Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka

There are times you get a reminder that no matter how many swords, boobs and magic you throw at a show it can’t save it from the boring characters among it all. Welcome to the world of Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka, where strong personalities are obviously illegal and main characters are inexplicably attractive to women. A 13-episode fantasy story put to screen by J.C. Staff and based on a light novel, ‘DanMachi’ can at times be an enjoyable experience if you shut your brain off. Action is served up in droves but in an equal share comes a blandcast and a setting that doesn’t exactly shout out originality. Story We follow the journey of Bell Cranel. Bell is an ‘adventurer’, one who goes forth to the dungeon to seek fame and glory while putting their life on the line to do so. There he encounters the talented and renowned ‘Sword Princess’ Aiz Wallenstein. Suddenly he’s love struck. With the help of his goddess Hestia, Bell sets out to conquer not only beasts but also his fear of approaching the girl of his dreams. I’ll put my positive first: This is that show that doesn’t dwell on things for too long. Bell makes progression at a ridiculous rate but at least events keep coming and every episode feels fresh in some way. Different enemies provide a new challenge. Some of these enemies remind Bell of when he was weaker and it brings some painful memories. He has to overcome these grim reminders and apply the new knowledge he’s learned to beat his enemies. Some also force him to change up his technique and get creative. For all its terrible harem schlock this is at least a nicely paced adventure. Some of the later episodes had some more interesting fights with more than just some crystals on the line. The cast also expands a little at that point, definitely to the show’s benefit. At that point it really starts to feel like we are watching something interesting come together. There’s also this sense that Bell is really fighting for something he wants and not simply hacking at things for no reason. That’s where the praise ends in this department. Here’s the problem: Bell doesn’t truly earn anything in his line of adventuring. Everything that helps him become stronger is either served to him on a silver platter or overcome through some ridiculous newfound level of power. Through certain attributes Bell is rendered pretty much unbeatable and given an unfair boost of all other adventures. With that you say goodbye to almost all the tension this show creates within the dungeon. If something does hold Bell back it takes no time for him to find a way around it. Some methods he uses to do so are out of left field and not properly explained. When an explanation for them does arrive – very much out of the blue – it comes at a ridiculous moment. While it does excuse a lot of Bell’s powerful capabilities, it’s a double-edged sword. The plot armour simply stacks higher on him. An early scene posits Bell as the runty adventurer who can’t achieve anything and you get the sense that this could be a tough rise through the ranks. But before you know it he’s making a name for himself in the field quicker than you know it. Why? Because of the power of love, which as we all know is far stronger than any physical material. How touching. Why couldn’t his romance simply be a driving force instead of something that literally has the capability to bolster his stats? Characters While the story has redeemable moments, and is actually decently written, the characters reduce this show to a mess on many occasions. Let’s start with our main man. Bell is just another run-of-the-mill anime MC. He’s just… there. There’s no background to his character to at least give us an idea of why he wants to take up adventuring in the first place. He’s an example of the ‘play it safe’ approach to characters. By stripping him of any hard-hitting character faults he gains likeability but at the same time becomes a lot less interesting. Then there’s the pint-sized goddess Hestia who has a bust size and a temperament trying to outdo each other in volume. As annoying as her character can be at least her affection for Bell, compared to the rest of the female cast, actually makes sense. Bell is her only familia member so it’s understandable that she’s going to be a little clingy. The writers play up this fact though to the point that it starts degrading her character. Hestia goes from someone looking for validation and purpose to being a paranoid stalker. A very, very annoying paranoid stalker. Top that off with an abundance of ridiculous fanservice involving her and it’s a great way for me to stop taking a character’s problems seriously. At times we get a peek into seeing a different side of her but it remains hidden in the shadows, presumably for that inevitable second season some time down the track. It would also have been nice if the girl Bell desires so badly, Aiz, actually had some semblance of personality that makes her a worthy target of his affection. I guess she’s a blonde, green-eyed beauty in questionably-designed armour who can swing a sword well. Sure she’s got it on the looks front but the show never once makes me feel like she’s worthwhile being the end goal of our main character – even taking into account the fact she’s helped him out before in some tough situations. In defence of Aiz she at least isn’t going completely head over heels for our white-haired friend. But in the face of that, she still feels like a soulless background object. