Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan Anime Review

Quick Review

• Reviewer: Marc
• Review Date: 2009-09-25 (updated 2012-07-16)
• 2.5 stars out of 5 (?)

The endgame in the arms race of ever-more-extreme parodies of the "normal kid stuck with crazy supergirl" genre, Dokuro-chan is equal parts schoolyard comedy, South Park, Fist of the North Star, and "My eyes!" In addition to the graphic answer to the rhetorical question "What would happen if comic violence actually did as much damage as it should?" it also features a wide range of dirty jokes and innuendo so blunt it's not really innuendo at all. On the down side, the unsympathetic characters, jerky humor (it periodically tries for something more "subtle," meaning sort-of-straight "drama"), and outright offensive material makes it as easy to cringe at as laugh. The American cartoon-style exaggerated visuals are also thoroughly unpleasant, and the decision to do a South Park-style "paste a photo on a hand-drawn-body" running gag doesn't help, either.

Whether you'll find it hilarious or just be left wishing you could bleach the horror from your eyes is going to depend a lot on taste. At best, probably both.

Read the full-length review...

Full Review

• Reviewer: Marc
• Review Date: 2009-09-25 (updated 2012-07-16)
• 2.5 stars out of 5 (?)

Equal parts schoolyard comedy, South Park, Fist of the North Star, and "My eyes!", Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan is the endgame in the arms race of ever-more-extreme parodies of the "normal kid stuck with crazy supergirl" genre. It's also a graphic answer to the rhetorical question "What would happen if comic violence actually did as much damage as it should?" As for whether you'll find it hilarious or just be left wishing you could bleach the horror from your mind, that's going to depend a lot on taste. At best, probably both.

The concept, to be sure, is good stuff. Baka-hammer-made-real violence aside, the idea of someone who accidentally creates eternal life in an attempt to produce a pedo-paradise ranks among the better excuses for an angelic assassin that I can think of. Nor does it waste any time getting going--the story takes up midstream, around what would be the third or fourth episode of the sort of series it parodies. Good call, since you already know exactly how that sort of thing always plays out, and there's little continuity or logic to it anyway. If only the rest of the execution (pun intended) had been as good.

Dokuro-chan distinguishes itself thusly: It is spectacular in the level of offensiveness (and not just gore), ranks high among anime in gross-out humor, and has one of the most unsympathetic title characters in recent memory. Dokuro herself is a parody of the hotheaded cutie taken to the limit, which in this case is interpreted to be incredibly violent both by accident and quite intentionally, fiercely annoying, and frankly devoid of any redeeming qualities whatsoever. There's nowhere near enough substance in the series to pay attention to motivation, but if you did it seems pretty clear her reason for not killing Sakura (er, not killing him permanently) is so she can continue to brutalize him for fun. That is, I suppose, somewhat amusing.

Generic nice-guy Sakura is, for his part, pragmatically afraid of her most of the time, but also lecherous on occasion. This keeps him remarkably likable, until he abruptly gets sympathetic toward a vicious sociopath. This is, I assume, supposed to be a parody of guys soft on girls with no redeeming qualities, but frankly just seemed a little weird since she has nothing going for her. Speaking of which, the more subtle parody segments--meaning relatively straight "drama" not intended to be taken seriously--are somewhat less horrifying than the rest, but so much lower-energy in comparison that it felt like a letdown. They also just aren't that funny.

The other significant characters are Sabato, the unapologetically murderous "backup angel" who turns into a conglomerate of woe, and Sakura's "regular" girlfriend, the serene Shizuka. The former is almost as fiercely annoying as Dokuro (though ironically ends up the most sympathetic character in the series), and the latter is pleasantly demure but has almost no personality at all. The rest of the supporting cast are pretty much just jokes with a face.

Or, in some cases, a pasted-on animal head. In a rather weird artistic decision, when some classmates get permanently transformed into animals, the animators just slap a South Park-esque cut-out photo of the appropriate animal head onto the regular animated body. Not that the series had any continuity anyway, but that broke things up visually without much apparent benefit--I ended up going "huh?" instead of laughing at where they went with the joke. Then again, maybe the jokes were so lame they figured that'd take some of the pressure off.

