Disgaea: Volume 1

Introduction

MVM's latest acquisition comes to UK shores, and I have to admit that I'm pretty unimpressed. It looks cheap, tacky, and aimed at the Pokemon generation, with a Saturday morning ethic that usually has me sneering derisively. Then again, I'm so far out of the target demographic that I can't even find a suitable metaphor. The irony is that this show isn't aimed at anime fans, it's aimed at a far more populous sector of the buying public, console game fans, and as a result, it will probably sell many times more than the critically acclaimed titles that I'm apt to rave about. I've never owned a console, and my PC games playing days are so far behind me, that none of my favourite games are actually compatible with Windows Vista. I had never heard of Disgaea before the review disc fell into my in-tray. Disgaea is apparently a popular game series for the Playstation 2, and most recently the Playstation 3 as well as various handhelds. I typed Disgaea into Google and got close to 2 million links, which indicates how wide the fanbase is. They are tactical role-playing games, which is all I can say about them, never having played one. From the description they look vaguely Final Fantasy-esque, although I may be completely wrong. The Disgaea anime series is a 12-episode spin-off that apparently is based on the first game, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. Diving in with lead weights tied around my ankles, I take a look at the first volume.


A trainee angel named Flonne is ordered to the Netherworld to assassinate King Krichevskoy, overlord of the demon kingdom. Only she has to spend two years looking for him, after she finds his castle in flames. She tracks him down to a crypt, a coffin marked with his seal, but her attempts to destroy it only awaken the occupant. It's not even Krichevskoy, who's been dead all this time having choked to death on a bun. It's his son, Laharl, who having learned of his father's death, now wants to take his rightful place as Overlord. So he sets forth, with loyal vassal Etna in tow, and the annoyance Flonne who insists on teaching him the value of love. It's just that everyone else in the demon kingdom wants to be Overlord too. Dante's Inferno this ain't.

The first four episodes of this twelve episode series are present on this disc from MVM.


1. The Sleeping Prince in the Garbage Dump
Laharl realises that all isn't well in the Netherworld when a trainee angel named Flonne trying to kill him wakes him up, that and the poison coursing through his system, and the two demons posted as guards over his repose. A crashing spaceship interrupts the subsequent battle. Captain Gordon of Earth has arrived to battle demons, and has brought with him his trusty busty sidekick Jennifer, and robot Thursday. Flonne notes that busty women appear to be Laharl's Achilles heel, sending him reeling, although her own lack of assets manages to bring him out of it. In all the mayhem, Flonne loses her pendant, without which she cannot survive for long in the Netherworld.

2. Scratch 1 Mid-Boss, Add 1 Vassal
Flonne is trying to convince Laharl to help her find her pendant, but it's fallen into the hands of Captain Gordon, who is visited by the Archangel Vulcanus who wishes to retrieve it. Laharl meanwhile has decided to become the overlord of the Netherworld, and has already obtained his first recruit, loyal vassal Etna. And Etna brings a group of bizarre minions called Prinnies, waiting on Laharl hand and foot. Laharl also meets his first rival to the throne, an egotistical demon named Vyers, the Dark Adonis. He doesn't take it too kindly when Laharl renames him Mid-Boss to save time.


3. Welcome to the Netherworld Hall of Treasures
The trek continues, but weariness threatens to overwhelm the travellers. They need an inn, a place of repose, hard to find in the middle of the desert. Fortunately there is the Netherworld Hall of Treasures, a museum of curios run by the Prinnies, and there's a convenient bed for them to sleep in. Only when they wake up, the angelic and sweet Flonne has exchanged personalities, and attire, with the demonic dominatrix Etna.

