Makai Senki Disgaea

An angel arrives in Hell! A demon lord is awakened! There are penguins everywhere! What’s going on here?

Angel assassin-in-training Flonne is on a quest to destroy the demon Overlord. Instead of accomplishing her mission, the ditzy Flonne manages to wake Laharl, the demon lord and heir to the throne, from his two year slumber. Now the pair, along with Laharl’s not-so-faithful vassal Etna and her army of explosive souls in penguin costumes, must restore order to the crumbling Netherworld.

Based on the events of the game Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, Makai Senki Disgaea follows Laharl’s journey to squash the demon rebellion, reclaim the throne, and destroy anyone who stands in his path. Or, you know, let them join him on his travels if they really want. Just remember: Laharl is a demon lord. There’s no way he’ll ever show kindness, compassion, or love... right?

Etna Main

Hanba, Tomoe Japanese

Laharl Main

Mizuhashi, Kaori Japanese

Flonne Main

Sasamoto, Yuuko Japanese

Prinny Supporting

Majima, Junji Japanese

Vyers Supporting

Suzuki, Chihiro Japanese

Jennifer Supporting

Saitou, Chiwa Japanese

King Krichevskoy Supporting

Suzuki, Chihiro Japanese

Sasaki, Rika Producer

Isako, Kiyotaka Director

Watanabe, Jun Sound Director

Chikahashi, Nobutaka Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Jul 13, 2007

altras

Recommended

Ohayoo! This is my first anime and my english is bad , so excuse me for my \'lame\' writing...
I\'ll review this anime with the 6 elements available.

First comes the story: As we all know the set is from the PS2 game. The plotline its easy to understand and very enjoyable to watch closely, but it\'s nothing special afterall.

Art: Ok, here comes the great dilemma - the 3d is great integrated in the TV series, the character art is great, the landscape is very good, but i think something is missing. Maybe if there where more details i guess

The sound is average. Its pleasurable, i ... can\'t say anything else. Laharl (about him later) is casted by Kaori Mizuhashi - woman, how do you like that :D (don\'t get me wrong- she\'s a proffesional in voice-acting :))

The main stage Characters in the anime are Laharl, Etna and Flonne. This is the best element in the anime.
One of my favorite characters is Laharl - the brutal evil male demon who\'s obsessed, like a true demonish character, for power,money and ultimate control. A deep development in his emotional level through the anime. A GREAT \'against the grain\' character - one of those evil ones who are always on Backstage , but in Disgaea he\'s the primary evil dude who\'s pulling the anime score up. Just superb! One of the coolest personages i\'ve ever seen :D
Etna is one of those cute and helpless girls, on the first look, but is much like Laharl - she\'s his servant,but there\'s not enough \'screen light\' on her like Laharl. The development of this character is not deep enough,though... But afterall she\'s sadistic and very cute x)
Flonne is an low level \"assassin\" angel. A very lovely angel, who\'s always gabbling about love to Laharl :D She\'s also cute, but not like Etna ;]

The Enjoyment of this anime is Very Good indeed. The final feeling is that you havent wasted your time with this title. The anime has a strange sense of humour, though... I\'ve started to laugh at 7-8 epz. But indeed i have a hearty LAUGH with Laharl and the others.

Overall: don\'t hesitate to watch this - it\'s not one of the \"Must watch!\" but if you want you can watch it only for Laharl sake. That evil character dude is amazing. :D And the humour is really really good when you get to understand it. The plotline isnt that great but it\'s pleasurable,like the Art and the Sound.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jul 18, 2018

ktulu007

Mixed Feelings

The Disgaea franchise is, generally speaking, fantastic. They're RPGs with a strong sense of humour & endearing characters. Sort of like another RPG franchise that I reviewed an anime based off of. The anime for this came out in '06 from OLM. That's right, the Gunsmith Cats, Steel Angel Kurumi 2 & Pokemon studio. Let's see how they managed with this one. 

