If you are looking for something different from Japanese anime or American animation series,
‘Three’ presents us with a supernatural investigation set in the streets of Manila, with a look at the philippine folklore that often doesn’t reach international audiences but is now available on Netflix.
the other side of town
‘Three’ was born as a comic scripted by budjette tan and illustrated by Kajo Baldisimo, who to a certain extent wanted to create their own John Constantine to tell an urban fantasy story with detective touches. The result was Alexandra Tressewho must continue the family legacy while maintaining peace between humans and the supernatural beings that inhabit the city.
This urban fantasy series is set in Manila, where the different clans of the city’s supernatural community have their own feuds and squabbles. As if that were not enough, this unstable situation is joined by a murder that can send peace between the magical and human factions to a walk.
In many ways, ‘Trese’ is a textbook police drama, with an investigator who unravels a different case each chapteralthough little by little we are discovering that all the characters and the investigations are linked within a much larger arc than it originally seemed.
Although we do not know the original comics, it is not at all necessary to have read them before seeing the series, since ‘Trese’ is in charge of giving us enough information with well-measured doses so that we don’t lose who is who. Little by little and as the series progresses, we find out more about the Trese family, their past alliances with the great clans, and how the situation has reached the point where everything is waiting to explode.
Despite the fact that in many cases ‘Trese’ falls into the clichés and tropes of the genre, it also manages to distance itself very well from other urban fantasy stories (and even more so from other paranormal detective series) especially thanks to its setting.
The series has a mainly Filipino creative team and it shows, with Jay Oliva, Tim Divar, David Hartman and Mel Zwyer taking turns directing the episodes, and the authors of the comic serving as showrunners. ‘Trese’ is not only dubbed in English and Filipino, if not, it introduces us to the rich folklore and mythology of the country in a very organic way.
Everything is very careful, from the accents, languages and small details in the usual life of the city. So to get out of the Anglo-Saxon fantasy that we usually see, ‘Trese’ offers us a new aspect of the genre full of opportunities to explore. In addition, by having a female lead, it also manages to subvert some of the more worn tropes with this type of character.
In case it is necessary to notify, ‘Trese’ is an animated series for adults, with a style similar to ‘Castlevania’, saving the differences and the animation quality. It shows us the crudest side of Alexandra’s investigations, with brutal combats and quite gory and explicit scenes.
The hit that you have to put to the animation is that on some occasions it is very limited and with an aftertaste of “saturday morning” cartoons. And even so, the moments with magic and the action scenes do manage to shine when they should, and above all, many of the backgrounds are spectacular.
The first season of ‘Trese’ consists of only 6 episodes and is a perfect introduction to the supernatural side of Manila.