Anime Hajime Review: DRAMAtical Murder

Series Synopsis

The small island of Midorijima has been turned into a paradise resort. For those who can afford it, the island is heaven on Earth. Everyone else is forced to live in the residential district. Here street gangs, called Ribstiez, are vying for control of the city.

Hoping to live a simple life amongst the tension is Aoba Seragaki (voiced by Atsushi Kisaichi). Although he has close ties to several Ribstiez, Aoba has no interest in joining. He has even less desire to participate in the new virtual reality fighting game, Rhyme, which has taken the town by storm.

Unfortunately, Aoba is ambushed and forced to battle. To his surprise however, he taps into a mysterious power allowing him to easily best his opponent. Through this, Aoba discovers he has the ability to control people’s minds with only his voice.

Once people learn of his talent, Aoba becomes a target and a plot is uncovered which could result in the enslavement of every human mind on the planet.

Series Positives

DRAMAtical Murder...the f@#$ does that even mean.

The short answer is no I didn’t like this one. What makes it worse, I thought it was going to be good.

Aoba

The first two episodes had me completely sold on the idea or at least the idea I believed was going to happen.

This series reminded me a lot of K in terms of set up and premise. We were introduced to a town which had been broken up by competing gangs similar to how it was with K’s Kings and clansmen. The difference was, everyone knew about it.

Koujaku

DRAMAtical Murder brought its own spin with the inclusion of an up and coming virtual reality battle games which was quickly engrossing the city. Many gang members were choosing to disassociate and focus their attention on the new fad. This began to upset the balance of power.

Noiz

Then there was Aoba who was close with the higher ups of a few of the most powerful and respected Ribstiez, but who had no interest in such a life style. This made him a neutral player in what appeared to be an upcoming faceoff. Adding to this, Aoba possessed a power which would have allowed him to drastically change the course of the conflict.

Mix all that with the promise of cool virtual action, mind battles, and overall badass-ery. I’m sorry if I got a little hooked. Too bad none of that ended up happening and instead we were left with this.

Clear

The first two episodes of this show established themselves as the precursor to something which could have been amazing. Okay, so “amazing” might be a little strong of a word, but it would have still been a lot more fun.

The Characters

This is the one thing from the opening episodes which managed to stay consistently fine; for the most part, but I’ll get to that in a second.

The main cast of DRAMAtical Murder is an interesting group. It's clear where the show’s focus was for the payoff is evident. By the end of the series, you at least like the majority of these character and don’t want to see them fail or go away.

Koujaku (voiced by Hiroki Takahashi) and Noiz (voiced by Satoshi Hino), for example, weren’t awful by any stretch of the imagination. They served their roles fine and made for a decently lively rivalry. Koujaku with his friendly demeanor and Noiz who couldn’t give less of a s@#$, it was nice to see these two go at it. Their polar opposite personalities clashed at the right times, but when they had to work together they made an affective team.

Clear (voiced by Masatomo Nakazawa) was a great character; I really liked him. Perhaps that should be taken with a tiny grain of salt since he was the best thing when compared to the rest of the show's nonsense. He was lively, energetic, and funny when he needed to be. Wearing a mask for almost half the show didn't hurt either. It gave him an air of mystery. True his face reveal might have been completely anti-climactic, but his backstory made up for most of it.

Ren (voiced by Ryota Takeuchi) was another good character. Plus he was the most useful. It’s interesting, when he was first introduced, I thought he was going to be nothing more than the cute sidekick. However, Ren turned into something much more tangible. It was his and Clear’s story line I found myself caring the most about.

Spearing heading it all was Aoba who, to be honest, was too good for this series. He did all the things I like to see in a lead. Aoba was reliable, he asked questions, and he could tell someone to piss off when necessary. Then when given the chance, he could be pretty cool. His mind powers were portrayed well, but unfortunately they weren't portrayed very often.

Oh yeah, and there’s Mink (voiced by Kenichiro Matsuda). F@#$ this guy. Every time he was on screen he was an annoying asshole. Sure it’s unfortunate that the entirety of his people were wiped out, but I’m positive he was a still dick before that happened. He was tolerable at first since he didn’t do, like, anything. But then, for reasons, he eclipsed Koujaku, Noiz, and Clear’s roles in the series. Thankfully, it was Ren and Aoba’s relationship that closed of the story.

So Mink aside, the rest of DRAMAtical Murder’s cast made it so this show wasn’t a complete waste of time.

Series Negatives

It’s so boring. That’s what it really comes down to. This show is just so god damn boring. We were treated to this one decent, fully serviceable, action scene in the virtual world showing casing Aoba’s potential in episode two and then NOTHING AFTER THAT!

Sure an occasional fist fight would break out, but even these rare instances were lackluster at best.

We established Aoba could more or less us his powers whenever he needed to. Or at the very least, it didn't take much to trigger them. Why then were they seldom used?

I don’t want to hear it was because he risked completely destroying a person’s consciousness. I understand that was a huge issue, but it was also only one part of his abilities. Aoba could control people with just voice. That’s a rather handy trick he never pulled out.

At least I thought the climax was going to have something. There you would have two people with the ability to manipulate the mind. Surely that would've had a few cool moments. No it was disappointing too. Mostly because Aoba simply stood there and the fight just ended.

It could be argued that the main point of this standoff was for Aoba to save his opponent. You know, make him feel like he was worth something and that people were there for him. And it would've probably been fine had we not heard the same f@#$ing speech four times before this moment.

Big shock, but Aoba had to go into the minds of friends and save them from their inner demons. The first time was alright, but it wasn’t worth redoing with everyone. Plus, it didn’t help having absolutely zero tension or threat during these moments. Never once did I get the sense Aoba was going to fail or struggle that hard. These were formalities, nothing else.

I think it’s becoming a little clearer as to why this series ticked me off a tad. Everything started off great and it seemed as if DRAMAtical Murder was going to be something worth talking about. Instead the story turned into a generic save the world from the evil guy plot. By the way, that’s what I think was going on; I can’t tell you for sure. Whatever may have been happening, I can at least say it got solved easily.

Then you need to take into account the things I haven’t mentioned. Horrid pacing, questionable editing, details that went nowhere, and a story which had unnecessary amounts of padding. As I said, I didn’t like this one.

Final Thoughts

DRAMAtical Murder is the definition of a bait and switch.

If you do chose to watch this series and after the first few episodes you begin to think I’m being a little harsh, there’s a reason for that. This show starts off as something potentially fun. However, it suddenly turns into a boring mess of bull crap.

From promising to disappointment, that’s the best way to describe DRAMAtical Murder. But seriously, what does that title even mean?

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