“Club ‘em to Death” Angel Dokuro-chan - Episodes 1 + 2
So after all my bitching yesterday about title translations, here comes a Japanese title that no one dears to translate. So it’s all up to me then, huh? Well, the Japanese is “Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan.” Bokusatsu is to club to death, Tenshi means angel, and Dokuro-chan is… well… Dokuro-chan! So I think that “Club ‘em to Death” Angel Dokuro-chan works best considering the attitude of the series. It’s extremely violent, but in the cutest way possible! (^_^)
Episode 1:
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Episode 2:
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There are a lot of what I consider to be “guilty pleasures” in anime, and by that I mean series crammed with lots of sex and violence. However, it’s very rare to see them done as comedies. The only one I can think of at the moment would be Ebichu. However, this series is very, very, VERY different from Ebichu, and in a very, very, VERY good way!
What Dokuro-chan is making fun of is not sex or violence, but rather Lolicon (the Lolita complex) anime fandom. Now I’m into Lolicon, and personally believe that’s an unfair label because it implies being a pedophile. I’m not a pedophile, I just love cute things. So the fact that they take these cute things and do horribly wrong things to them just fricking hilarious. One minute a guy accidentally walks in on a shy girl changing, and the next minute he’s decapitated with blood spewing all over the place. They also have these cute characters constantly change into MTV-like crude cartoons. Kinda like what they did with the Puchu in Excel Saga.
But besides for the shock value, a lot of the comedy is witty when it comes to fandom. It’s the kind of show that would take an anime cliché like having an angel in class, and then having only one character question how the other characters can accept such a ridiculous thing. It also pokes fun at the Magical Girl genre by having Dokuro swing around her death-club and chant “pu piru piru pi” to fix things. And be on the look out for many references to other anime series. I found some for Urusei Yatsura (Lum), Doraemon, and of course, Dragonball Z (see last screen cap in ep. 1).
But the best thing of this series is that it’s fun. You can tell that the writers, animators, and voice actors were having a blast making this thing, and as a result you as the viewer will have fun watching it. Even if it is making fun of one of my favorite kinds of anime, I’m still looking forward to when the next episodes come out in May!
