Thursday, October 9, 2014

Dawnleaf Watches DENKI-GAI: Episode 1 – We all live in a doujin world




Important lesson learned: if you see people reading porn, it isn’t prudent to run up to them and scream, “DO YOU LIKE PORN?”  Really, you should just let them be.


So, this anime is almost unique in its predictableness.  Simply looking at the promo art will tell you whether or not you will watch it.  You want bright colors?  Cute girls?  Generic premise about people working at a manga store?  Bam, here ya go.  You want something interesting or new?  …um, let’s pass on that one.  Oh, well.  At least the promo art has some dudes in it, which is pretty impressive for a show of this type.  And the dudes actually feature into the episode, too!  They’re not just curtains.  Generally, I’ve found that a pretty useful rule of thumb is that the quality of a romance/comedy anime is proportional to how prominent the major male characters are in the promo art (‘cuz, you know, most crappy harems have a bunch of hot anime babes in the art and the guy isn’t even there).  Thus, I can say that this show will likely be mediocre based off of the Crunchyroll picture.


This anime is basically a plotless little romcom (one that appears to be relatively gender-neutral in terms of audience) and barely even has a gimmick.  Well, beyond having moe people make references to ero stuff.  Not actually talk about it or explore it, but, you know.  Mention it every now and then.  Because referencing something that every anime viewer already knows about will somehow make them feel like this show really gets them and will thus make them watch every episode and buy complimentary figurines. 


Every once in a while, a good line worked its way in there, but I personally think that there were a lot of jokes that were left unexploited.   Really, most of the time porn was referenced, the word could have easily been edited out and replaced with something else embarrassing (“you still sleep with your teddy bear?!”) without the nature of the joke being tarnished. 


However, the humor still isn’t as shrill or annoying as the promos would make you believe, so thank goodness for that.  The scenes focusing more on character interaction than making anime humor one-liners fared better, and I actually see some of the characters having potential to be legitimately funny at points (hint: the perverted ones are always funnier), though some annoyingness still rears its head (does every anime need the token acts-like-a-baby chick?  From my experiences, teen girls who randomly start babbling and crying for no reason are quite rare and shunned by almost everyone.  And they’re really annoying in anime, especially because Japanese voice actresses are capable of reaching octaves in the upper atmosphere). 


Really, I have no idea why this anime didn’t start at a different place.  If it started with one character getting the job at this store and meeting everyone, it would at least feel like the story had a definite beginning.  However, as-is, we just get randomly dropped into the story, with some awkward “as-you-already-know” dialogue and no solid idea of how long they’ve been working together or even how old they are.  Are they in school?  If they are, then why are they allowed to work in the 18+ section of the store?  And, if they aren’t, they why do they look so young?  I know all anime girls look half their age (and with huge breasts), but, come on, this is getting silly.


So, in summation, this is a pretty generic, but it’s not too annoying.  I’d probably compare this to Working! in terms of aesthetic.  In fact, if they play up more of the funny jokes and write better character development, this might very well surpass Working!, which was tolerable enough for me to finish.  Though its theme song isn’t as world-destroying, mind-killingly catchy.  SO THIS ANIME SUCKS.

…and I love this picture way too much, so here it is:



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