Dokkoida?!

Original Title: 住めば都のコスモス荘 すっとこ大戦ドッコイダー
Romanized: Sumeba Miyako no Kosumosu-Sou: Suttoko Taisen Dokkoidaa
Literal: The "You Can Get Used To Living Anywhere" Cosmos Manor: The Idiotic Great Battle Dokkoider

Plot Synopsis

The Galaxy Federation Police, facing a recruting shortfall due to the routine slaughter of its officers, has a contract out for fancy new power armor. The test will be carried out on the backwater planet of Earth, using Earthlings as the operators, and will involve combatting a collection of the worst criminals in the galaxy, let out of prison on special probation as part of the test.

Meanwhile, on Earth, Suzuo is a 19-year-old guy fresh out of school and equally out of work. A job literally falls out of the sky when a scan reveals that he's a perfect fit for Otankonasu Co.'s prototype suit, Dokkoida. It doesn't pay well, and it involves combat with Class-A space criminals, but it does come with room and board at the Cosmos Manor... with those same Class-A criminals. Hey, the GFP's budget is tight.

Now Suzo is living with his "little sister" (Otankonasu's diminutive and thrifty Tanpopo), the good-looking girl next door who just happens to resemble his competition, Neruloid Girl (and her bitter, surly bunny, the Emerald Co. rep), a nice older fellow who bears a striking resemblance to the mad scientist Marronflower, a headstrong little girl who might also be an alien mastermind, and the couple upstairs... who do a lot of whipping and screaming.

Review

Rating: 3.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2008-08-16

Dokkoida looks to be an entirely predictable sort of parody, and it almost is. Almost.

If you were to glance at the box, you would expect Dokkoida to be yet another series about an unassuming young fellow who gets roped into playing superhero in a dorky-looking costume, and you would be right. You would expect it to feature a collection of flamboyant supervillains with personality quirks, and you would be right. You would expect at least one episode involving all the female characters, a hotspring, and peeping toms, and you would be right.

You would probably expect Dokkoida to be juvenile, unoriginal, rather tame, totally predictable, and pretty much yet another generic anime parody. This is where you would be wrong.

See, Dokkoida walks along the well-trod "superhero who isn't really super" path, but it does so in a drunken stagger that keeps lurching off into the shrubbery, and it sure as heck doesn't keep off the grass. One episode will race past so fast that the punchlines are trampled and the gags seem to be out of breath, the next will be mellow and oddly melancholy, and after that it'll take an obvious set-up and do something equal parts standard turnabout, totally hilarious, and rather horrifying.

To start with, Dokkoida manages to elevate the anticlimax to an art form. It may look like it's full of somewhat goofy action, but more than half the episodes don't even have a battle, and every single one that does actually doesn't. Oh, they try, but the weather is too hot to bother fighting, the villains are so distracted they wander off halfway through, or their evil powers are malfunctioning so badly that the heroes just go home.

Then there's the fact that a series with no nudity at all (not even a transformation sequence!), no functional romantic tension, no traditionally crude jokes, and what would superficially seem to be elementary-school sensibilities is among the dirtiest things I have ever seen. It probably sets the record for "most dialogue with a guy in a gimp mask onscreen," and if it doesn't, I certainly don't want to know what does. In fact, pretty much every moment the largely-mute (he's gagged, after all) Pierre is onscreen borders on horrifying.

On the far opposite end of the spectrum, you have the reality TV episode, which savages the obligatory hotspring trip as the base pandering it is. The cameramen (creepy little dudes hiding in the bushes, of course) take every possible opportunity to leer at the female characters in the most obvious and unsavory way. That alone was effective enough at making the sort of cheap thrills so many male-oriented series go for simultaneously funny and un-thrilling, and then it takes the fanservice gutpunch a step farther. The thing is, although they're age-ambiguous aliens, two of the girls appear to be way below the age of majority, and not only does Dokkoida most definitely go there, it proceeds to cut to the Reality TV audience and beat the viewer over the head with just how depraved you are if you were thinking along those lines.

Oh, and there are also innuendo-laden previews which, while not breaking any new ground, left me feeling like I needed to take a shower at least twice. So inappropriate.

Whether all this so-dirty-it's-not-at-all-erotic content is hilarious or horrifying is up to you (I vote both), but it's sure impressive. If nothing else, the preposterously busty Dominatrix deserves points for bordering on naked every minute she's onscreen yet not seeming at all like fanservice--in part because the rest of the cast is proportioned something like actual humans, she actually works as a parody, rather than an excuse for gravity-defying cleavage.

On the more conventional front, there's the superhero business, which in fact isn't super or heroic at all. If you boil it down, the whole thing is a test project for a government contract, including the well-regulated villains, so the few people they manage to save (which isn't many) were only in danger in the first place because the government put them there. The titular protagonist is, if you read between the lines, essentially a marketing tool for a toy company whose superpower is the placebo effect. His heroic competition, Neruloid Girl, is well-funded, well-armed, better-looking, and basically totally outclasses him in everything but stupidity.

