Summer Anime 2014: DRAMAtical Murder Impressions

Naru: Imagine a fictional island in a futuristic Japan where it isn’t rare to see youths accompanied by robot assistants called All-Mates playing the dangerous virtual game Rhyme or involved with highly suspicious gangs chased down continuously by the police. Our main character Aoba Seragaki lives in such a place, but as a totally normal guy who doesn’t seem like the violent type…that is, until he is pulled by force into a Rhyme game.

Someone hit this child

First thing’s first: DRAMAtical Murder was one of the anime I was looking the most forward to trying out this season since…well…I’ve played the darn game and I know it all too well to call myself an innocent person. I like most of the characters (even they are a little wacko), the plot is pretty good, I adore the setting, and I could continue to praise Nitro+Chiral for this one-of-a-kind game.

But when the anime was announced, I couldn’t help but cry a little inside.

Why exactly? Because Boys Love games are always badly adapted for some obscure reason and I had prayed to the heavens that a BL anime adaptation would never be green-lit again. For those who are unfamiliar with how horrible these adaptations end up, please feel free to check the Togainu no Chi anime- no wait, don’t. Just don’t.

I CAN FINALLY SEE THEIR FACES

The first episode of Dmmd was –thank goodness- decent and not as bad as I thought it would be (honestly, even if it was I would still continue watching it), but perhaps that’s because I already love the original work and my mind refuses to take note of anything capable of breaking my heart – at least for the moment. However, I did notice a few elements which disappointed me, such as the unfinished-looking backgrounds in some shots and how inconsistent the characters’ faces were. While I could see the efforts the studio did in respecting the art of the original game, I couldn’t help but cringe at those unfortunate moments and also how different Aoba and Co. looked from the game.

Another thing I sadly noticed was how rushed the first episode was. I know this was made with the intention to attract those who are new to DRAMAtical Murder, yet the episode could have been made much more smoother without stuffing all the sudden information into a person’s brain. Rather than bringing new fans, it seemed to bore people more than anything else.

It wouldn’t be too bad to talk about what I enjoyed so far in the anime, however apart from the awesome soundtracks true to the game and the joy of hearing the characters talk and move, there’s nothing else. And I doubt there will be since at the end of the day, I still don’t have a high opinion of this adaptation.

And so, with the beginning of the summer season ending my hope, the DRAMAtical Murder now has an anime that’ll make even the toughest fujoshi cry in misery.

While the first episode wasn’t as terrible as expected, it wasn’t especially friendly to those who have not played the game due to how they rushed it and presented most of the characters in such a short amount of time. I do understand why they wanted to rush it though: DRAMAtical Murder has a pretty slow start and if I remember correctly, the story won’t truly start for a while. Nevertheless, it doesn’t hurt to cross my fingers and (ugh) hope they’ll do a slightly better job with the other upcoming episodes.

As much as I am worried about how this will turn out, I honestly don’t wish for DRAMAtical Murder to meet the same end as Togainu no Chi, which originally is a game also made by Nitro+Chiral…

Muse: If you follow me on various social media websites, you know that I make it no secret that I spend a lot of time on Tumblr, which I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with. The community there is as creative and enthusiastic as it is completely baffling at times, but I’ve discovered several more series that I’ve grown to love thanks to that website. DRAMAtical Murder has been making the rounds on my dash for a while now, and I thought I had a decent handle on what the game was about, and decided to check out the anime based on that. As it turns out, I knew far less than I thought.

DRAMAtical Murder spends its first episode setting up its unique world, where ridiculous puffy coats are things people want to steal and robot dogs have deep voices. That makes it sound like I’m poking fun at the show, but in all seriousness, the weirdness of the world was what kept me interested. It’s established that the city has a number of rival gangs who take their affiliation very seriously, kind of similar to the color gangs from Durarara!!. A virtual reality fighting game called “Rhyme” has been making the rounds as well, along with rumors of people disappearing. However, our main character Aoba doesn’t care about either gangs or Rhyme, preferring his normal life working at a junk shop and living with his grandmother. However, it’s made clear that Aoba has untapped potential, or maybe even some repressed memories.

This is definitely not what I was expecting as the introduction to a BL series, but I’m interested all the same. A lot of the establishing information is revealed through organic dialog and not “as you know” conversations, while still leaving plenty of questions open to cover as the plot gets underway. I’ll admit that I’m more than a little confused by some of the things that happened in this episode, but in a good way. It didn’t feel like the show was deliberately withholding information; rather, it felt like a broad overview of something a little more complex. That’s not to say that I think that this will be a “deep” show, but it’s nice to see that the world and story have been thought through a bit. If you like cyberpunk and don’t mind BL, you should give this episode a try.

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Naru

Lazy blogger of a lazy website who enjoys being evil 24/7. Has a dangerous bishonen obsession that has yet to be cured.

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