There’s quite a thin line between shounen anime (aimed at boys) and shoujo (the feminine counterpart). Yes, there are obvious shoujo shows like Bokura Ga Ita, purely about a young girl discovering romantic feelings, and there are purebred shounen shows, featuring little other than testosterone-fuelled fighting, like MÄR, but if you think that a lot of fighting automatically makes a show shounen, you’re not seeing the full picture. Like Jyu-ou-sei and Loveless, DN Angel is a show with lots of action, lots of fighting and lots of magical duels nonetheless aimed at girls. The difference really lies in tone and in the characters – shounen protagonists tend to be simple, headstrong characters usually unable to grasp everything about the world they find themselves in but with a strong sense of wrong and right, while male protagonists in shoujo action series tend to be a little bit weak and vulnerable, even useless, guided by some far cooler male figure. Romance, while by no means absent in shounen, tends to be closer to centre-stage, and you’re considerably more likely to see ultra-cute mascot characters (see any CLAMP action series). DN Angel is a good example of such a show, ticking all these boxes and making its male protagonist even more harmless and adorable than most shoujo male leads. Niwa-kun must have blushed at least six times every episode. Indeed, the show was even marketed as shounen-ai, a subset of shoujo wherein there is a lot of homosexuality (ie Loveless), but here, despite lots of contrived circumstances putting Niwa Daisuke and his nemesis Hiwatari in close, occasionally shirtless proximity, there was little more than light hinting, no more than what is found in a fair few shounen series, particularly Naruto and Hikaru no Go.
I watched DN Angel when it first started, but only actually committed to watching it all when I saw some amusing but impressive cosplayers on a little movie made by someone trying to highlight how odd cosplay is by asking ‘What are your special powers?’ and recording the silly answers. It’s a nicely presented show, with Studio XEBEC’s usual cute, wide-eyed character style, meaning that Niwa and his three romantic interests (two twins and a genki girl who speaks with a horrible mock-American accent) are very pretty, and some very nice cel-shaded 3D and some beautiful ideal-Western-hamlet backgrounds making the series generally very easy on the eyes. Music was good and animation was generally of a high standard, although the fights were a bit daft – perhaps it’s another trait of shoujo series, but it does grate on me a bit when fights involve two pretty winged men flying at each other, and then everything freezing with them in nice poses, and then us seeing the aftermath of the strike. Especially with feathers prettily fluttering about. Nonetheless, some of the magic looked very impressive.
The trouble with the show, though, was once again the story. The premise is a bit odd but not bad – a family carries special genes that means the successor can transform into a suave phantom thief with the hilarious name of Dark Mousy, who finds and seals artworks that have been somehow cursed or possessed, all the while being chased by the Hiwatari family, who can channel a spirit called Krad who ostensibly works for justice but truthfully is a bit of an obvious psychopath. Fair enough. But the manga is still ongoing and thus there wasn’t a holistic story to work with. Therefore we get series of formulaic episodes, with Dark generally having to seal an artwork, Hiwatari/Krad getting in the way, and then Niwa giving a heartfelt speech to the spirit that must be sealed and it nobly acquiescing. There was an extra part with the aforementioned genki girl, Hio Mio, turning out to be a tool for a baddie, but it went nowhere, and the final climax was very rushed and artificially put together from dodgy make-up-the-rules-of-a-magical-artifact plotting. The slow development of the Harada twins, and Daisuke realising his true feelings about them was nice, but ultimately his revelations and changes of heart didn’t seem to have enough build-up, making them a bit hard to swallow.
And I have to say, I got a bit fed up with Dark. There’s very little to his character but outward experience. He looks cool, can fly, is great at stealing, can give moving speeches when needed, and everyone fancies him – but that’s all there is to him. He just feels like a cheap trick to me, a badly-written hook for girls who want someone to fancy without actually having to think about them. The one interesting thing he did – kissing the girl Daisuke liked – just disappeared from the plot, lead to no development or tension and was ultimately retrospectively made to seem fine because Dark knew what Daisuke wanted better than he did. Wasted opportunity.
Anyway, DN Angel shouldn’t be looked at for anything challenging, intelligent or particularly well-written. But it’s a nice little anime with attractive characters (with huge spiky hair!), an unchallenging escapist plot and a very, very cute mascot rabbit-thing that eats strawberries and goes, ‘Kyuu!’ If that sounds like your sort of thing, go for it, though I wouldn’t say you were missing much if you gave it a miss.
(originally posted 7.12.2006)
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