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want a character study out of show about fighting beasts in dungeons and levelling up. You’d not be of sound mind to want that. I just want something entertaining with a cast I really want to cheer on. More personality and overall likeability could have been breathed into the group. My problems are only made worse by the fact that every piece of comedy missed the mark. Considering it makes up a large portion of the show you can imagine my frustration when some comedic intervals just dragged on and on. Summary If you value strong, interesting characters then this isn’t for you. If you value the creation of original ideas and environments then this isn’t for you. If watching a cardboard cut-out, danger-immune, overpowered main character whose presence makes every female he encounters flood the vicinity in juices of excitement while living with a four-foot god with a breast size that has the second half of the alphabet in its sights then this is for you. The more people keep dishing praise on shows like these, the less encouragement we give studios to adapt exciting and challenging material or create interesting original works. I guess what sells, sells. DanMachi isn’t remotely close to the worst shows I’ve watched but it brings absolutely nothing new to the anime table. There are less memorable moments in this series then there are words in its own title. I’ll be nice enough to say that there were brief moments where I did sit enough and give it some attention. I can see why other people can enjoy it for longer periods than myself. There’s flashy fights and some nicely animated sequences that even got a cynical man like me to sit up and say ‘Yeah. That’s alright’. The story isn’t going to blow your socks off but it never drags. The action keeps coming and the show rarely sits down for a breather. However I feel like a lot of the purpose of the world is kept locked away from us, which got on my nerves. There’s characters pulling the strings from shadows but even as the show comes to a close we learn almost nothing new. I can stop hacking away at the show for a moment when it comes to the art department. With a J.C. Staff anime you know you’re at least going to get some well-polished art and decent animation. Fights have plenty of impact and punch thanks to a combination sound and debris. You can really feel the weight behind every sword swing, fist flying and rock scattering. The fights are clearly the show’s strong point and the technical side of things have gone a long way to achieving that. Some may find entertainment in the fight choreography - a very fair point - but when a particular outcome always feels certain then I can’t put myself in that boat. There is virtually no interesting complications character-wise. There’s catering for every character trope imaginable. There’s fan service ready to leap out at you from every corner. For everything that DanMachi does right it seems to do two other things wrong. Is it wrong to pick up girls in a dungeon? I still don’t know and I don’t know if I want to hang around longer to find out the answer.

**SPOILER FREE REVIEW** The easiest way to sum up Is it Wrong to Pick up Girls in a Dungeon, or Danmachi for short, was eloquently put by Youtuber Demolition-D as “Sword Art Online: Fat-Fucking-Titties edition”. Who am I to argue with such a flawless summation? There is no question about what Danmachi is; it’s an otaku-pandering, self-insertion, video-game-inspired LN adaptation. The real question lies in whether you will love it for what it is, or hate it for what it is. In case you haven’t guessed it by now, I fall into the latter category. This shallow, ridiculous, and remarkably unoriginal work is a good exampleof everything wrong with anime today. Synopsis: Bell Cranel is an adventurer; someone who explores dangerous dungeons and fights monsters for a living. He and his “goddess”, which is basically a glorified manager, Hestia, make up the smallest “familia” in all the land. This is the story of Bell winning every fight he’s ever been involved in one way or another, making every girl he comes into contact with fall in love with him despite his obvious lack of any charisma whatsoever, and gaining special abilities that nobody else can use for no discernable reason. In other words, it’s your standard LN adaptation. Danmachi’s plot is what you get when you take SAO’s plot and crank it up a notch on the pandering scale. MORE fanservice. MORE blood. LARGER harems. MORE white-knighting from the protagonist. DOUCHIER side characters to make the protagonist look good by comparison. And, of course, LESS actual substance. It’s seriously like someone looked at the already stupid LN video game formula and said “Hmmm, how do we make this even harder to take seriously?” But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start with the first reason Danmachi’s plot is bad: plot armor and melodrama. Much like a battle shounen, it is painfully obvious in any video game LN adaptation that the MC is never actually in any danger. However, the show spares no expense in convincing you that he is using the cheapest tactics possible. Last second saves? Check. Asspulled power ups? Check. Deus ex machina? Check-aruney. The entirety of the plot consists of Bell and the other main characters being put it perilous situations that even the most naïve of viewers can recognize will be resolved smoothly at the last second. Over and over and over again. It’s bad writing, it’s repetitive, and it’s not entertaining. It’s at this point in the review that I realize there were so many things wrong with the show that I don’t even know what to talk about next. This may be a bizarre order of doing things, but now let’s talk about Bell Cranel; the protagonist. Dear. God. What an annoying, insufferable, shallow, clichéd, gary-stu, self-insert, AWFUL character. When you talk about characters who might as well be literally Gandhi, you can go ahead and put this saint at the top of the list. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING would ever cause this guy to do something wrong or immoral. People can betray him, steal from him, assault him, whatever; he just takes the abuse like a proverbial Jesus Christ and instantly forgives all wrongdoings. After all, they wouldn’t want to give off the impression that he is human or anything! Real people don’t have flaws or negative emotions, right? It’s SO much more interesting to have an idealized concept of all that is good in the world without an ounce of moral ambiguity so that otakus can fap to fantasies of the hundreds of sex objects that flock to his holy cock! Oh, and you better believe that he has special abilities that nobody else in the entire world has! It’s not enough that he’s the most righteous organism on planet Earth, but he also has a super special power that enables all of his skills to be as high as they possibly can AND enables him to level up faster than anyone else who has ever lived! Now, I want you to guess the explanation they give for why this makes sense; this is their GENIUS explanation for why Bell has this one-of-a-kind ability that makes him the most special person in all the land: BECAUSE HE’S IN LOVE. …OHHHHH! WELL THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE! FUCK. I mean... just… fuck. I won’t even question it. In conclusion, Bell sucks. Moving on. Unfortunately, the trend of shallow, awful characters continues with the rest of the cast. Let’s start by addressing the elephant in the room; Hestia. Fucking. Hestia. *Sigh… Just… why? I must be the ten-billionth person to ask this, but what the hell is the obsession with her? She is no different than any other 1 dimensional, big-boobed, harem-fodder nobody in a slutty outfit that allows us to instantly identify her as a sex-object, as if we wouldn’t have figured it out anyway. The absolute best description you can give about Hestia is that she functions as comic relief, and I don’t even think she’s very funny. That brings us to Lili, the other 1-dimmensional sex object who occupies the loli, furry, and tortured fetishes all at the same time. Impressive writers. Very impressive. Fetish writers around the world will have to come up with an answer to that. Maybe if she was also a robot-childhood-friend? Anyway, I’m not even going to mention the rest of the harem since they are completely one-dimensional and indistinguishable. Let’s also go over the nameless side-characters; I feel the need to bring attention to the fact that Bell is the ONLY adventurer in the entire world who is not a tremendous asshole. The “villain” adventurers have no depth at all, of course, but they are still made out as such blatantly awful people in order to FURTHER drive home the fact that Bell is Jesus. Not only is this lazy characterization, it’s also blatantly black-and-white morality, which makes the show require even less thought. This is one of the worst character casts since, well, Sword Art Online. Let’s also take a moment to discuss how incredibly creative the monsters in this show are. Danmachi brings us such breathtaking and original monster designs such as, a bunny. A wolf. A minotaur. Oh, and who could forget the floor boss, “literally a titan from Attack on Titan”? Truly masterful creativity from these animators. It’s clear that a lot of work went into this show. This is the paragraph where I planned on talking about how misogynistic this show is and how distracting the constant fan service is, but do I really need to give you that whole spiel? I already briefly talked about this stuff, and I feel like it’s so obvious why these aspects of a show are flaws that I shouldn’t need to explain it. Women with the obedience and dedication of slaves and no complexity whatsoever? It’s every otaku’s dream! And that’s precisely why this show is going to make a ton of money. I could keep going. Really, I could. I could talk all day about what an awful betrayal of the basic fundamentals of writing this show is, but I think you get the idea. The reality is, a lot of people are going to like this show. A large percentage of anime fans are not at all bothered by anything I just mentioned, because for them, a self-insertion work is all they need. That’s fine and dandy for them, but from my point of view, this show and all shows like it are cancer. Danmachi is the antithesis of the clever and intelligent shows that made me become a fan of the medium in first place; it’s a brain-dead, effortless advertisement for the LN that ends incomplete. If you liked SAO or any other similar LN video game adaptation, you’ll love Danmachi. Everyone else? STAY. AWAY. Far, FAR away.

