Reviews for Hikari to Mizu no Daphne (6.27)
gambit
Ikehata Takashi
Nakayama Yumi
The one anime where the only thing worth highlighting is the lack of clothes they wear. I agree that a 4 is not a rating which justifies this series, but honestly, saying it deserves...
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- Approval: 86.1% (7 votes)
05.08.2006 18:53 - direct link
(rs4127)
The one anime where the only thing worth highlighting is the lack of clothes they wear.
I agree that a 4 is not a rating which justifies this series, but honestly, saying it deserves a 5 would also be too much. A 4.5 is the highest which this series could earn - but not with the aspects I can point out with grades.
Daphne in the Brilliant Blue is not a good series. It tries hard, but it never gets even past the label ‘decent’. It has lots of plot gaps, unexplained issues and even worse - really flat characters.
But what's worst is that they never explain why the characters of Nereid (and only those) are all dressed in such minimal clothing that they could even wear nothing and you wouldn't notice. The worst part of the series is that this is also the one highlight that's worth highlighting.
Animation: We got boobs, we got ass, why would we need anything else?
Unfortunately for the series, I did realize that a show should have more than just tits and ass in order to have good animation. One may disagree with me about how the character design is really good, but I disagree. I thought the characters looked, well, pretty awful.
One look at the show when they're in combat and you already wonder why the characters are dressed in even less than the regular girl-being-assaulted-by-a-tentaclemonster clothing-style. I mean, even the pantsu is replaced by a nothing-conceiling string which they only wear when they are doing their jobs. Which often means package delivery. I am completely clueless why a package delivery should involve minimal clothing.
Sound: I would love to see the protagonist being shot to death and then get resurrected to do it again.
Mizuki Maia, the protagonist, is pretty much the most annoying main character you can wish yourself. A shy crybaby, who cannot make any decisions and whenever she makes any decisions, they are always so damn ethic, that you would wish that someone would actually sew her mouth shut. She has an annoying voice which does suit her, but that doesn't make the anime any more enjoyable. I would prefer her getting a voice which wouldn't fit her, but then again, the series won't be getting better by it.
Gloria had a good voice to me, not because she sounds beautiful, but because she has a great voice for the character she has.
The series has one single OP and ED and none of them are really worth any prizes either. There is also some BGM in the series, but usually that only plays when there are silly scenes. The rest of the BGM is just cheesy and can be heard when semi-serious issues are taking place. But even then the BGM doesn't add to the series.
Story: It seems the plot writer went on a 12 weeks vacation while the series was already running.
Honestly, the plot was the worst part of the series. While I can understand and accept some gaps in a story, this was really teasing me. The first 12 episodes were mostly just fillers which were used to get used to the characters. Nothing against getting the characters known, but the episodes were mostly silly, stupid and not really worth watching. Seeing how the episodes were 230 MB each and I still had so many left, I dashed through the rest and found out there actually was a story building up! Episode 12 even left me wondering since there was a slight hint about Maia actually remembering something. I dared to think that there would finally be some progress in this series and that they would finally get to the point of what this series has for value.
The story kind of starts off around episode 13 and then slowly, very slowly, really slowly, builds towards the end. I don't consider it a real spoiler when I say that Maia finally gets the guts to try and remember her past, since she has lost her memory after all. But when they only start that in episode 13 and drag that through until the friggin last episode, you can probably imagine that there is not much to explain when you only get to know all the facts in the last episode. What are the episodes inbetween about then, you ask? Well, that's about getting her memory back. And a bit more of that. And something else, but that ends up in getting her memory back too. And it takes them 13 episodes just to get us through this hideous pack of fillers.
And when we finally get there, I felt so incredibly ripped off that I felt bad for the people who actually had to make this show.
But you would probably expect to see something more than the memory thing and you are right. There is also some subplot where they encounter a couple of other silly characters who keep returning every time. If you already hated the main cast, trust me, these are worse.
Characters: A silly crew.
Next to the main character, the most silly and annoying character was the Branch Manager. Not only is he a visual representation of Adolf Hitler in Futakoi-style, he's also the most silly, stupid and annoying fool in the entire series. Whenever he comes onscreen, I wanted to zap. Because honestly, whenever he says something, does something or even appears onscreen, things become even more stupid than they already were.
The rest of the cast is pretty much determined by the moment they were introduced. We have a strong silent type, we have a geeky glasses-girl type, a leadertype and we have a stupid gunslinger. More info? I really wouldn't know, since that is about everything we get to know about them. Perhaps there is a little tidbit about their eating habits, or the filler about one's lovelife, but other than those they have as much depth as when they never got any screentime and were only given a description.
Next to that there is also a best-friend type, who is mainly used as a comedy-aspect, which usually fails as well.
Value: Absolutely none.
While you could try to argue that it is fun to see those ecchi costumes, after you get halfway through the series, they never go on such projects anymore that you see them in ultra-revealing outfits, but only their regular ones.
But other than that, I cannot possibly think of anything why you would want to see this another time. Or even the first time.
