Christmas decorations lit up the streets, snow falling outside my window and the night was full of holiday cheer. And I’m in my bed, thinking quite strongly about drinking or something else self-damaging. It’s amazing what willpower gets you these days, so instead I scroll through IG. It’s not every day you see an anime clip of some loser humping a tower, and amazingly enough it made the Scrooge in me laugh. A Christmas miracle! So well, why not?
Essentially, this is a caricature of hardcore metal and the scene, yet it feels appreciative of the culture and seems to poke at the stereotypes metal
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has gotten over the years. As someone who has enjoyed music that to put mildly is “less savory,” I appreciate that it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and that alone makes it a breath of fresh air. And if you were to take this seriously and look below the surface, you would find an accurate critique of the exploitation of the music industry, personified in the manager of the DMC, who Soichi is afraid of and leads him to continue with the DMC, despite being the polar opposite to his onstage persona, Krauser. She tells Soichi “DMC is mine, don't forget it,” forcing him to stand down at any opposition or suggestions he has for the band he is literally the face of. The lack of authenticity in the DMC is due to the manager trying to promote an image, one that “makes people wet” and most importantly one that sells.
We follow most of the story through Soichi’s eyes, with his split personality and his whinging on about wanting to be a loser, oops, I meant popstar. Soichi’s split personality plot device is a formula that the writers use to make the story move, no matter how half-assed it is. Whenever it seems that he is becoming more accepting of his role in the DMC and starting to be proud of his work, he goes through a brainwash that ensures by the next episode, he is back to where he started, trying to find a way out of the DMC, then using his Krauser persona to get out of a situation, then right back again. Rinse, repeat. It's a formula that barely worked at the beginning and becomes grating by the end. The story sets up no real depth to hold this up, making Soichi, at best, really annoying. The only time this formula isn't used is when they set up an overused storyline where the MC has to be in two places at the same time, in this case with the Yuri birthday date and the DMC promotional event. Super original!
My next big criticism is well, for a comedy, this isn't as funny as I hoped. I went into this hoping for ridiculous comedy, and minutes will go by with barely a snort. To be fair, the tower scene is really funny, and if you saw that and that made you watch this show, it's a setup to be disappointed. The show very frequently oscillates between ridiculously funny to pretty boring. If the story was interesting, then it would still be a good watch, but as it is, it's not. The problem is, the writers weren’t high enough. Or rather, they refused to make this as ridiculous as possible. This is a story with such a stupid premise with no real backing or depth so what stopped them from genuinely fucking around? Like there’s the scene where Soichi is imitating fucking the grandpa, the apartment manager, and then it doesn’t continue with that trend of ridiculous comedy, but instead falls flat. I genuinely don't understand why the writers keep shoving half-baked storylines into my face. I, frankly, don’t care. The character of Yuri is a poor excuse of a character, and is only present to further the dichotomy of Soichi the “innocent person” and his onstage persona. Bring back the funny!!
Yet, I like this. I think it has enough charm and it isn't long enough to make it a hard watch. I don’t know what that says about me as I consider this show an incel wet dream, calling women ‘horny slaves” and rape as humor. There's no other anime where the MC shouts “I conduct public rapes!” at a poster in his empty apartment and the story completely moves past it. I think a lot of the humour for me came from the way Krauser’s fans excused anything he did and made him into this sort of god. He falls on top of a policewoman? He must be raping her. He does anything? He’s just “showing off his manliness.” There’s a scene where the fans genuinely think he has a 30-inch pole of a penis out. It’s pretty great.
To be honest, talking about overused storylines and plotholes is so useless because who cares? Kauser said rape 11 times a second instead of his record ten. What a demon legend!
The style of the anime feels nostalgic (as nostalgic as 2008 can get) and while it feels washed out and bland, I can’t for the life of me bring myself to care. I know edgy 15-year-old me would have loved this, but as an “adult”, I still feel a rush of fondness. A Christmas miracle in of itself. Who knew I could give a fuck?
Dec 31, 2024
Detroit Metal City
(Anime)
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Christmas decorations lit up the streets, snow falling outside my window and the night was full of holiday cheer. And I’m in my bed, thinking quite strongly about drinking or something else self-damaging. It’s amazing what willpower gets you these days, so instead I scroll through IG. It’s not every day you see an anime clip of some loser humping a tower, and amazingly enough it made the Scrooge in me laugh. A Christmas miracle! So well, why not?
Essentially, this is a caricature of hardcore metal and the scene, yet it feels appreciative of the culture and seems to poke at the stereotypes metal ... 
Jan 29, 2024 Not Recommended Funny  Preliminary
(5/11 eps)
This review has been sitting in a Google Docs for months because I wanted to at least finish the show before posting my review. Yet, every time I reach for this title again, I think of how terrible this anime is, and I sincerely cannot bring myself to finish. And as I’ve already been spoiled, I have realised that all of my arguments still hold up regardless.
Now, while I’m late to the party, I can remember the hype train around this one. It was lauded for “being deep” (anime fans say that about everything istg) and for its visuals, its OST (which is pretty ... |
