and the show is honest that chasing her will cost them whatever is left of being ordinary high school kids in a boring little town.
The published audience score sits at 8.1 out of 10 across 709 votes on TMDB. That number is not a critical consensus and should not be read as one. It is a crowd that found the show and stayed. For a series this specific and this willing to be unpleasant, that is the right kind of number.
Gleipnir is not for everyone, and it does not pretend to be. It is a revenge story with a mascot costume at the center, a heroine who would kill without blinking, and a hero who cannot remember why any of this is happening to him. The comedy tag is real. So is the cruelty.
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