Enjoyment
I tried hard, I really did, but every new episode got worse than the previous one. Then when I thought there actually came a story, I applaud, because it would probably pull the level of the series up. Unfortunately, it didn't. There now was a story, but it still kept being silly and it didn't help at all to make this more enjoyable.
I agree that a 4 is not a rating which justifies this series, but honestly, saying it deserves a 5 would also be too much. A 4.5 is the highest which this series could earn - but not with the aspects I can point out with grades.
Daphne in the Brilliant Blue is not a good series. It tries hard, but it never gets even past the label ‘decent’. It has lots of plot gaps, unexplained issues and even worse - really flat characters.
But what's worst is that they never explain why the characters of Nereid (and only those) are all dressed in such minimal clothing that they could even wear nothing and you wouldn't notice. The worst part of the series is that this is also the one highlight that's worth highlighting.
Animation: We got boobs, we got ass, why would we need anything else?
Unfortunately for the series, I did realize that a show should have more than just tits and ass in order to have good animation. One may disagree with me about how the character design is really good, but I disagree. I thought the characters looked, well, pretty awful.
One look at the show when they're in combat and you already wonder why the characters are dressed in even less than the regular girl-being-assaulted-by-a-tentaclemonster clothing-style. I mean, even the pantsu is replaced by a nothing-conceiling string which they only wear when they are doing their jobs. Which often means package delivery. I am completely clueless why a package delivery should involve minimal clothing.
Sound: I would love to see the protagonist being shot to death and then get resurrected to do it again.
Mizuki Maia, the protagonist, is pretty much the most annoying main character you can wish yourself. A shy crybaby, who cannot make any decisions and whenever she makes any decisions, they are always so damn ethic, that you would wish that someone would actually sew her mouth shut. She has an annoying voice which does suit her, but that doesn't make the anime any more enjoyable. I would prefer her getting a voice which wouldn't fit her, but then again, the series won't be getting better by it.
Gloria had a good voice to me, not because she sounds beautiful, but because she has a great voice for the character she has.
The series has one single OP and ED and none of them are really worth any prizes either. There is also some BGM in the series, but usually that only plays when there are silly scenes. The rest of the BGM is just cheesy and can be heard when semi-serious issues are taking place. But even then the BGM doesn't add to the series.
Story: It seems the plot writer went on a 12 weeks vacation while the series was already running.
Honestly, the plot was the worst part of the series. While I can understand and accept some gaps in a story, this was really teasing me. The first 12 episodes were mostly just fillers which were used to get used to the characters. Nothing against getting the characters known, but the episodes were mostly silly, stupid and not really worth watching. Seeing how the episodes were 230 MB each and I still had so many left, I dashed through the rest and found out there actually was a story building up! Episode 12 even left me wondering since there was a slight hint about Maia actually remembering something. I dared to think that there would finally be some progress in this series and that they would finally get to the point of what this series has for value.
The story kind of starts off around episode 13 and then slowly, very slowly, really slowly, builds towards the end. I don't consider it a real spoiler when I say that Maia finally gets the guts to try and remember her past, since she has lost her memory after all. But when they only start that in episode 13 and drag that through until the friggin last episode, you can probably imagine that there is not much to explain when you only get to know all the facts in the last episode. What are the episodes inbetween about then, you ask? Well, that's about getting her memory back. And a bit more of that. And something else, but that ends up in getting her memory back too. And it takes them 13 episodes just to get us through this hideous pack of fillers.
And when we finally get there, I felt so incredibly ripped off that I felt bad for the people who actually had to make this show.
But you would probably expect to see something more than the memory thing and you are right. There is also some subplot where they encounter a couple of other silly characters who keep returning every time. If you already hated the main cast, trust me, these are worse.
Characters: A silly crew.
Next to the main character, the most silly and annoying character was the Branch Manager. Not only is he a visual representation of Adolf Hitler in Futakoi-style, he's also the most silly, stupid and annoying fool in the entire series. Whenever he comes onscreen, I wanted to zap. Because honestly, whenever he says something, does something or even appears onscreen, things become even more stupid than they already were.
The rest of the cast is pretty much determined by the moment they were introduced. We have a strong silent type, we have a geeky glasses-girl type, a leadertype and we have a stupid gunslinger. More info? I really wouldn't know, since that is about everything we get to know about them. Perhaps there is a little tidbit about their eating habits, or the filler about one's lovelife, but other than those they have as much depth as when they never got any screentime and were only given a description.
Next to that there is also a best-friend type, who is mainly used as a comedy-aspect, which usually fails as well.
Value: Absolutely none.
While you could try to argue that it is fun to see those ecchi costumes, after you get halfway through the series, they never go on such projects anymore that you see them in ultra-revealing outfits, but only their regular ones.
But other than that, I cannot possibly think of anything why you would want to see this another time. Or even the first time.
Enjoyment
I tried hard, I really did, but every new episode got worse than the previous one. Then when I thought there actually came a story, I applaud, because it would probably pull the level of the series up. Unfortunately, it didn't. There now was a story, but it still kept being silly and it didn't help at all to make this more enjoyable.