Lame, and dirty. Oh, there are a couple of actually clever bits of humor, and a few more bits of the backhanded sort that register after a moment or two. But for the most part the mode of operation is blood-spraying slapstick first, gross-out bodily function humor second, completely random deviant sexual behavior third, and fill in whatever's left with offensive free-association and "Huh?!" Among other things, it gives Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei a run for its money in the "most random Admiral Perry reference ever" competition, as well as some out-of-nowhere (and oh-so-dirty) Kafka references. Pretty well-read for something so abjectly idiotic. (On the note of unexpected references, it also has a few jabs at Kim Jong Il and even a brief potshot at the Bush bulge of all things.)

The best bits are probably Sakura frantically describing (in graphic detail) either what Dokuro is about to do to him, or is in the process of doing to him on- and/or off-screen. Usually while something else is going on, totally ignoring his predicament. (In fact, the closest thing the series has to clever humor is the ongoing joke that nobody but Sakura cares about Dokuro's horrifying behavior, and the universal lack of sympathy for his situation.)

The rest is more like playing Google Seppuku--eventually, something will have you wishing you'd never started. On that note, I'd warn you to avert your eyes every time the pervy teacher or punk angel-dude Zansu are onscreen, but by the time you realize it's usually too late. I will also note that in the space of 30 seconds it managed to permanently ruin The Dog of Flanders for me.

Even setting aside the animal photos, I didn't care for the visual design. In particular, the exaggerated character animation is very American-cartoon-style, which is to say extreme and rather unpleasant-looking. When it's not being intentionally ugly, it has an appropriately bland, pleasant look that works much better for the humor to play off of, and the production values are on the right side of average. There's certainly no shortage of gore, though a lot of the time it's so exaggerated that it takes some of the punch out of the violence. Ironically, had it been more toned down it probably would have been funnier, if even more horrifying.

The intro, incidentally, is the best part. A saccharine song full of badly-sung nonsense performed by Saeko Chiba as Dokuro, it's exactly what you'd expect in a generic comedy. Until, that is, the lyrics start waxing increasingly violent, and the visuals in the background get increasingly more disturbing. Bonus points for the sequence of Dokuro dancing around cheerfully and doing the splits while twirling her massive, spiked bat. Aside from that intro and the disappointing, mournful outro (also sung by Chiba, this time not in character), the remainder of the background music is mostly just functional. There is one weird, wailing vocal theme that gives a nice surrealist air to some of the more bizarre non-sequiturs, though.

The Japanese voice acting is... well, just about right. Saeko Chiba as Dokuro sounds sickeningly cheerful at all times, while Sakura, voiced by Reiko Takagi, is the standout--a broad range of pleasant everyguy, drooling, hormone-blinded everyguy, and impressively high-speed freak-outs. The supporting cast is nondescript but similarly appropriate (if cursed with some annoying vocal tics). AnimeWorks' subtitles, however, are rather weak; there are a few translation errors, some cultural stuff goes unexplained, and they're marred by typos. Worse, they're all in one color, which can get very confusing when there are two people talking over each other (something that happens frequently).

In all, Dokuro-chan is a spectacle of a parody: Incredibly violent, almost as dirty, and absolutely horrifying. If your sense of humor is warped enough, you may well get some laughs out of it. The unpleasant cartoon visuals and scattershot gags let some of the air out for me, and I found myself wishing I had never turned it on just as often as I was laughing. On the bright side, the sequel is significantly better, if even worse.

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Fans of the most disturbing and offensive segments of Family Guy would feel right at home here. In terms of anime, Excel Saga--particularly the "no holds barred" 26th episode--is the only other parody on the same scale of violence and dirty jokes, though Excel Saga is more scattered and hyperactive. The Ping-Pong Club, while a somewhat different kind of humor, is similarly horrifying. There are, of course, countless examples of comedies of the sort that this parodies, of varying levels of quality and humor balance.