September 14th, 2008 by Brack
GO! TO! DMC!
To go along with the live action adaptation of Detroit Metal City, Studio 4°C have produced an anime series based on the manga tale of soft mummy’s boy Soichi Negishi’s double life as death metal superstar Johannes Krauser II. And despite it’s straight to DVD status, it feels a lot like a TV show rather than an OAV. This is due it’s gag manga origins, and how closely the series stays true to those origins. It feels like Cromartie, Sexy Commando and Gag Manga Biyori in how well it captures Kiminori Wakasugi’s original work.
This is not surprising given the presence of Hiroshi Nagahama in the director chair. Frequent collaborator of Akitaro Daichi, Nagahama seems to have Daichi’s ability for adapting themselves to the project, rather than moulding the project to fit their own worldview. Nagahama was also the director of the Mushishi anime, and the mood there could not be further from the mood in DMC.
The resulting anime isn’t the glossy, showy sort of eye candy you’d expect from an OAV. It’s rough around the edges limited animation that pulls panels straight out the manga and animates them. It near perfectly captures the jagged comedy of embarrassment that the manga gives you.
The first episode covers Chapters 2 & 3 of the manga. In “PV“, DMC record a video and we are introduced to the nameless President of DMC’s record label - an abusive, foul mouthed woman who bullies the band and is the bane of Negishi’s life. In “Sick Murderer“, we meet Aikawa, the girl of Negishi’s dreams and get the first of the many times that Negishi’s double life causes him to embaress himself in front her.
Posted in Anime | Tags: detroit metal city, Hiroshi Nagahama, studio 4°C | No Comments »