Danmachi is a textbook example of an anime that is truly a guilty pleasure in its own right. It doesn't have the most impressive writing, there are tons of clichés and fanservice, and the pacing is sometimes questionable but even so it never ever fails to be entertaining, which is something I can't say for most anime. Danmachi follows a popular trend in recent years of having a setting that takes place entirely within an MMORPG game world. The difference this time however is that... it actually doesn't. Instead, the story takes place in the characters' real world, but their real world functions like a game.Adventurers gain experience points, earn loot, level up, gain skills and magic etcetera, but it all still takes place in their own actual reality. There is a magical dungeon which adventurers go to in search for treasure in order to make a living for themselves. They have to fight the local monsters found inside the dungeon in order to get the loot to drop, and in the process they level up, gain experience and become stronger. Pretty simple. It's a quite fresh take on what is otherwise a somewhat overused concept in recent years. The story begins when a young rookie adventurer named Bell Cranel one day gets his life saved by a female swordmaster within the dungeon. Her name is Ais Wallenstein, a quiet, airheaded yet very powerful woman whom Bell instantly falls in love with. He sets a goal for himself to become stronger so that he one day might be worthy to stand beside Ais as an equal. Upon doing this, he gains a unique ability which makes him gain experience points at an unbelievable rate as long as he stays true to those feelings of affection. Bell is an extremely shy and innocent boy, but also a very passionate one. What I like about him is that he actually feels like a real human being. He's not a typical self-insert imbalanced protagonist like Kirito (even if they do have the same voice actor), nor is he a generic shounen lead relying on nakama power. Rather he comes across as a very kind-hearted person who truly cares for those he's close to, and will do anything to help them in any way he can. He's someone you can genuinely relate to and cheer for during his struggles, and given the nature of Danmachi's dungeon crawling oriented storyline, that's a pretty important factor. The female lead on the other hand would be the poster girl of the 2015 anime fanart community, namely the illustrious goddess Hestia; perhaps the only character ever who somehow ended up more famous than the series which she actually comes from. There are numerous reasons for her insane popularity outbreak. For one, she's an oppai loli, which is an incredibly rare sight in anime regardless of series, but she's also an incredibly energetic, fun and loveable genki girl who keeps breathing life into the show and makes it interesting for the viewer. She's madly in love with Bell, but she doesn't try to hide it any way whatsoever. She keeps dropping hints everywhere that she just wants him to push her down already, but of course Bell doesn't pick up on this very well… because you know, protagonists in anime don't do that for whatever reason. Lastly of course there's the unmistakable outfit and boob string she wears which took the internet by storm so hard it became an actual fashion trend in real life Japan, but I'm sure you know all about that by now. Anyway, as a goddess Hestia is the leader of a "Familia" which operates more or less like a Guild in your typical RPG, where Bell is the only other member, and thus they spend their lives together in a rundown church, barely scraping by with what little money they can earn. Watching the pair of them living their unorthodox lives together never fails to make me smile. Then there's half a dozen other girls as well, either side characters or main characters introduced later on in the story who also conveniently enough end up falling in love with Bell (shocking, I know) so Danmachi is definitely a harem in the end even if MAL might not have it tagged as one. That being said it doesn't really focus on the harem elements all that much; it's mostly a secondary factor. The main attention is pretty much always on the adventuring aspect itself. The plot progression of Danmachi is fairly straightforward. It basically follows Bell's struggles as well as how his relationships progress with the other adventurers he ends up encountering during them. You can probably imagine what a shounen adventure anime about RPG dungeon crawling is like, and that image is probably dead on as far as Danmachi is concerned. What I really like about it though is how it manages to present the dungeon as an environment. It actually feels threatening and ominous the deeper you get inside it. Have you ever ended up in a zone that