Story:

we open with an angel, Flonne, faffing about in the underworld to assassinate its king. She comes across the king's son, Laharl, who was poisoned and left in a casket. She heals him and the pair swiftly learn that his father died while he ... was snoozing. After some confrontations with other demons, and finding a companion in Etna and her Frobisher... I mean prinny squad,  they decide to head for the castle so that Laharl can claim the throne. 

The biggest issue with the narrative is simply that it's extremely abridged. Things like strong pacing, atmosphere building and some of the more amusing but frivolous dialogue get tossed out in favour of trying to hit all of the major plot points from the game. To be honest, I'm not sure it was the best way to go about it. It might have worked better if the anime was slower and only covered a quarter or a third of the game.

I will give the anime credit for fleshing out the Big Sis Prinny reveal a bit better than the game did. And that's literally the only thing I'll credit it with over the game. It is also kind of nice to see the big scenes in a fully animated form, even if they are shortened in order to cram it all into a twelve episode series. And I'm kind of glad they don't use the game's best ending since it gives viewers more incentive to actually play it. 

Characters:

The major characters are pretty decently represented in this series. They don't have all the development they get in the game proper nor do they have all their best lines but, for a short series that's trying to cover everything, they do a pretty good job. And it does feature one of my favourite aspects of Disgaea. Demons with a lot of redeeming qualities and angels who are kind of scumbags. Call it heretical if you like, but I enjoy the subversion and I like that the execution in this franchise is a bit more nuanced since the characters are fleshed out enough that the angels do have positive traits as well, Flonne especially while the demons are significantly flawed. 

My biggest issue is that the anime might be too heavy handed with that aspect. The game was better about putting it in and not really drawing a huge amount of attention to it whereas the anime feels the need to shove it in your face. 

Art:

The series looks good. They captured the game's aesthetic nicely. Unfortunately, the animation is pretty lazy. There are a lot of scenes where someone talks and their mouth doesn't move or where an action scene starts and ends very abruptly and I'm not sure whether it's because they were "hard to animate" or because they were just rushing to get to the next plot point. Either way, it's not a good impression. 

Sound:

This is one aspect where I can give the anime full credit without any "but..." involved. Mizuhashi Kaori, Hanba Tomoe & Sasamoto Yuuko are all fantastic. The soundtrack is really damn good as well. The sound design is just on point all around. 

Ho-yay:

There are, maybe one or two scenes where Etna & Flonne read as having tension but it's not exactly a significant thing. 

Final Thoughts:

Ultimately, this anime has its strong points. The sound is fantastic, the characters are close enough to their game versions to have a lot of the endearing factors intact, the story has its moments. But its pacing and atmosphere suffer from being too abridged, the big subversion is too heavy-handed, the animation is lazy and it ultimately ends up being an inferior version of the game's story with some changes that do work and others that don't really matter. I give the anime a 6/10. It's decent enough and it might be worth watching if you love the game or if you're on the fence about trying the game and you want something that can give you a good idea of whether or not you'd like it. Because if you enjoy this anime well enough the chance of you enjoying the game is very high. Next week, Ninja Batman. Because I've looked at a few Marvel anime already and it's time to give DC a chance. 

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jan 21, 2022

PixelB

Not Recommended

Preliminary (3/12 eps)

Riding off the coattails of the game, the Disgaea's anime adaptation doesn't do the ps1 classic any justice at all.
I understand that this was made in 2006, but old doesn't equal bad. There are many anime, movies, and films that are very good even when they're old, even in just a technical aspect. Maybe for it's time, it was OK, but that just doesn't cut it when I'm watching something a whole 16 years later.
I guess I understand that this was aimed at kids that just played the game or something, but clearly, there's a lack of quality put into both the dialogue and the ... character development.
The only thing that's good about this show is the OST, and that's only because the anime borrows the OST from the game, which is superb.
This show is an ancient relic of the past, something that should be forgotten.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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