Bludgeoning Angel Dokura-chan Review

To read this review in its entirety please visit otakureview.net

            Here’s what you need to know about this series before beginning it: Sakura is a normal boy except for he has an angel named Dokuro living with him. Sometime in the future Sakura is going to accidently discover the secret to immortality which will freeze a woman’s growth process at the age of 12. Fearing an outbreak of pedophiles, God sends Dokuro to kill Sakura and keep him from inventing it. Dokuro decides that killing Sakura isn’t nessacary though and decides to just guide him on the path which won’t let him make the big discovery. Though that doesn’t always work as Dokuro, armed with her incredibly intimidating Excaliblog spiked metal bat, seems to find at least three reasons per episode to kill Sakura and bring him back to life.

            Now that you’ve been caught up, the audience will follow Sakura and Dokuro through their daily lives at school, at home and on vacation.       

Good and the Bad

            Going into the first episode of this series, it becomes clear almost right away that this series assumes a lot of its audience. There are almost zero introductions to story, plot or characters in the first episode. Naturally this leaves anyone who wasn’t already familiar with the story completely in the dark as who everyone is and why this cute angel is killing a poor boy over and over (I believe I counted around four deaths in the first episode alone).

            Dokura-chan starts strong and there is no getting around that. For the first half of the series or so, the series remains fresh and funny. The blood flies every which way, brains and guts will fly, Dokuro will look cute every single time she does her big magical sequence to bring Sakura back to life and all is well. After this though, the jokes start to get old. No story beyond the vague outline that is given out in episode two is ever really revealed and the ending just barely wraps up most of the loose ends.

            The format in which the story is told though keeps things moving along. Having each episode only lasting thirteen minutes makes the pacing on this release incredibly fast. Every episode feels like it goes by in an instant and before long you find yourself as the end barely realizing that three hours have passed.

            Besides the endless fountains of blood and guts that fly every direction, the series does have some very nicely designed characters. Dokuro, Sabato and Shizuki all are all very well drawn and the sight of the first two wielding very large and intimidating weapons isn’t a sight joke that will be lost on anyone at first.

Music

            Just like the series itself, the opening theme to this series is hilariously disturbing at first. There are a lot of lyrics sung with the adorable voice that just sound wrong on way too many levels but will get a laugh.

Dub vs. Sub

            Saeko Chiba does a great job of keeping Dokuro cute throughout the entire series. More than a few people might still find Dokuro a little hard to take at times but the character keeps a bit of freshness and charm longer thanks to a strong performance. Playing well off her in the opposite lead is Reiko Takagi as Sakura. In these roles, the two actors play well off each other and keep the interplay strong throughout the series even when the jokes are starting to get stale.

Overall

            It’s pretty hard to find a middle ground for this series. If you’re into toilet jokes, sex humor and rivers of blood flying everywhere as part of your comedy than you’re going to find gold here. If you don’t like those things than you’re going to find absolutely nothing here to keep you entertained. The concept for this series was actually one that I was excited about but with barely a thread to keep this series together, there’s not much here that will warrant many repeat viewings. Recommend you rent this one.