DRAMAtical Murder

• Genre: Sci Fi, Action, Cyberpunk, not Yaoi
• Episodes: 12
• Studio: NAZ

Aoba is a super adorable twink with an epic blue mullet that can feel and a suspiciously perceptive, ridiculously cute robot dog with a kick ass Barry White voice. In their world, there’s this weird mmo parallel universe hologram game thingie called Scrap that you can get ambushed by but it’s ok cause they just drop that storyline after a couple of episodes so no worries. One day, Aoba finds out that his whole life is a lie and now the president/overlord/big bad is after him for reasons and he must clear everything up with the help of assorted hot guys who also think he’s adorable. There’s a long lost twin in there somewhere. At some point the storyline screws the pooch… High five!

Dramatical murder is an anime that fully lives up to its title in that it makes little to no sense and has neither murders nor drama! You may have heard of this show and you may know that it’s based on the fairly popular visual novel by Nitro+ (as in Steins;Gate and Fate/Zero) and you may have been told that the game is decent but the anime is bad. Well you heard right. This anime is bad guys, it’s sooo sooo bad!

Admittedly, I played the game first so there’s always a “book was better” element that could be coming into play here but I doubt it. To be fully honest with you guys, I liked the game – a lot. I played it twice and played the follow up re:connect. My little avatar is Clear, so is my desktop. I really wanted to like this show. I mean I knew it was bad, the internet had told me over and over, but I was hoping for a “it’s so bad it’s good” thing or even a “it is bad but I still love it cause it’s my stupid baby…” thing. Nope I didn’t like it. It was a waste of my time, which may be the harshest thing I can say about a show.

I really should have known though. Storyline and world building is not by any means Dramatical Murder’s strength. Even though I enjoyed the game and all the paths but one (that shall not be named), the story is admittedly pretty silly, occasionally slipping into stupid. The fun of the game is in the interactions between the characters and the involvement you feel when choosing your answers, like you’re one of the gang, laughing and have a great time with everyone, enjoying the light hearted smut! True story: I was late for Christmas dinner with my family cause I was finishing up Koujaku’s route and I could not just leave it…Straight talk kids, game’s pretty darn hawt (****except that path that we will all pretend did not exist!***)

But the anime methodically ripped out every good element of the game. Without the personal connection to the characters, they feel pretty cheesy and there’s really no time to develop any of them so their behavior barely makes any sense. The anime stays starchily PG, so not amusing smut, no sexy guilty pleasure scenes, heck not even some light ho-yay romance. They didn’t need to have anything x-rated to create a romantic storyline. The VISTA version of the game is PG13 I believe (definitely not R) and it’s still super enjoyable, in some respects more so. Taking out all the more yaoi elements also leaves a huge gap in the narrative since the source material is basically a porn game. That gap is never filled in any way. No pun intended -.-

You would think that at least the series would capitalize on the stunning visual aspects but so many corners were cut by the production team that it’s basically a circle. The colours are ok but not as rich as they should be. The art has been simplified to the point that they look like badly traced version of the in-game designs (both characters and backgrounds) and the animation is so bad the animators actually put out a public apology.

The storyline seems to be an attempt at giving us a taste of every route in the game so each character gets to take center stage for an episode or two but since zero effort was put into creating an actual narrative and they simply adapted a few scenes here and there from the game (scenes that were never meant to be linear or part of the same story to begin with…) it is impossible to follow. Worse even, it’s boring! If you’re interested in this title at all (and you’re of age…) skip the show and play the game. Just don’t be late for family events. Your mom will not be amused when you explain you had a porn game to finish. But if she is, ask her if she wants to adopt me.

Favorite character: Actually Noiz – I know – I was surprised too.

What this anime taught me: Buy me a drink some time, I’ll tell you all about it.

There are no sorrows wine cannot allay,
There are no sins wine cannot wash away,
There are no riddles wine knows not to read,
There are no debts wine is too poor to pay.

Suggested drink: Jellyfish Shot

• Every time Noiz is indifferent – sympathize and take a shot
• Every time Clear makes no sense – take a shot
• Every time Kojaku is protective of Aoba – take a shot
• Every time we see granny – take ashot
• Every time we see a rabbit – take a shot
• Every time they eat – take a snack
• Every time Ren says Aoba – take a shot
• Every time we see Sei – take a shot
• Every time Clear makes sense – be amazed
• Every time you think just a bit lower – consider buying the game