Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan

With hyperviolent slapstick playing a large part in this series, a major question after the first set of episodes was whether it would remain as gutbustingly funny, or would the Sakura-gets-his-head-taken-off gag get old in a hurry? Fortunately, for the most part the slapstick violence and everything else about the succeeding episodes remained fresh and genuinely funny. For example, a nice touch was Sakura being accidentally resurrected by Dokuro-chan as a famous historical figure--if he just got killed over and over without a fresh touch each time, it would soon get tiresome. That said, I noticed that the quality of the episodes was somewhat uneven. Some episodes seemed to end suddenly without as clear a plotline as others, or were kind of slow at first. Sometimes the show did fall into the trap of depicting disturbing violence--as in quite unfunny scenes where Sakura's human classmates trample and kick him in order to get near the Angels.

I guess you could say that Bokusatsu Tenshi takes what's been described as the "shotgun approach" to comedy; that is, it's jokes vary wildly between those that are laugh-out-loud funny and those which just make you groan. The thing is, in my experience this is sometimes the price you have to pay for the ones which totally crack you up. I don't want to imply that the show's writers just got lucky--this show is far too good to be explained that way. More likely, they have a weird, twisted sense of humor--just like me. How else could anybody come up with concepts like what's liable to happen when you "badmouth curry"? Or a strange physical education game "which ends when nobody is left able to move"? Maybe BTDc appeals to me because it's both off the wall and politically incorrect.

When dealing with unconventional shows of uneven quality, a big question is how well the concluding episode(s) will be handled. Fortunately, I would say the makers of BTDc did a pretty good job of wrapping things up. Since this is quite an off-the-wall show it was clearly concentrating on being funny, yet this final episode did have a touch of sentimentality to it. But it wasn't taken it too far and remained believable--which was kind of surprising. The episode probably ended the way it had to, and the best way it could have, by taking slapstick violence to a new, unheard of, level. In my opinion, a good anime has got to do one of two things: A)be satisfyingly dramatic or B)be funny. A really good one could do both--and, to a certain extent, this one did. Don't miss the bit after the ending credits!

I had originally rated BTDc as a "Buy" but since I haven't rewatched it more than twice that was probably an exaggeration. But I'm still delighted to learn that more episodes are in the works, and can't wait to see them. I've got a feeling American distributors of anime will pass on this show. As avant-garde as Adult Swim pretends to be, there's no way in hell anything like this would ever get aired over here! To sum up, don't expect anime to conform to Western standards (and thank God it doesn't). As Gilvear put it, "if you’re into anime then you have to take it on the chin and just accept it for what it is".

My favorite line: "Geez, you promised me this morning that you wouldn't beat me to death anymore" --Sakura-kun

Last updated Wednesday, July 25 2007. Created Saturday, June 18 2005.