So yeah, I was really late again. But anyway, we've got another review to do. For this anime, we're following the exploits of a young boy with a secret. While by day he is a shy timid boy who has to decide who he likes more between a pair of twins at his school, by night he takes on an an alternate personality that steals cursed artifacts so that they can be properly sealed for the greater good. While it definitely has some more thrilling high-flying adventure type elements (after all, this other personality has the ability to fly), the focus is primarily on the main character and his attempts to navigate through a confusing labyrinth of romance, teenage hormones, and near-intimate contact with a member of his own sex, to figure out what girl he likes. So get out your tarot cards and magic feathers, we're taking a look at D.N. Angel.
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Dark, Daisuke Niwa's alter ego/roommate?
Is that what you would call someone who shares your body? |
Based on a manga of the same name by Yukiru Sugisaki, that started it's run in 1997, D.N. Angel was a relatively average production that ran on TV Tokyo for 26 episodes during the spring and summer of 2003. It was produced by the studios Dentsu and Xebec, and is licensed in the United States by ADV films. While it may have a surprise or two as the story progresses, I'd hardly consider it above average in most capacities. You will certainly get a good laugh or two, and a few moments that are so sugary-sweet you might get a cavity, but issues with the amount of information available to the viewer as well as certain contradictions and aesthetic choices make this one lose slightly in terms of suspension of disbelief.
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Just when you thought the day couldn't get any worse,
the floor falls out from under you, and then you learn
you're the living vessel for a phantom thief. |
The beginning of our story is rather unusual. After a brief and confusing flash forward to the end of the series in which a couple of strange angel-type characters are battling it out and it looks like one of them gets sealed in a mirror, we cut to the present(I guess it was supposed to be artsy?). Here, we find a strange scene in which a mysterious cult is having a weird ceremony, and then we learn that this cult is actually composed of our protagonist's family (his mom, his grandpa, and their cute little family pet), and that it's some sort of coming of age ceremony. Our newly turned 14-year-old protagonist Daisuke Niwa then proceeds to enjoy his birthday, and lives through a day at school after having his interest getting denied indirectly by the girl he has a crush on. (I know. Riveting isn't it?) When he gets home, we learn that not only is his house a death trap (the traps get silly later, like someone gets attacked by a cream pie at one point) which he has to circumvent in order to pass one of his strange grandfather's tests, but he has also just become the living vessel for Dark, a spirit/angel thing who earns the family's living as phantom thieves, for the greater good mind you. Further, he transforms into Dark when he is "emotionally" aroused by looking at a picture of the girl he has a crush on. Naturally, his folks are perfectly okay with this. Why wouldn't they want their child/grandchild to risk life and limb providing a medium for some powerful dark being that routinely steals cursed paintings? In fact, they actually encourage it as a rite of passage type thing. With such a big secret to carry around, one would think the focus would be on finding a balance between Dark's missions and real life, but actually, the focus is more on how Daisuke comes into his own and finds his true love while dealing with having an extra personality swimming around in his head. There are only really about 7 or 8 true thefts in this series and if anything, the guy could have done just as well working for the government to seal these evil artworks as they're clearly public safety hazards, but I digress.
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Yes the city is nice, but if we went inside that house there,
would we find a family or support planks for the front wall? |
The world the characters live in was a frustrating one to pin down. The city they live in is apparently called New Metropolis, however, where this city actually is would be anybody's guess. At first I thought it might be somewhere in Mediterranean Europe but then someone pretended to be an American who couldn't speak Japanese, suggesting some really strange place somewhere in Japan? And to complicate matters further, apparently something happened in this unnamed country called a Cultural Revolution (like in China? That's the only one I know of.) that caused some books to be rewritten. And THEN I saw a sign that said "ROMAN" on it. So yeah. I have no idea where this is supposed to be. I guess we can just call it an alternate universe in which a lot of things we know did happen but this is basically "Random Japanese Town Pretending to be a European Town #1." America appears to exist, but in all honesty, no one really comes or goes in such away that we see anything beyond New Metropolis's borders, unless you count the tropical island in episodes 17-18, but that could be anywhere. That doesn't mean the visuals aren't beautiful. There's definitely plenty of eye-candy if you like looking at giant windmills and cliff-sides and there's some nice imagery having to do with snow later that is really nice. Even so, I had a nasty suspicion the entire time I was watching the show that should one of the characters venture beyond the town's horizon, they'd just find an empty expanse of nothingness. Magic seems to exist, but it's not really clear how common it is or how non-magic-users generally think of it. The same could be said for the mechanics behind the government and the school. They seem to only exist for the purpose of providing the plot, or an antagonist for Dark to get the best of, or for Daisuke to have a little angst episode over. I guess in short, the world feels like a Hollywood Western town. It feels like it only exists in the capacity for which the story needs it, and doesn't feel like there's anything beyond that to expand on.
