First Impressions / OVA/Movie / Series Introduction

OP Sequence

OP: 「撲殺天使ドクロちゃん2007」 by 千葉紗子 (Chiba Saeko)

You remember how crazy that OP of the first season was? Chiba Saeko going from a sweet singing voice to a hell-bent psychotic pissed-off bipolar idol voice… well, she sings it again with a different tone for “Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan 2007,” but it just comes off flat and uninspired compared to the first season. I’m probably going to say that a lot below…

“Dokuro-chan, if we don’t hurry up we’ll be late!” Ah, familiar words, I think every single anime involving a nondescript male lead with a younger female living with him has a similar line at one time or another. Except none of those other series has an angel that will club the guy to death for no particular reason other than the fact that the sight of blood gets her off.


Background

For those unfamiliar with Dokuro-chan, it was an OVA series that started airing roughly two and a half years ago, involving four half-hour episodes consisting of two parts each. Sakura-kun is the male lead – a normal student with all the interests of a typical adolescent boy. Supposedly, years and years in the future, Sakura-kun invents a device that turns all women in the world to lolis in order to feed his pedophilia, so two angels are sent in order to kill him. Dokuro is the first to get to him, but instead she ends up falling in love with him and somehow starts living with him. That doesn’t stop her “killer instinct” though, every chance she gets she takes a whiff at Sakura with her death club “Escaliborg,” usually ending in a puncture wound through the torso wider than a watermelon, a head roughly 400 feet away from the rest of the body, or a drizzle of red rain as his blood condenses into the atmosphere. Why? As the lyric in the OP says, that’s just how she shows her love. Cuz y’know, some guys like being abused by their loli girlfriends. Regardless, after every gruesome death, Dokuro revives him with her chant of “pipiru pirupiru pipiru pi.” So basically, the series is about how the two go about their daily lives, from introducing Dokuro at school, to a competitive love rivalry with the class rep, to defending Sakura from the other angel, Sabato-chan (the one with the horns), who seems to be the goddess of bad luck as she just gets into one bad situation after another. And along the way, Dokuro’s younger sister Zakuro comes to impose her will. Oh, and if an angel gets her razor-sharp halo removed, she has severe (read: SEVERE) bowel movements.

Bokusatsu, by the way, pretty much means “brutally beat to death using a blunt object,” similar to what Keiichi did in episode 4 of the first season of Higurashi. Except that Escaliborg has big menacing spikes too.


Summary

Well, there’s not much to summarize…

The first part involves a school trip to the countryside to do some landscape watercolors – Sakura chooses to head to the river (with Dokuro alongside him) because he had heard that Shizuki (girl he likes) wanted to head down there as well. Well, on the way, Sakura decides to prank Dokuro a bit by pretending to push her as she stood at the edge of a cliff overlooking a waterfall, but as he reaches out to push her, his hands slip right through her holographic body (hologram bunshin no jutsu), his momentum carrying him right into the bottom of the waterfall. Just how hard was he planning on pushing her anyways?

Sakura finally scouts out Shizuki and the two shack up with their paints and start drawing away. Well, with Dokuro right between them, and Minami (creepy quiet but nonetheless cute chick) on Shizuki’s other side. Well, no love for Sakura.

Following a quick lunch involving more Sakura abuse, they go back and finish up their paintings – naturally, Dokuro’s looks like some bloody river of gory death. Afterwards, Sakura heads by the water fountain to invite Shizuki to an art exhibit – well, it’s not her, but rather Minami with the same hairstyle. Dokuro scouts him out and gets suspicious of his frivolous conversations, so clubs him to death…

Elsewhere, Sakura’s bento that he lost during the slip into the waterfall washes up on shore, right next to a starving Sabato… poor girl

On to the second part – in addition to housing Dokuro, her little sister Zakuro also lives at Sakura’s house – she’s strangely much taller and much more mature looking than her onee-san, but maybe that’s how things work in bokusatsu heaven. Anyways, it’s nighttime, and Sakura is telling Dokuro to go take a bath, so she hesitantly complies and goes to get Zakuro to go with her. Well, at that time, Zakuro was reading some book with a secret incantation that unleashes some vengeful demon that eats people through a crack in the wall, so the two angel sisters get freaked out, “forcing” Sakura to try to calm them down by taking a bath with them.

Cue bathtime fanservice with huge breasts on small bodies.

After some rampant shampooing and Zakuro ogling, a crack in the wall gets the two girls freaked out and the bath ices over again. A dark silhouette appears by the window… oh, it’s just Sabato, coming to return a lacross stick (wtf?) She’s standing outside freezing so they invite her into the bath, which is even colder…

The episode finishes with the four crammed into the small bathtub, Dokuro getting pissed off and splattering Sakura blood all over the bathroom, and Sabato returning to her cardboard hut, freezing underneath her newspaper blanket. Poor girl.

No ED this time around, will probably show up in the next OVA.


