Dawnleaf Watches Diabolik Lovers: Episode 1 – Let’s Be Friends

Herm… Okay, my opinion on this anime is going to be rather difficult to formulate.  So let’s just start with the technicals, so I can get my thoughts straight.

Brought to you by the world’s most mediocre anime studio, Zexcs!  You know, that one who puts out a lot of shows and very few have transcended ‘okay’, and their most noteworthy work is Aku no Hana.  And the director has had a lot of bit parts in anime before, but he really hasn’t done much directing beside an episode of Hellsing and ten episodes of the old Hunter x Hunter, so this is the first time he gets to front his own anime.  The poor sod.

Now, to forgive Zexcs a bit, this anime doesn’t look terrible, perse.  The guys are bishies, and the animation does make some attempts to be dark and atmospheric, even with all the CG.  And I actually kind of dig the music.

I originally thought that this would be an adaption of an otome game, but, no, it’s a manga.  So, that is tentatively a good thing?  Because it looks like it really wants to be a reverse harem (and, as you already know, I tend to dislike reverse harems unless they are Ouran High School Host Club), and it’s slightly less likely that it could be something else if it isn’t based off of a visual novel for screaming fangirls.  However, there are plenty of reverse harem manga, and the fact that we already have a one girl-to-six guys setup is very conducive to that situation.

However, this anime might actually be okay (‘okay’ in this case meaning ‘messed up, but noteworthy and possibly even watchable’) if they don’t do that.  Because this anime keeps on trying to make me think it’s all dark and creepy and stuff, and while it isn’t scary, there is something far more entertaining to that than there is to another situation in which a girl randomly gets to live with a bunch of hot bishies and gets her pick of the litter.

Besides the reverse-harem setup, there hasn’t been all that much reverse-haremy stuff going on.  Instead of flirting with the protagonist, they attack her and taunt her and try to suck her blood, while telling her there’s no escape.  They randomly appear out of the shadows, surrounding her when she tries to get away.  And she does, actually trying to be active and get the hell out of there instead of blushing and crying and acting like a lot of other protagonists in this sort of thing.  Not that her attempts are particularly effectual or that she doesn’t freak out, but at least she’s not that sort of heroine who’s so dumb that she can’t even understand that she’s in danger.

You see, the usual thing is that the female character will encounter someone dangerous/abusive/dickish.  They stick around and put up with the guy’s crap, and never avoid them or tell them off (Seriously tell them off, not jokingly tell them off) or do anything logical.  Why?  The writers know who they’re catering to, and so the writers want to make the fangirls think that the guys are hot.  Thus, they make the female doormat protagonist (the self-insert character) act like eveything’s okay (or only mildly irritating), so the fangirls, projecting themselves, won’t even notice the implications of what the male love interest is doing.

However, when the writer here makes the female protagonist run away, freak out, and fear for her life, it makes the guys’ actions seem a lot more messed up, as the show is clearly not trying to hide it like most others are.  Since they are clearly displaying that what the guys are doing is wrong, then it means that this show may go in three directions from here…

1.) It is actually going with a more serious, dark tone and is honestly going to be a horror about a girl being tormented by a gang of dangerous, unstoppable bishie vampires.  While this would be a bit messed up, it would be the direction with the most potential to be a noteworthy anime to add to Zexcs’s list, right next to Aku no Hana and (arguably) Say “I Love You”, which I heard is decent.  However, I can say with certainty that this is the most unlikely route, and I should never expect a studio like Zexcs to pull it off.

2.) It is going to continue being dark and creepy, but slip in romantic undertones to create a weird, uncomfortable, sadistic, fetishy product that would only cater to a small demographic.  This is what I think will happen.  I don’t exactly want this to happen, but it would at least be better than option #3.

3.) It’s going to kick out the darker, creepier tone and become Brothers Conflict with vampires, with all of their threatening traits/lines shelved or played for laughs.  This would be the suckiest (no pun intended) way to go, and I really hope they don’t do this, but it is entirely possible that this episode was purely made to sucker people in and that they’re not planning to follow anything up. 

So, from that bold prediction I made there, you can obviously tell that I’m going to watch another episode of this thing, just to see what it does.  And it has also come out super early, so there probably still won’t be anything out by the time episode two rolls around, anyway.  And the episodes are shorter than usual, (an odd 14-ish minutes) so it’s not like I don’t have the time. 

And I guess I’m a bit curious to see what ass-pulled explanation they’ll have for who the heck thought it was a good idea to force a girl into a mansion full of dangerous vampires without telling her or anything. 

And there’s another woman! 

Hello, Eren Yeager’s voice actor.  It seems like you’ve been finding plenty of work lately.