Review of Altered Carbon: Resleeved

By Dave B

​Altered Carbon: Resleeved (Netflix) is an animated story that takes place in the same world as the Altered Carbon television series. For those familiar with the series, Resleeved takes place shortly after the betrayal and destruction of the Envoys, a significant amount of time before the events in Season One and Two. Takeshi Kovacs is hired to find the killer of a Yakuza boss’ brother and is tasked with protecting a young girl (the Yakuza clan’s tattoo artist who is being hunted my mysterious assassins) to gain entry into the organization. 

Three things stand out to me about Resleeved. First and foremost, the action is incredible. The violence excels both choreographically and visually. Calling Resleeved “bloody” would be an understatement, but the carnage rarely feels particularly gratuitous. Instead, the fight scenes are a reflection of a violent segment of society and the wages of sin. Relatedly, the second aspect of Resleeved that stands out is it’s animation quality, which is unique (and I personally like it a lot). While the animation of the characters themselves is good, the backgrounds are lavishly rendered and the smallest details, from a vase to copious blood spatter, are mesmerizing.

However, the third thing that stands out about Resleeved is its writing, which is simply bad. The dialogue is uninteresting, the character development is non-existent, and the plot is nearly nonsensical. Resleeved doesn’t FEEL like Altered Carbon. It doesn’t feel like anything except for a waste of time (at least if one tries to follow the story) and it doesn’t add anything of significance to the Altered Carbon universe. Frankly, you’re likely to get much more enjoyment from this show if you watch it with the volume turned off.

Altered Carbon: Resleeved is a 74 minute rollercoaster ride of excellent visuals and lackluster writing. Despite how cool it looks, I just can’t recommend it. While the runtime is short, there just too many better ways to spend your time than trying to parse through a flimsy story that fails to create even the slightest emotional bond with its viewers. That said, if your exclusive interest is seeing some great animated action, you may get some small measure of satisfaction from Resleeved, but likely not much.

Rating: 5/10