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Hiwatari: My purpose in life is to make Daisuke
uncomfortable and the shonen ai fans squeal. |
A lot of the characters aren't all that original. We have Daisuke the shy yet perky young male protagonist who hides a darker alternate personality (which really isn't taken advantage of nearly enough in my opinion.) There's Dark, who is supposed to want Daisuke's body for himself so he can do what he wants but instead comes across as a non-corporeal older brother who only indulges in his own interests, such as going after the girls he likes, once in a while. Then there's Satoshi Hiwatari's
blue oni personality to counter Daisuke's red oni. He's really more a friend with no personality who has evil antagonist Krad for his dark side, and spends all his time appeasing the shonen ai crowd (that's boy love for those who don't know) by making Daisuke get close to another boy, while saving his butt and trying to keep Krad from surfacing and killing everybody.
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On the left, Mio Hio, the most obnoxious exchange student ever.
Enough to make Daisuke flee in terror.
On the right, Riku, Daisuke's eventual significant other,
just down to earth enough to be obvious. |
Then there are the twins Risa and Riku. Risa, the sweet and shallow one who's obsessed with horoscopes and is apparently spot on with Tarot cards, is initially the object of Daisuke's crush, but eventually he starts falling for the predictably sports loving and full of heart twin Riku. The relationships are an important thing that drives the story as Dark maintains a weird kind of crush on Risa, but ends up letting her go, but she eventually doesn't feel that bitter about it, (god this sounds like a soap opera ><;) while Riku and Daisuke end the series together. There's also this other girl called Mio Hio who sort of reminds me of a creepier, short-haired version of
Vanille from Final Fantasy XIII, who is at first obsessed with Daisuke until you learn that Satoshi's adopted father created her out of a doll to try to get rid of Daisuke because he houses Dark (it's complicated). Then she starts trying to fight her fate, which a lot of dolls seem to do in anime, by trying to save Daisuke from herself instead.
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Aww... so cute!
Even though he did eat all the strawberries,
could you really stay mad at him? |
The rest of the characters are developed hardly at all aside from the grandfather, the mom, and With, the ridiculously cute white cousin of
Ryo-ohki the cabbit from Tenchi Muyo, who is also Dark's familiar and allows him to fly by turning into big black wings. Apparently the grandfather was also possessed by Dark as a boy and was the previous vessel due to his daughter being the one to carry on the Niwa line. With gets a filler episode devoted to him where we learn that he's apparently some kind of demon thing, and that he takes a shine to rabbits and strawberries (he's so adorably sweet he makes sugar look bitter). Daisuke's mom does get a little development as it comes out that she was actually the half of Daisuke's parents that would have inherited Dark had she been a boy and had apparently really been disappointed to be denied it. Thankfully that comes across no where near as disturbing as it could have been (considering we learn this because she found her old school girl uniform, and tried it on to find it still fits) but still, it would have been interesting to see that angle used a little more. Daisuke's the only character who really changes all that much, and even that is pretty predictable as he learns to have a bit more faith in himself and not be so shy. Aside from Krad, there really aren't that many actual antagonists to speak of, unless you count the guy who heads the school newspaper because he's a perv, and Krad really doesn't show up that much. You could make an argument that Dark is a bit of an antagonist, but it really doesn't hold much water considering that he and Daisuke generally get along pretty well, while Krad is just frigging crazy. There's also the police, but really, they're just there to be a minor incompetent annoyance.