Thoughts

I loved loved loved the first season to death (ahem), and while this episode was still entertaining to watch, it felt empty, dry, soulless. The reason I thought the first season was so great was because it was so full of energy and brimming with vitality, with a constant anticipation of when Escaliborg was going to pop out, a humorously nervous sexual tension that continued to background every scene, and the sheer randomness that never ceased to be crack me up. Not to mention very solid animation quality and character detail that was just pleasing on the eyes. A big part of the appeal, for me at least, was how freakin moe Dokuro was.

Well, that’s all gone now. Things seem to happen for the sake of having them happen, which makes it overly predictable, even amidst all the forced randomness. Sure, it had moments where flashes of season 1 glory would shine through, but for the most part, the episode felt like an awkward cut-paste storyboard job that ultimately wasn’t very funny.

I don’t want to say that this episode relied too much on fanservice, because the first season had its own fair share, but without the other stuff to hold up the other ends, it kinda had that feeling. I should also mention that since this was a TV release, there wasn’t much blood – the monkey censoring page is back again, this time with a calming scene of waves softly crashing onto a serene beach. As with the first season, look for the DVD release for the full uncensored skull-bashing, rib-cracking, spine-busting goodness.

I know, I’m shattered too. I feel horrible writing this because the first season was one of my favorite shows, and seeing it fall to this dismal condition is heartbreaking. However, knowing that the show will likely not run too long (the first season was only eight episodes), I’ll still be watching, and if it really does make a turn for the better, I’ll be all over it just like the good ol’ days.

But please don’t let my opinion sway your own. I want nothing more than this show to do well, so if any of you Dokuro veterans want to voice your love for this episode, please do! For those just getting into Dokuro, make sure you don’t miss out on the first season!

In conclusion, I really hope this doesn’t turn into something that forces itself into any Moetan comparisons…

-jaalin

35 Comments

  2. zomg!! the anime i still kept!! all the 01-02,03-04,05-06,07-08 i cut them until worth over 100 mb’s! i can watch the old ones. now they finally released the 2nd season! gambatehhhh !!!!!!! gonna wait for the subs

    sniperz
    Reply

  10. drzero7: you could very well be right, now that you mention it i dont remember it ending all that well – but two years later, all i remember are the great moments. well, the second season started right where the first season ended… on the low end. it’s gonna need to make up some serious ground and find the magic of the first few eps.

    jaalin
    Reply

  11. all I’m going to say is…

    Don’t believe in the hype.

    Jaalin is dead on about this. You have to be a serious hardcore fan to enjoy this. …

    To be quite honest,

    I was bored less than halfway through the anime.

    Kyouya
    Reply

  16. meh…. I’m with the blogger. The first season was special. This sort of spectacular weirdness really can’t be repeated so I rather expect this to crash and burn in mediocrity.

    vexx
    Reply

  19. Sakura isn’t a pedophile. He’s too young to even be considered a pedophile. His device was bad because it effectively made everyone a pedo. In fact, there’s a joke on 4chan about Lucky Star, Manabi Straight and Moetan taking place in the same universe as Dokuro-chan because of Sakura’s device.

    Anonymous
    Reply

  21. the insanity has back!!!!! just yesterday i was remember this show and thinking (it was too short but very funny) even when i dont like much blood y laugh like the madman i am and now i hope do it again with or without the blood…

    btw the op is a new song or the same than the ovas ????

    bye

    Wazaraku
    Reply

  29. Ahah, just marathoned all 8 season 1 episodes, and watched the raw of the first/second episode of the second season. Great anime, and can’t wait for more episodes…not sure why it was given such a bad review here…

    And what’s this with Sakura all over Shizuki again? In episode 8, it seemed like he’d gotten over her and was only concerned with Dokuro. I guess they realized with a second season they’d need a “love-conflict” for Sakura? (otherwise they’d have to come up with a more original conflict . . . *sigh*)

    asdffdsa
    Reply

  30. im a hard core fan of this >.> i just found this out on another site. i cant wait ^^ im sure this one will be alot diffrent… im guessing its going for more of pouncing on sakura’s perverted ness. i unno i think it should be good and if the anime goes to hell it does, fans like me will always like it ^^

    ++ethral++
    Reply

  31. way too much fanservice…. may god save us all from it being as UNFUNNY as the simpsons movie! what happend to the good ol’ voa jokes? the ones like “seto no hanome” (wrong spelling)

    Lost Seeker
    Reply

  34. i agree, dokuro-chan is a great series, but the quality of the episodes are slowly dregrading. i loved episode 1-4, the start is soo random (ahhh, sakura’s brains are goin down the drain!! ^^). episodes 5 and 6 were average, and i thought episode 8 was really bad, it just wasnt as funny, it made me all sad =(. mind tho, season 2 is ok, bath scene rules lol very funny. i reckon they do just need to get back into the bloody gorey killing sakura every second, and a new idea would be handy.

    ~PIPIRU PIRU PIRU PIPIRU PI~

    Blackbird
    Reply

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