4. A Solomon-style Judgement in the Dinero Castle?!
The Prinnies are on strike. There's no more food, or being waited on hand and foot for the demanding Laharl, and Flonne can't cook. They will have to find a way to pay the little bat-winged penguins. Then something about a wild boar named Zinisky, his piglet of a son feeling neglected. A Demon Tome conferring Overlord status… blah blah blah. I'm really sorry, I fell asleep at this point, woke up, skipped back, tried watching it in English, fell asleep again…

Picture

The 1.78: 1 anamorphic transfer is pretty much the norm for anime, it's clear and sharp, with the slightest tinge of an NTSC-PAL conversion, but with no major issues to speak of. The animation is unimpressive, a combination of 2D traditional anime, and 3D CGI, with no effort to really blend the two. The CGI looks like a ten-year-old console game, while the 2D animation is rough and ready, with simple character designs and not all that dynamic and vibrant. If only they had put as much effort into the rest of the anime as they did in getting Jennifer's booby bounce perfected…

Sound

You have the choice of DD 2.0 English and Japanese, along with optional translated English subtitles or signs. The dialogue is clear, while the sound does what it needs to convey the story. I didn't think too much of the incidental music, sounding like one of those old MIDI files, while the opening theme is pretty forgettable. The closing theme has a nice hook to it though. As for the English dub… Well, at least in this case, an anime gets a dub that it deserves.

Extras

A surprisingly fair selection of extras accompanies this series.

The English trailer is 5 minutes long, boasting better animation, and looking infinitely better than the final anime. If only…

You get the usual textless credit sequences, and a 30 second Japanese promo.

Most substantial is a collection of Special Talks, 18 minutes in total, and split into three sections. Director Sohei Nikawa and Japanese voice of Laharl, Kaori Mizuhashi talk about going from the game to the anime, the world of Disgaea, and more.

Trailers for Solty Rei and Desert Punk conclude the extra features.

Conclusion

Disgaea almost had me fooled. I put aside my dislike of the dismal visuals, the awful music, and the stock characterisations, and tried to look at the positives. After all, Slayers is an RPG comedy series with less than brilliant animation, and a reliance on stereotyped characters, that manages to subvert the genre with a wicked sense of humour and a breakneck pace. For a moment there, Disgaea looked as if it would follow the same route of parody and knowing winks. It's got all the crappy clichés, crappy characters, and juvenile comic sensibility, wrapped up in a Saturday morning adventure series ethic, which all promises to be one big almighty in-joke. Except that it isn't. With Disgaea, what you see is what you get, and with all the flaws that I have mentioned, there is no subtext, no wink to the audience. It's all a bit crap really. Or rather, for the sake of being fair and balanced, it didn't appeal to this jaded viewer lacking interest in console games and tie-in merchandising, and it may find a more appreciative audience in another demographic time zone (I still reckon it's crap).


The quality of the animation is a factor in all this. It's a show that looks 15 years older than it actually is, with CGI that wouldn't be out of place in a game cut scene from that era. The 2D animation is overlaid on the top of this at times, with no effort made to blend the two. It's also remarkably poor quality 2D animation, with overly simple character designs, with a surprising lack of detail and fluidity. It could just be a flick scene at times, and in no way does it match up to the promise of the 5-minute English trailer. By far the bigger issue though is the fact that it's an adaptation of the first Disgaea game. It's a problem constantly encountered in Hollywood adaptations of videogame properties, and it crops up here as well. By being faithful to the game, you're essentially re-rendering the game but removing all the interactivity. The characters move around a bit, stuff happens, then they move to the next place, and more stuff happens… I'm pushing buttons on my remote control in the vain hope that I can control the characters. It's redeemed slightly by that juvenile sense of humour, but you can't get away from its origins, and even though it may have made me chuckle on one or two occasions, it's no Monkey Island. Monkey Island? PC adventure game in the… DOS… You remember DOS? Oh forget it.


The characters are funny, and there's certainly an energy to them that does appeal, but the story is worthless and forgettable, and worse, tiring. It's a shame as there was a good deal of promise in its idea of an angel encountering a demon and adventuring together in the demon realm. You can see some of that in the friction between Laharl and Flonne, as she keeps trying to find the best in him, a smidgen of kindness and even love, while he steadfastly tries to hold onto his evil nature. But the show goes for the cheap quick gags instead of the character comedy, which quickly gets repetitive. On the bright side, this is a short series, just twelve episodes and two more volumes. The downer is that there are two more volumes. Fans of anime would be best advised to try before buying, but I'm sure fans of the Disgaea games will be interested in this spin-off title. The depressing thing is that there are probably more of them out there to buy this disc.