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If accidentally getting knocked over by a school girl
makes you faint, you need a higher constitution score! |
The plot is pretty straightforward, if poorly explained. Daisuke and Dark continue to steal cursed artwork to seal their evil for the greater good, while Hiwatari's evil stepfather attempts to thwart them through various ways for reasons that aren't really clear, as it seems pretty obvious Dark's doing a good thing by getting rid of that dangerous stuff. It's spelled out at the beginning that the story is gonna culminate in a showdown with Krad at some point, it's just the outcome that's not quite so apparent. The producers definitely came to this anime with a decent sense of humor, as there are jokes that will get you laughing. Like in episode 8, there's a one liner in the Japanese dub about how Daisuke doesn't have time to be a swindler because he's got phantom thief duties (the irony in that line cracks me up anyway) and in episode 11, where Dark is endeavoring to steal an artifact from an aquatic archeological site, someone points out all the money being wasted on subs and trap nets to try and stop him. There are also plenty of points that, even if they aren't particularly original, are fun to watch. Like whenever Dark is flying around at night, it is a pretty nice visual. But at the same time the inconsistencies make things kinda silly. For instance, Daisuke at first, puts on this act of being so physically weak that Riku knocked him over in the hallway at school and he fainted. Most toddlers wouldn't faint from that. Yet later, he's so tough he can handle bike rides across town and intense pain because when Dark uses his powers he takes the energy out of Daisuke's hide. There's also a part of the main plot that comes out in one of the episodes just before the end game about Hiwatari's lineage that comes almost out of no where which suddenly renders him one of the fastest painters the world has ever seen in order to pull Daisuke out of a cursed painting. It's weird. Then there's another point where the city's electronics stop work because of magical interference from the Endgame plot device, but somehow, the chief of police managed to talk to his son by his cell phone through a payphone. I know phone connections aren't necessarily affected by power-outages, but isn't a cellphone an electronic device? Get you're information correct guys. There are plenty of other offenses but there are too many to name here.
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Dark. So much of a charmer, even inanimate objects are swept off their feet.
Don't believe me? That lady is a manifestation of one of the objects he steals. |
Speaking of cursed artifacts, they themselves seem to follow a pattern. Almost all of these artifacts that Dark has to steal and seal seem to be possessed by the soul of a pretty girl (with the exception of the statue of Adonis in one of the earlier episodes, in which it was just possessed by the love god's spirit), who's waiting for someone, and sealing the artifact usually involves giving her peace in some form so she won't go stealing people's souls. As common as these artifacts seem to be, one would think the public safety devision would have better measures in place than "allow Dark to steal it and give up on finding it again." One of these so-called thefts really shouldn't even have merited an announcement in advance (which he does for most thefts, not unlike the Kaito Kid from
Detective Conan) from Dark in the first place because the object was in this abandoned house that nobody cared about anyway and yet he goes in preps the artifact, then sends out the notice so he can steal it with everyone watching. Even Dark questions Daisuke's logic on that one and he doesn't give a very good answer. Oh well, I don't write'em, I just comment on'em.
In terms of the music, it's okay, although there are a couple of weird quirks. Like the producers felt the need to have an image song just about every time anything happened. There was one time, Daisuke and Dark were even trapped in a freezer with Satoshi and Krad and failed to fight them, and they had an image song for that. I will point out that the main theme song "Byakuya-True Light" by Shunichi Miyamoto is truly incredible and one of the pieces that really shines in this anime, as it's heavenly choir, organ chords and piano shift into the hard core strains of an electric guitar, backed up by synth strings (the English version is even sung by Vic Mignogna, who also does Dark's voice in the English dub, a bonus for dub watchers!), however it's awesome melody backed up by the visuals in the intro are misleading as they suggest that the story is an action adventure when actually it's more of a romantic comedy with an action-related ending. Overall, I don't think it's a bad anime, but information and plot issues keep it from going above average. Those of you who like fantasy elements and think more about relationships than you do about the plot will have fun and if you just want some anime eye candy, it will do. But it could have done better. And that's the tiger's two cents.
Images taken from D.N. Angel.
