RogerBW's Blog

DanMachi 04 February 2017

2015 fantasy, adaptation of a light novel series, 12 episodes: AniDB. In a world where gods dwell among humans, Bell Cranel is a novice adventurer. Full title: Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darouka: Familia Myth, or Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?.

This is another show where the rules of the world are the rules of a dungeon-bash RPG, with explicit levels and proficiency slots and so on; nobody is curious as to why it works that way, it's just how the world is. (Unlike several other anime series with this concept, there's no suggestion that this is a virtual environment or people have been somehow punted into it from the "real world".) You go down the dungeon, you kill things, you bring back the "shards" they explode into, you sell them, you get more powerful.

Apart from the fights, the underlying structure is fairly classic harem: pretty much every woman, including one goddess, falls in love with Bell (who is Really Nice and has no idea what's going on, though he's pining after the one woman who isn't draping herself all over him), some of them squabble over him, and there's no resolution. There are rather too many characters, and I'm guessing several novels were compressed into this short series – especially since there seem to be political goings-on among the gods which never quite interact with the main story.

Have low expectations, basically. It's all right as a basic nobody-to-hero story, but it doesn't really go anywhere, and lots of other series cover that sort of story and do have something else to offer.

Technically, the character designs are dull, but backgrounds are decent (especially in town), and the incidental music is very effective. There's nothing really wrong here, but everything that this show does right I've seen done better elsewhere.

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1