Spring 2011 Anime May Review Part 1: Deadman Wonderland, Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko, [C]

I figured this monthly review could be a regular thing for me as well, since episodic reviews ain't really my thing but I would like to at least write something for the shows I'm watching anyway. But what should I call it? "Retrospective look" (Random Curiosity)? "Roundup" (Cart Driver)? "Summary" (Starcrossed)? Bah... "Review" will suffice.


Deadman Wonderland

I've mentioned in a previous post that the poor production values are screwing up the potential of the show. It wasn't quite as obvious if you've never read the manga, but if you do you'll see the many shortcuts they've taken to adapt this. The latest episode felt extremely rushed and didn't conclude the Minatsuki arc as well as it should. You probably won't think of Minatsuki as a pretty girl if you haven't seen the manga illustrations of her too. The over-the-top story won't have been so obviously ridiculous if they've executed it right. Yeah, I'm blaming everything on the studio's poor direction because I'm so thoroughly disappointed.


Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko

I think I got it figured out. Denpa girls sells because they're weird unique, and "unique" also defines the relationship they had with the main protagonist. I mean they had a good excuse for harem setting we ended up with right now. It doesn't matter if they had a story now, because the show now is all about "Weird girls doing weird things", similar to the logic of "cute girls doing cute things".

...is probably what they'd like to think. I find that the concept itself is a hard-sell, but the direction isn't anything unique. It wasn't even Shinbo-unique (although the presentation definitely is). Denpa Onna has became a weekly mindless entertainment, but that also means that it would never register itself as one of the better series out there.


[C]

I think we can all tell where the story is heading as early as three episodes into the series: Kimimaro, the only guy the in financial district with a conscious, would proceed to take out everything in the financial district, as well as everything in the real world build on Midas money. That's like half the world as we know it. Even if entire countries starts to disappear, I figured it would be implied as a good ending since that would put people's future back in the hands of the owner, which is how it all suppose to be in the first place. I'm not doing a lot of guess work here; it's practically what the OP tries to imply with Kimimaro attacking Mikuni.

The concept is unique, but the story is nothing original. [C] didn't go much beyond putting the protagonist in an entirely new and unknown environment, giving him new powers, and the protagonist would slowly learn to be responsible for his newly acquired powers. That's a formula half the anime series out there runs on. And since the entire story's practically laid out for us to see, I find it hard to look forward to the next episodes.


I must say that I do enjoy [C], I enjoy seeing Mashu's character, her growing relationship with Kimimaro, and some of the battles are pretty exciting (particularly Mikuni vs Kuchiki) but the series didn't add much to the shounen fighting genre other than replacing magic and swords with money. I would have dropped the series if series is not pretty much ending already.

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