is way too difficult for your character's current level when playing an RPG, and you can't manage to find a way to get back out alive? I mean in the kind of game where you only have one life, or at least you really can't afford to die? That's kind of the same feeling as Danmachi manages to give off to the viewer. As a result, the harder fights in the story feel awfully tense and relatable to any somewhat experienced gamer watching it. Adaptation-wise, Danmachi is honestly pretty rushed as it spans a whole 5 light novel volumes in just 13 episodes. Yet despite that I never really felt like it was too much of a problem. Somehow, someway even from an anime-only standpoint the plot feels perfectly coherent and understandable. In fact as far as enjoyment value goes I'd even say I liked the anime *more* than the novels, because a) the fight scenes come across better animated, and b) Hestia's character is *way* more likeable in the anime. Yes, there is a lot of content from the novels that is skipped, but it feels like it didn't hurt the overall story very much to leave it out either, so it works out anyway. The only thing the anime occasionally lacks is some proper explanations of certain skills' and items' functionalities, but other than that I don't have a whole lot to complain about. All-in-all, Danmachi is far from a masterpiece, yet given the premise I think it delivers a lot more than most people probably expected coming into it. The story has most definitely been done before, but Danmachi adds its own twist to it and more importantly it does it *well*. It goes to show that with proper execution, a time-tested concept is still perfectly viable, and as a result it provides an anime that always leaves you with a smile on your face. Call it generic or shallow or whatever, but that doesn't change the fact that it's easily one of the most entertaining anime of the year thus far. And really, when it all comes down to it... that's essentially all that matters.

Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon? a.k.a. DanMachi a.k.a. Dungeon Harem a.k.a. Loli Big Boobs a.k.a. The Misadventures of Breastia a.k.a. My Breastia Can't Be This Cute a.k.a. Not SAO is the latest anime to follow the video game trend that's become increasingly popular within the anime medium. These video game type series, usually MMORPG based, have gotten so commonplace in the last handful of years that they're starting to form their own sub-genre altogether, in a similar fashion to the "moe/cute girls doing cute things" craze in the mid-2000s. With an easy premise to understand, little to nothing tocomprehend story-wise, and a "turn your brain off" level of entertainment value, DanMachi was tailor-made for mainstream success. But whatever integrity it may have had was lost somewhere in the creases of blue boob ribbons. If Maslow's Pyramid were ever accommodated to show the level of quality a title holds, DanMachi would presumably fall somewhere in the lower segments. This isn't to say that the show doesn't retain some sort of value, but in the bigger scheme of things, it's as significant as the crusty end slice of a loaf of bread. Brief synopsis: Set in a world that functions and operates like an MMORPG, we follow Bell Cranel, residential pussy protagonist and one in many self-proclaimed "adventurers" that strive to become the best of the best. These adventurers are aided by Gods/Goddesses who descended from the heavens to live among them. With one God/Goddess being the leader, many adventurers join them to form a guild (or for modern day standards, they're essentially a gang). After a chance encounter with another adventurer named Aiz "no personality" Wallenstein, or better known the world over as the "Sword Princess," our protagonist is motivated to become a better adventurer, if only for a chance to woo her over in the future. With the aid of his Goddess Loli Big Boo— Hestia, he sets off on his journey to do just that. Despite what the paint-by-numbers premise would have you believe, DanMachi doesn't seem to understand the construct of its own narrative. Beyond just meeting regulatory standards, the actual story and content itself never quite mesh. It tries to tell a coming-of-age tale, but our protagonist is never shown going through any of the proper stages of character progression usually associated with this kind of narrative. Instead of seeing him make mistakes to later learn from them, all of his conflicts are overcome by the writers splooging out dues ex machinas at every given turn. His advancements aren't earned through hard work and determination but are simply handed to him on a silver platter, making him yet another "chosen one" figurehead who's nuts haven't dropped, yet finds himself winning every battle like he's the spawn of