Ranked #131

Detroit Metal City

It’s about a reserved young lad, Negishi, moving to the city of debauchery that is Tokyo and fronting a death metal band, as Krauser II, even though he would rather be at home drinking green tea and listening to laid back indie pop.

It’s tear-inducingly hilarious.

DMC's humour is similar to Cromartie High School in its lunacy, albeit more traditional in narrative-stakes, and it’s also more unrelenting and risqué with its filthy potty mouth and explicit scenarios usually involving casual public simulated rape. Rape isn’t funny, but when it involves a young man dressed like an 80's prog rock gone wrong band member who looks a bit like a tranny furiously thrusting his groin against a piece of government property in order to placate his maniacal fans, well, it’s pretty damn funny then.

DMC's cast of deranged characters, animated by the ever-brilliant Studio 4c, liven up every scene they're in, thanks to each episode's short length. There are no typical anime-style long pans or random shots of furniture or scenery wasting our time. Instead we get scenes crammed with Negishi getting mistreated, usually by DMC's violently blunt dominatrix manager, although if we're extra lucky we'll also get a scene where DMC drummer Nishida opens his mouth, or the DMC S&M mascot Pig of Capitalism frolics on stage.

One of the masterstrokes of this show, perhaps the main stroke of genius and source of such mirth, is the voice acting. Particularly the pacing. The dialogue is sublime in its breezy and hushed volume; actors regularly speak in normal conversational tones, and cut each other off with off-the-cuff remarks about nonsensical things and then scenes cut away immediately without giving anyone time to breath. The ultimate affect is hilarity, as you might see in Brit comedy skit shows and such.

Detroit Metal City's secret weapon are the maniacal fans mentioned earlier. Their commentary on the main band's hijinks are comedy gold, their crazy antics all in the name of their beloved musical heroes creates most of the show's best scenes, although having said that we shouldn’t ignore the main frontman of DMC himself, whether its Negishi or Krauser we're watching, his two identities continually spiral further and further into increasingly awkward and humiliating situations, that usually involve simulated rape and assault.

If any criticism could be thrown at DMC, it would be that the show doesn’t seriously explore the concept of losing your sense of identity when you're fronting such a ridiculous band, but then any focus on such an admittedly good topic as that would have robbed the show of precious laughs and scenes of humiliating sexual harrasment so in the end comedy wins over gravitas. read more

Detroit Metal City is a rapid fire comedy about the rise of the death metal band, DMC to prominence. It is also about the protagonist, Negishi, coping with his placement in a style of music unlike that of what he dreams to perform--Scandanavian Pop.

Animation - 7
The animation itself was pretty lacking, but the art style I really liked. It seemed quite clearly inspired by Mike Judge and Beavis and Butthead. It's a little crazy to me that I think this is a good thing, but it really does add something special as a bit of a frame of reference. As a matter of fact, I think that the animation was rather rudimentary in that mid 90's cheap way also. Things were jerky and lacked a lot of fluidity, but on the flipside, this style is a perfect match with the pace of the comedy. Because this is a series of OVAs, it's hard to tell if this was a conscious artistic decision or budgetary restraints. With that said there was really no drop in the animation at all, so I'd wrack it up to a bit of the both.

Sound - 8
The voice actors all do a very good job of capturing the comedic essence of their characters and don't ever disappoint in delivery. The best job is by far done by the actor for Negishi (not Krauser) not just because the nervousness and anxiety in his voice was always hilarious, despite what he was saying; but also because of his singing voice. What is ultimately very interesting about the music to me was that the parody pop music was so undeniably catchy that I found myself really liking everytime that Negishi would bust out his acoustic guitar. The metal is not my cup of tea, so I really can't say left or right whether or not it was good. What I will say is that the crafting of one of the pop songs into its metal counterpart was very well done.

Characters - 8
The characters are archetypes that aren't found very often in anime, much less comedy, so the use of them especially as main characters is very refreshing. That said, because the show is about Negishi as Krauser, there is little to no development done for any of the supporting characters. For a slapstick comedy, I think that there is a good bit of development for Negishi who struggles with being tossed into the opposite genre of his choice. There are a couple of episodes that hilariously yet poignantly deal with his resolve to hold the mantle of Krauser, and they were quite unexpected. Beyond that the characters serve their purpose well, if not a little to redundantly.

Story - 7
The story is basically this: Negishi makes a fool of himself differentiating Krauser from his daily life, often in interference in his romantic aspirations for Yuki; Krauser has crazy antics onstage and with fans; and here and there, the double lives that DMC fans lead. Most of the story in each episode is focused mainly on the first element, which is a shame, because certain jokes quickly got old after the third episode, and could have had the edge taken off of it by the third element, which went rather unused despite having some very funny moments.

Enjoyment - 9
Had it not been for the blatant overuse of jokes, this could have been a ten, but I specifically remember wanting to fast forward through certain parts because it just felt like a copy/paste of dialogue with different scenery. Despite that, I laughed good and hard through much of the show, and for a comedy, this is rare.

Overall - 8
Detroit Metal City is a very good comedy series that I hope has redefined some of the conventions of anime in the execution of comedy. The pace never really let up for a second with quick dialogue and running through gags and punchlines at rapid succession. It never relies on the expectations of jaded viewers for moe fanservice or generally overused gags (even if it did overuse some of its own). DMC may be remembered and copied for years to come. read more