Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan by Loner

Genre: Comedy
Format: 8 OVA
Allegiance: Geneon
Director: Mizushima Tsutomu
Vintage: 2005
Intelligence Agency Report by: Loner
Kusakabe Sakura might be your average middle school student now, but in the future he will create the technology that will endanger the female population in order to satisfy his own evil desires! God sends Dokuro-chan, one of His angels, to kill him, but she decides to save him instead. Unfortunately for Sakura, this means living with a temperamental angel and being whacked to death repeatedly by her giant spiked club, Excaliborg. Luckily, she can also wish him back to life.

Field Agent Report by: Loner
Plot
Characters
Impact
Visual
Audio
3.00
5.50
7.75
7.00
7.50
Overall 6.50

One of the most famous economic theories is the Law of Diminishing Returns, which implies that the more of the same thing you get, the less enjoyment you will derive from it. This law applies in the case of this anime as well. Even though this OVA is only 8-episodes, what started as an outrageously funny comedy soon loses its charm and becomes very mediocre.

The gory and random humor is certainly not for everyone. A lot of people will find repeated scenes of Sakura bloodily bludgeoned to death by Dokuro-chan gruesome and sickening. Some will also find the ecchi gags tasteless and even disturbing, considering how young these characters are. However, all these jokes have a primitive appeal that makes me howling with laughter at first. The audacity of some of the gags, including some poking fun at issues like lolicon and even world politics (George W. Bush and Kim Jong-Il both make guest appearances), simply make my jaw drop. From first appearance of the outrageous opening theme to the end of the fourth episode, there is not a moment when I am not laughing. However offensive the humor is, it is also so shocking, creative, and so original that you cannot help but laugh uproariously.

Then comes episode 5, and suddenly I find myself laughing less and less. Sure, there are still moments which managed to make me chuckle a bit, but overall, the second half of this short series is a letdown. Part of the reason for this disappointing turn is that the directors and writers seem to have lost their creative edge. The same jokes are rehashed in an increasingly random manner, causing their comedic value to decrease. The writers also suddenly decide to introduce dramatic elements to a show which to that point has been completely devoid of any actual plot or characterization. The melodrama feels completely out of place in an anime that repeatedly makes fun of its own ridiculous premise. In the end, the gags are just not as funny the tenth time around and quantitatively, they are fewer in number. As such, the entertainment value of this anime takes a nosedive.

Dokuro-chan may lack any substance and its comedy is not for everyone, but during the first half of this short series I was thoroughly entertained. If it had managed to keep the comedy fresh and original, however repulsive and inane others may have found it, I for one would have been entertained. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan starts with a bang, but simply leaves a bad taste in my mouth in the end.