And in the end, Marronflower--seemingly the totally stock mad scientist--turns out to be by far the most competent member of the entire cast. He, of course, has a somewhat creepy fascination with dating sims, but that doesn't change the fact that he's the only serious one in the lot. In fact, he and his robot-in-a-maternal-but-attractive-body sidekick Kurika have the only dramatic bits in the series.

The bottom line here is that for such an apparently generic series it's amazingly unpredictable and darned funny for it. It also does enough just plain wrong things that it gets my seal of "Seriously Messed-Up Humor" approval... you've been warned.

The technical end of things is about par of this sort of TV series; the animation budget is good enough to support what little action there is, and sufficient to keep the visual gags and pratfalls lively. The character designs aren't original, but they are distinctive and generally likable. The mechanical design is generally ridiculous, which it's supposed to be.

I haven't watched the dub, but the Japanese version has plenty of variety in the veteran-heavy ensemble cast. Most importantly, the comic timing is good, though when it comes to really manic strings of gags it does trip over itself on occasion. Drama-wise, Kurika and Marronflower are it, and the acting behind both is solid. As for the two main characters, the "hero" Suzuo is well-cast as an everyman, but sounds a little lower-energy than I'd expect on a few occasions, while Tanpopo is perfect as the little girl who's not--appealing without being at all annoying.

Put everything together and you've got the framework of a generic comedy with so many tweaks on expectation, borderline-disturbing moments, and hilarious-if-you-really-think-about-it situations that it ends up being surprisingly unpredictable and usually darned funny. It's got so much going on it trips over its own momentum occasionally, but I'm more than willing to forgive that for something this unexpectedly funny.

Related Recommendations

Goofy superhero shows that come to mind are Moldiver (not nearly as silly), Twin Signal (also more serious), The Daichis (very similar setup, very different character dynamics), and the ultimate sentai parody, Shinesman. I'll also give a nod to the wildly unpredictable comedy Jubei-chan as something in the same general vein, even if nearly every detail is different.

US DVD Review

Geneon's DVDs, in addition to the expected decent video and stereo audio in English and Japanese, offer creditless opening and endings, promo videos of Dokkoida, a concert video, some cosplay stuff, and the third disc also had an iron-on insert for DIY Dokkoida shirts. The discs were available individually (first one with or without a box), and an identical box set.

Content Guide

Although there's no nudity or actual hanky-panky at all, Dokkoida is spectacularly dirty. Aside from the really obvious--the underdressed dominatrix and guy in a gimp mask--there are a number of innuendo-laden previews and a hotsprings episode that, while an effective parody, still involves a whole lot of unsavory leering. On balance I'd say it definitely earns the 16-up Geneon put on it.

Violence: 2 - There's a vast amount of destruction, but mostly unserious and entirely bloodless (at least that we see).

Nudity: 2 - No actual nudity, but a lot of skimpy S & M gear.

Sex/Mature Themes: 4 - No actual sex of any kind, but a whole lot of that S & M villain and few-punches-pulled innuendo.

Language: 2 - Nothing of note.

Notes and Trivia

Based on a 6-volume manga series written by Tarou Achi; the manga series only bears the first half of the incredibly long title of the anime, "Sumeba Miyako no Kosumosu-Sou" (rough translation "Cosmos Manor--You Can Get Used To Living Anywhere"). The comic verison is now available in English from DC.

Speaking of which, the second half of the anime's title ("Suttoko Taisen Dokkoidaa") is a play on the colorful phrase "suttokodokkoi," basically meaning idiot/idiocy. Cut it in half and add the common "-der" suffix of Japanese superheroes, and you have Suttoko Dokkoider, very rough translation "Idiotder." The US release drops everything but the hero's name, and they chose to Romanize it directly as Dokkoida(a), rather than Dokkoider. Also, the toy company that built Dokkoida is "Otankonasu," which is another colorful word for "idiot."

Nearly all the characters are named after flowers; Suzuo's family name includes the character for cherry blossom; Tanpopo means dandelion; the competing superhero's family name is Nogiku, meaning wild chrysanthemum, and her rabbit-handler is Hana, meaning "flower." With the sole exception of Pierre, the villains double up; Eidelweiss is a flower, and her Earth-cover family name is Umeki, meaning plum tree; Hyacynth's cover name, Yurine, can mean lilly bulb. The mad scientist and his robot top them all, though; the Japanese word for chestnut comes from the French "marron", so Marronflower is obvious, while Kurika consists of the characters for chestnut and flower, and their cover family name, Kurinohana, includes the same two characters with a third to literally mean "flower of the chestnut." So basically every one of their names means exactly the same thing. Several minor characters continue the theme, as well.

On a related note, though Geneon went with it in the English translation, I'm not sure if Kurika's name was originally intended as a pun on Clicker.

Availability

Formerly available in the US from Geneon on three individual bilingual DVDs or a box set of the three together. RightStuf still has stock, though their clearance prices on the individual DVDs (Disc 1/Disc 1 + Box, Disc 2, Disc 3) are cheaper than the box set.

Looking to buy? Try these stores: RightStuf (search) | AnimeNation | Akemi's a(nime)Store