If I write “part 1” in the title of this post, it not only encourages my loyal readerbase to come back for the second part, but it also forces me to write a second post. My genius is truly staggering.
Delicious in Dungeon
Episodes watched: 2
Fine. This is good. It’s well animated for starters. The animation does an excellent job at selling the emotions and reactions of the characters. It’s goofy and cartoony, but in a strangely low-key way that keeps the cosy feel without being too loud. I was worried about its world feeling bland due to it being the most RPG video-game-inspired world premise out there, but they’ve gone to decent lengths to really elaborate on the existence of this dungeon and its place in society, plus the many facets of the monsters that live in there. It’s no Made in Abyss when it comes to worlds that are large holes in the ground with layers of changing landscapes, but Made in Abyss is uniquely brilliant in that regard. I can’t go around asking series to take more influence from the world-building of Made in Abyss and then criticize them for not reaching Abyss’ ludicrously high standards.
And yet I am going to complain anyway. In episode 2 they find a room of traps that leads to a room full of chests. The twist here is they use the trap contraptions as an easy source of fuel and fire for their latest cooking escapade. It actually explores the mechanisms behind the traps. Wow! Exploring the design behind the dungeon, truly this is world-building! And yet in doing so they reveal the simulacra of world-building that this video game environment is. Why put these chests here in the first place? There’s no reason for them to be in this location. If the hairy dwarf guy had passed these traps several times before, why do they still work? Why are there still chests with working traps here? The chest room guarded with traps is here because that’s what happens in video games, but once you start explaining the biology of the flora and fauna in ways that make sense outside of it just being a video game, you instead expose that so much of this stuff doesn’t make sense outside of video game logic.
Delicious in Dungeon is good, but I feel this will be nagging at me the entire time I watch this show. Setting it in the generic video game RPG world feels incredibly lazy because they don’t have to explore the world or anything within it and just go “well because video game”, so I struggle to get invested. But then when they do start to explain stuff and I do get invested, it just makes me question the desire to set it in a video game-inspired RPG world in the first place.
‘Tis Time for “Torture”, Princess
Episodes watched: 2
That is a lot of punctuation for a single title. Keijo!!!!!!!! might have it beat when it comes to the number of exclamation marks used, and Steins;Gate might beat everyone when it comes to the complete misuse of punctuation, but the variety on display in ‘Tis Time for “Torture”, Princess is truly one of a kind. Stalling for time a little because there isn’t a lot to say about Tortured Princess. Which isn’t to say it’s bad by any stretch. No if anything I’m shocked at how good it managed to be with a very simple premise.
Much like Delicious in Dungeon, a huge part of the reason it works is the strength of the animation and directing. They are having a blast animating the reactions of the princess. Her wildly flailing facial expressions as she tries to hold her tongue are the primary source of comedy, and as very physical comedy it works very well. I thought the demon lady in office clothing would be my favourite, but my actual favourite is the giant big smiling green Frankenstein Monster dude who stands behind her and cooks ramen. He never says anything but the giant smile across his face is infectious.
I have very serious doubts about the show’s longevity, since they kinda did the same joke three times for the first episode alone. The joke is basically repeated for all of episode 2 multiple times as well. It would likely be better if they had shortened each episode down into about 7 minutes, but unfortunately not everyone has the foresight of the anime comedy classic that is Tonari no Seki-kun. However true genius is not always recognised in its time, and Tonari no Seki-kun still goes underappreciated today.
Metallic Rouge
Episodes watched: 1
I said in the season preview that I desperately wanted Metallic Rouge to be good. It didn’t look to be a particularly packed season, so I looked for something to grab onto. Unfortunately Metallic Rouge left no handholds for me. I appreciate not just outright stating what’s going on in your world can make it more compelling. Heavenly Delusion last year did a fantastic job with that. But what Heavenly Delusion did leave us with were characters who we understood and wanted to get to learn more about. They gave us the most basic outline of their relationship and a general thing they’re trying to accomplish. Both of these things left more questions than answers, but that’s a good thing! I didn’t even come away from Metallic Rouge with questions.
I guess it’s well animated? It’s Bones so that wasn’t ever going to be a question. But unlike the two anime above, I don’t like the directing as much. The color scheme was very drab for something that looks so colorful from the outside. You can make night time look interesting – see Call of the Night for that. It was also weirdly lacking in the music department. They dropped a big musical number during the pivotal fight scene that didn’t fit the tone. It feels weird to say this about another sci-fi original anime I didn’t like, but it made me thing back to Vivy from a few years ago and reflect upon what a better first episode that was. I knew what was happening, why characters were acting like they were, and it had a strong visual direction.
I’ll watch at least another episode or two. Paradoxically because it left me so little to grab onto, it has a lot of room left to capture my interest. Hey maybe this was just a bad opening episode and once they get into the characters and setting more, I’ll find something to grab onto. Lots of anime I really enjoy drop the ball with opening episodes that are supposed to set the tone but instead feel empty, like Berserk or Tanya the Evil. Maybe Metallic Rouge will be one of those? You can really feel just how much I want this anime to be good.
A Sign of Affection
Episodes watched: 2
Another anime in which I’m currently enjoying but have my doubts about longevity. As of right now, it’s cute. It’s a standard cutesy romance anime about a college girl falling in love with some exciting young man who knows 5 languages and send pictures of his international travels and wears an exotic scarf and is far too touchy in public. The twist being that she’s deaf gives it enough of a unique take to be engaging. It makes the main character both interesting, since it’s not exactly a common trait amongst anime leads, and sympathetic.
The main character in general I like a lot. I enjoy watching her fall in love and be all kyaa about it. How she can’t contain herself, or how she recognises that the guy she’s fallen for has some bad habits but she just sees them as positives because she’s fallen in love. I also like how they’ve framed her going to college as wanting to experience new things, accepting that she will feel unsafe at points to do so. It makes you want to root for her and accept her when she makes dumb decisions.
The male characters kinda feel flat right now. Which I guess yeah, it’s a shoujo romance, but they’re pretty boring and rote. More worryingly is I’ve seen a few of these cheesy romances before and they inevitably wear out their welcome the longer they spend on the romance. They tend to be pretty surface-level romances that don’t go anywhere interesting. Framing it as the girl experiencing the world in all its highs and lows is how you make this more interesting. What I’m saying is the guy should turn out to be a bad boyfriend and they should break up. Now that’s some anime drama right there, call me Japan.
