Detroit Metal City: It is here to make anime metal. It will make everything metal. Blacker than the blackest black, times infinity!
As an avid enjoyer of over-the-top black humor and feeling that the anime marked seems somewhat lacking in this regard (barring the excellent Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei from 2007), the sudden arrival of Detroit Metal City's animated adaptation in the fall of 2008 had me immediately in anticipation. Detroit Metal City in all its forms (including the anime) follows the story of Soichi Negishi, recent college graduate with aspirations of J-pop stardom, who somehow ends up as the vocalist, songwriter and front man of the upstart death metal band Detroit Metal City under the public persona of Johannes Krauser II, a ludicrously over-the-top metal artist who the fans willingly accept as a mass-murdering, all-raping, honest-to-badness sin-against-god demon from the underworld. As the old adage goes, hilarity ensues. Or, at least it did to me.
Visuals: 6/10 -- A crude, yet oddly compelling, style.
One thing I must say for certain: Detroit Metal City was definitively not created with the thought of being the do-all end-all of visuals. The drawing style is rather minimalist and the animation is sparse at best, evoking a sense that the production company was intentionally aiming for the OVA to look as much as the original manga as humanly possible. The whole anime feels kind of like I'm watching it in a manga format, going from picture to picture. It is, however, very obvious that this was due to an intentional stylistic choice rather than untalented staff or a minimalist budget (and if it really turns out to be the latter, I give kudos to the crew for doing such an excellent cover-up on it).
You see the thing is, it's not actually displeasing to watch. Like the aforementioned Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei the minimalist style flows very well with the actual 'feeling' of the show, if you will. I won't claim with honesty that Detroit Metal City is stunning visually, because it's not, but it works. I've seen plenty worse from more 'traditional' looking animes, so Detroit Metal City shall at least have it that they aimed for something different and succeeded. I may not be particularly impressed by it, but at the same time I can't really think of how else they could have done it.
Sound: 7/10 -- Workable voices, rockin' OP.
Due to its musical theme, Detroit Metal City's BGM is for the most part dominated by the death metal played by the titular band, and I strain the mind to try to remember any of the other music apart from the occasional J-pop number from Negishi (who, it must be said, has no talent for it whatsoever) or his non-DMC associates. The death metal itself is pretty decent, if hard to take seriously musically most of the time, what with its lyrics being what they are -- when I can actually hear what Krauser is growling, it mostly tends to be hilarious because I can't really take songs containing the famous 'ten-rapes-a-second' utterance with a straight face. This extends to the anime's... Let's just call it memorable, OP, "Satsugai", with its visuals and performance evoking both headbanging and derisive laughter in near-equal measure.
The voice cast do a competent job as it is, but since over 80% of the anime's lines come from Daisuke Kishio as the rather nasally whiny Negishi or Yuji Ueda as his crude alter-ego Krauser these are the only really memorable voice jobs. The rest of the cast are generally 'workable', fitting their roles decently enough, although I will say that Aikawa's voice gets on my nerves.
Story: 8/10 -- He's an aspiring J-pop street artist. He's a horribly shocking death metal vocalist. They fight crime are really the same person.
The story of the DMC OVA is told in stand-alone chapters, with the overhanging story of Krauser's rise to death metal emperorhood through the events shown (usually two small stand-alone chapters per episode). Most of these stories are, when it comes to it, rather similar -- Negishi is doing something which somehow is, or becomes to, involve DMC in some way, he becomes troubled by the DMC aspect because of his metal-hating personality, the troubles end up pushing him, causing Negishi to turn to his Krauser persona, problem solved in some hilariously over-the-top manner usually involving a lot of coincidences falling into place to Negishi's advantage and public humiliation of the parties involved, and usually with Negishi feeling remorseful for his actions afterwards and the side note that his initial troubles will only become even more compounded the moment someone finds out Negishi and Krauser is the same person. Minor variations aside, this is the basic formula for every story.
Yet somehow, that formula doesn't get tiresome, or old, or outstay its welcome. The exact outcomes of the stories are always slightly varied enough -- and hilarious enough -- that even though the basic formulae is visible, it doesn't bother me as much. Generally speaking, the quality of the individual stories seems to be proportional to the Krauser/Negishi ratio, and the general involvement of DMC in general: In other words, the more or earlier Krauser is involved in the story, the more over-the-top hilarity will they be able to cram into it, and when the story is actually about a DMC problem from the beginning the outcome tends to be cooler. By contrast, storylines involving Negishi's civilian life -- and especially his involvement with college crush Aizaka -- are generally less enjoyable as they smell a bit more of standard sitcom fare which I've never been a big fan of, pulling the average down a bit. At a whole, though, DMC will make you laugh of its silliness and (probably) at some point make you pause the show and bury your face in your palms at the sheer stupidity of it all -- but you'll be back a moment later, ready for more, because it's stupid in a good way.
