Makai Senki Disgaea ep.1

April 5, 2006 | 13 Comments

Opening Theme:「愛したゲル」- Aishitageru by Loverin Tamburin (17MB, for PSP/Quicktime)

Well, here's the anime adaptation of the famous PS2 game, Makai Senki Disgaea. As expected, the animation looks quite good as you can see from the opening. Unfortunately, the song itself is rather mediocre. I've never played the game beforehand so I have no idea if this song is actually the same as the one that was included within the game or if it's an all new song. After watching this episode a bit more to write the review, I think the first episode is not as bad as some people have described. Maybe it's a good thing that I've never played the game beforehand but from what I've seen so far, there are other much worse shows that are out there at the moment. Anyway, I'm going to stick around for a few more episodes of this title before I decide whether or not I want to follow it right through the end.

A girl is seen walking towards a gigantic tomb in the middle of a desert. The girl then opens the door to the tomb, revealing the fact that the tomb is actually a castle. Whilst investigating the castle, however, the girl steps on a structurally old floor which immediately crumbles apart, taking the girl into the basement. In this place, she finds a coffin which apparently has been mentioned by her superior, Lamington. The girl then produces a magic wand which transforms into an arrow and a bow with a heart-shaped pointer. She aims the arrow into the coffin but despite her effort, she can't open it. Because of this she proceeds to attack the coffin with all kinds of weaponry, including a bulldozer and a rocket launcher. Eventually, the thing inside the coffin is awaken. The thing, which looks like a little demon, calls himself Laharl, and he's quite unhappy when he finds out that the person who has awakened him is actually an apprentice Angel called Flonne.

On top of this, apparently the girl destroyed the casket because she thinks a King by the name of Krichevskoy lies in it and she has the task to assasinate him. Upon hearing this, Laharl becomes angry and tells the girl that Krichevskoy is actually his dad. In his anger, Laharl unleashes his power but finds out that it goes into a shutdown mode after a while. Flonne then tries to heal him using the power of love but Laharl immediately refuses. The two then got out of the basement and a piece of parchment suddenly flies into Flonne's face, informing her that King Krichevskoy already passed away 2 years ago. For some reason, Flonne feels the need to tell Laharl that she too has been searching for the King for 2 years. Laharl also informs Flonne that unlike what she thought, this place is actually not a castle but rather a graveyard. Upon reading the ever-informative parchment, Flonne finds out that Laharl's father died from eating steamed dumplings. LOL.

Flonne, however, is shocked when Laharl also laughs upon hearing this. She thinks he should not laugh about his dead father. It looks like Flonne believes in love and thinks that someone as important as a father must be respected so she wonders why Laharl doesn't feel any of these feelings. Laharl tells her that is because he's a demon. Flonne is shocked to hear this and wonders if Laharl can't feel someone's sadness. Laharl confirms this and tells her that for him love means nothing as he proceeds to exit the graveyard. Before he manages to do this, however, he's attacked by a bunch of trolls who doesn't want Laharl to be awake. Unfortunately Laharl's body is still weak so he doesn't have the power to defend himself. Thankfully a spaceship then crash-landed into the area and save these two from the trolls. The spaceship belongs to Captain Gordon, the 37th Defender of Earth who comes along with his assistant Jennifer, and a robot called Thursday.

In order to heal Laharl, Flonne decides to use her magic. She then tells the three humans that she's an Angel while Laharl is a demon Prince. Gordon immediately becomes afraid of Laharl and tries to use his robot, Thursday to shoot Laharl but Laharl uses his energy to attack the humans. As a result, the graveyard is destroyed and the humans are sent flying towards the sky. Flonne then realises that she loses her pendant so Laharl offers to look it up for her if she can pay him. Unfortunately Flonne has no money whatsoever. As it turns out, however, the pendant that Flonne is looking for is in Thursday's hand. At the same time, one of the trolls is back and start attacking Laharl. Laharl who is now powerful has no hesitation to use his power. Flonne who sees Laharl's cruelty tells him that unfortunately she'll have to kill him now. With that said, Flonne summons a dragon to fight Laharl. At the same time, another figure is seen watching the two fight each other.

Impression:

It's probably because this is the first time I saw this so I have no problem with the way the storyline has been changed. And I thought for what it is, it was rather funny. It's not the ROTFL kind of comedy that School Rumble provides but it's a sarcastic humour that I kind of like. Character-wise, I like Flonne right of the bat mostly because she's so innocent and her way of pronouncing "desu" reminds me of another "desu, desu, desu" character from Rozen Maiden. Laharl is a bit annoying at this point in time but I have to admit that I'm very amused at the way he addressed himself as "Ore-sama". I've always wanted to call myself with the -sama suffix but my Japanese teacher will hunt me down if I start doing that. That's because a person is not supposed to use -sama to refer to oneself but in Laharl's case, it achieves the pompous personality that the creators probably wanted the character to have. I also thought some of the movie references such as Flash Gordon, 2001 and Sword in Stone are quite amusing to see.

Ending Theme: 「腐り」- Kusari by Akiko Kawakami

I think the ending is a bit better than the opening but in general it's nothing outstanding either. Thankfully the animation that comes with the ending theme is quite nice to look at.

© memento 2003