Guts and Chuck Norris. Why rally for a protagonist if the outcome is always the same? Why portray him as a struggling newbie when he's merely going to gain powerful abilities and weaponry without any foreshadowing towards it? The show quite literally writes in a new power-up every other episode (no I'm not kidding, see spoiler section below), so by the time we're at the halfway point, he's practically outpaced most of the seasoned adventurers set in the same world. This could have been done in a more believable fashion had they given any of sort of proper explanation behind these events, but DanMachi makes no attempts to do so. It shrugs off all accountability and goes back to dangling boob strings like a set of shiny car keys to keep the audiences distracted from the underhanded ploy taking place. What the show does have going for it, however, is the setting itself. The world of DanMachi doesn't waste time debuting its features, with a medieval/high fantasy inspired architecture, it creates an interesting subculture, being anachronistic in its implementation, yet obtuse concept-wise since gaming mechanics are treated as much of a central pillar as its Middle Ages inspiration. Since the game aspects are as much of a part of real life to the inhabitants of DanMachi's universe, it's quite easy to buy into the world from the get-go. There's a weird amalgamation of game physics and natural world properties that the show fully embraces; it's grounded in our universe but slightly left-of-center given that game stats and leveling up is treated with the same sense of normalcy that gravity is. This includes adventurers that have to kill monsters to generate income and possibly to keep regular civilians safe. When they defeat these monsters, gems are left behind from their carcass (similar to most MMORPGs). And while the world mechanics and how things function were never explained to any reasonable amount of detail, the implied base knowledge that most viewers would have going in as to how these games work made it feel suitable despite its tendency to underwrite the parameters of its fantasy elements. Does the prospect of killing monsters and taking gems out their hides for a line of profession make sense? Well no, of course not. But was it fun? Yea, it sure was. For an anime that borrows its world functions from video games, DanMachi accomplishes what it had set out to do. It didn't place any further foresight as to how the macroeconomics of its world operates but that's fine since no one was expecting it to do so in the first place. What I was expecting, however, was better pacing, to be more specific, pacing that wasn't the equivalency of the show trying to belch out the alphabet in one breath. After the introductory episodes (1-3) in which the show maintained a steady pace, it then began to rush through plot points and character introductions at breakneck speeds. Where we were initially given a few episodes to establish the person's backstory, personality, and motivation, the show later attempts the same kind of effort in just one episode. It's as if the show had plans for 2-Cours and was later informed by the studio heads that they canceled plans for the 2nd season, and in a state of panic, the creators condensed everything in its screenplay into whatever schedueled episodes they had left. It's jarring, to say the least, doubly so when plot points are whizzing by without any proper setup or payoff. Shit sorta just... happens. But what did have staying power was a pair of underage sweater puppies. The kind of visual eye-candy that's predestined to overshadow the rest of the characters involved. The characters of DanMachi is of your garden variety, with many having indistinguishable personality traits from other shows. Our protagonist, Bell Cranel, is your typical dense bishounen beta-male who always strive to do the right thing. The kind of boy scout character that you just want to strangle repeatedly for his unrealistic amount of idealism. And like most protagonists of this ilk, he too has the uncanny ability to attract every female character in the series for no real reason whatsoever. But he isn't the one that the show would be remembered for, that honor lies with Hestia. In the same way that Yuno Gasai is more popular than the show she's a part of, so too is DanMachi's mascot, Hestia. Infamous for her boob ribbon, Breastia has become the subject matter of many fan arts, sending manchildren the world over clambering for their body pillows. With a bubbly personality and an extreme infatuation for our pussy protagonist, she's ideal power fantasy material for anyone that chooses to self-insert themselves into the show. The only "depth" found here is in the endless cleavage birthed from her unnaturally huge milk jugs. A