Character: 7/10 -- A hilarious selection of loonies and a reluctantly competent protagonist.
DMC's character cast is, at a whole, dominated by Negishi -- The story of DMC is also very much his story, and he is the viewpoint character for 95% of the time. If you can tolerate his normal personality, Negishi is altogether a rather interesting figure: At the surface he appears to be a somewhat spineless person obsessed with what other people are thinking of him, he is attracted to the 'trendy' (even though he is not very trendy himself) and likes J-pop and love songs (which, despite trying to play, he is not very successful at). At the same time, Negishi can so very seamlessly flow into his Krauser persona, where he says and does things that he would never be able to do in his normal guise -- all while he is still the same person mentally and fully aware of his own actions, as the narration makes crystal clear. Despite his own hatred of the Death Metal genre and the actions he does during his stints as Krauser, it is very obvious that Negishi is extremely gifted at playing that particular persona to the hilt, with hilarious results. At some unconscious level, Negishi is probably aware of this, even though he fights tooth and nail against it. This, ultimately, makes for a rather interesting contrast.
The supporting cast, meanwhile, are far less visible and far less developed, appearing mostly as they are seen by Negishi since we never take their points of view. Despite not being particularly three-dimensional (as is expected from people you only get to see from one side as coworkers and casual aquaintances), the cast are all lovably eccentric in their own way, like the masochistic Pig of Capitalism, or Negishi's outrageously dominating and offensive manager, or his adoring fans, who come up with increasingly overblown and silly explanations and reactions to Negishi's outrageous public stunts as Krauser. A generally good showing all around.
Value: 8/10 -- Highly polarizing, but hilarious for those on the plus side.
I've done my best to spread the word about DMC since I started seeing the anime, trying to recommend it to as many as possible. Generally speaking, people either love its ridiculousness at first glance or steer clear instantly - few reactions have come in between. DMC is not an anime to see if you're into epic tales of human drama or explosive action -- it's mainly wacky fun all around of a kind that seems mostly aimed at the Seinen demographic, and it's a quick watch on top of it that won't claim much of your time and has good promises for sequels. Some of the more outrageous parts are good for a rewatch too.
I'll be buying the DVD if it hits Europe someday, and I'll be on the lookout for the manga, live action and (hopefully) a follow-up OVA too, that's for sure.
Enjoyment: 9/10 -- Gut-busting at best, embarrassing at worst, chuckle-worthy most of the time.
I've enjoyed DMC very much indeed. As I said in the intro, I have a soft spot for absurdity and somewhat 'dark' humor, and Detroit Metal City provided plenty of both. At a whole, all the episodes provide entertainment in some form or another and at a whole I left the series at the end with an overwhelmingly positive impression. Not all of the episodes were a high point, but very few shows have that privilegie -- as comedy goes, Detroit Metal City takes a high spot indeed, even if it's not quite at the level of Fumoffu for sheer collapse-from-laughter factor or Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei or Pani Poni Dash for sheer bizarreness of humor.
Overall: 7.5 ( rounded up to 8 )/10 - Go To DMC! Go To DMC! Go To DMC!
All in all, Detroit Metal City's minor trifles -- the somewhat primitive visuals and sound and a few less interesting side characters are drowned underneath the series' overall style, humor and general moments of awesome. The closest thing I'd come to compare Detroit Metal City to would be the western Metalocalypse, and the two make for an interesting comparative study: Whereas Metalocalypse's over-the-top metal humor is focused on a band who really are as crazy and dysfunctional off-stage as on it and with a world gone horribly wrong who love everything their sociopathic little minds think of, Detroit Metal City is a tale of a normal man's conflict between his attempts at a normal life in which he is a failure at mostly everything and his job with a horribly inappropriate stage persona who performs outrageous stunt after outrageous stunt and repeatedly hurts his friends and loved ones -- and how the world that appears otherwise completely normal has a bit too many over reactive fans who love Krauser for comfort.
Anyway, I may have rambled a bit here and there but my final verdict is as follows: Detroit Metal City is good. Perhaps not great, but it's not like anything else I've seen in anime. While it won't be taking home the gold in my anime hall of fame it's still something I don't regret watching and won't regret seeing more of. Take it for what you will.