character who's only purpose is to serve as someone's 2D desktop waifu. But even this cheap trophy-wife model offers more to like than the show's designated love interest. Aiz Wallenstein, the girl of Bell's affection, does not compute emotion. With the personality of a brick wall and the combat ability of a one-man-army, she's mostly just an idolized Mary Sue placed in the story to be Bell's object of admiration. Outside of that, her nonpresence has made her nothing but a goal for Bell to reach. The rest of the cast is mostly forgettable tag-along members that fall into one of three camps: a.) another female for Bell's harem b.) another female for Bell's harem c.) Welf Crozzo, the one trick pony Similar to how underbaked the character writing was, the production as a whole also underperformed. The presentation of DanMachi is a mixed bag of passable to awful. There are moments where the show boasts decently-choreographed action scenes that get you pumped up, only to be followed up by jarring CGI monsters and choppy animation. This lack of consistency can be contributed to J.C.Staff's workload, as they were also adapting Shokugeki no Soma during the same period they worked on DanMachi, which could have resulted in an improper allocation of manpower. The art, for the most part, was appealing, with suitable color choices that made the landscapes and characters pop. The peppy tone in which the characters moved and carefree disposition in how its world was colored to life helped compensate where other departments failed. As far as the soundtrack was concerned, there isn't much to say. The opening theme is your standard j-pop track, far from distinctive when placed in a crowd, and could easily be replaced without making so much of a difference. And like most medieval fantasy shows before it, this too has a very standard soundtrack, using all the bells and whistles you'd expect from something trying to portray that period. That basic Celtic music in pub/Inn settings and those usual orchestral choir sections during fight scenes. It's all very standard. And that's basically DanMachi in a nutshell, a show trying to portray things it can't fully grasp and coming off middling because of it. ****SPOILER SECTION****** Because of the erratic pacing and contrived plotting, every other episode of Danmachi has the main character receiving a power-up of some sort. 1st we find out that he has "unlimited potential," in other words, he's a borderline overpowered beta-male. And then, only two episodes later, he's handed another powerful weapon that he never earns. By the 5th episode, he gets a book that conveniently teaches him fire magic. And if that wasn't enough, he gets an ability to KO any opponent as a last ditch final attack only a few episodes after. And this trend of gaining a new advantage never stops either, happening all the way up to the very finale of the show, robbing the purpose behind even creating a coming-of-age story. The show actively fights against the idea of earned rewards. And to put the icing on the shit cake, we find out he's a Demigod as well, as if being plot armored and overpowered wasn't enough of a buffer. And then there were introductions to people that amount to nothing at all. For example, characters like Welf Crozzo was given a backstory, motivation and character introduction within one episode just to serve the role of a plot device. A character whose entire purpose in the narrative is to be Bell's blacksmith, yet is marketed as a defining side character despite the rushed-job given to indoctrinate him into the group. This isn't just an isolated incident either, as every character introduced after the third episode mark is simply pushed off an assembly line with no time given to even let the "archetype" that is their paint to dry. So at the end of the day, you're not watching this because it has something to offer, you're watching it because there's nothing else to do. ****END OF SPOILERS**** Going into DanMachi, all I expected to get out of it was easy-to-consume entertainment, and that's precisely what I got. Because of its simplistic story and surface-level depiction, I never felt frustrated watching it since the show never gave me a reason to care, to begin with. With DanMachi, what you see is what you get. It's a show that isn't trying to be more than what it is and is honest about that. And while that's a commendable attribute, it just isn't enough to be anything more than just that. It's easygoing content that offers nothing else when it's all said and done. DanMachi is the intermission title you watch before watching your next "must watch" series. An anime that will forever be remembered for a pair of loli boobs than it will for anything else.

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