Ranked #655

Shugo Chara!! Doki

No one has written a review after viewing all the episodes yet, so I thought I should. Despite all the fillers in the first half, it was the second quarter that ruined this series for me. They had canon, manga material to work with - and they completely butchered it, rewriting it so that the story made no sense and the characters were out of character.

The story is about Amu and her love life just as much as it is about the Embryo, and it's important to the story and character development that we see that Amu is starting to fall in love with Ikuto, who loves her for who she is. The manga is a lot more obvious about this than the anime. In the manga, Amu is obviously falling further and further in love with Ikuto, and as he leaves to search for his father, she rushes to him at the airport. He kisses her and tells her 'I'll definitely make you fall in love with me - be prepared' before he boards the plane. This was obviously a very important moment, but was cut completely from the anime.

The airport scene was replaced with Amu telling Tadase how much she loves him and not Ikuto, which makes no sense at all. Amu even admits to herself that she's falling in love with Ikuto, and her Shugo Charas realize it as well, so why such a butchered ending? I can't see how the third series is going to fix it, either.

There were also a lot of other 'Amuto' scenes cut from this series and a lot of romance between Tadase and Amu added. From the bedroom scenes between Amu and Ikuto, where they snuggled a lot more than is shown in the anime, to Amu wrapping her arms around Ikuto, and Tadase realizing that she's in love with Ikuto as well. They were replaced with 'shout your love contests' and dates between Amu and Tadase. Amu is meant to be developing from a 'confused and lost' girl who had a crush on the popular 'prince' who only loves one side of her, to a mature character who has fallen in love with somone who really needs and understands her. The anime completely ruined this development, and Amu hasn't matured at all like she has in the manga.

The music and art weren't bad, although I don't think Ikuto's songs were as sad as they were described in the manga, and I preferred the music from season one.

All in all, I was very disappointed, and recommend that Ikuto fans read the manga instead in order to understand the true magnitude of Ikuto's and Amu's relationship.

read more

Spoiler warning if you are not caught up.

If this were the first season, you can believe I would've given this series a high rating. Unfortunately, it's not, so I didn't. Shugo Chara! Doki is basically the bullet in the gun that killed most, if not all of it's fans.

Story:
This sequel starts off by bombarding the viewer with filler after annoying, useless filler. And it continues for at least a full 15 episodes. It adds a stupid "plot twist" by introducing the idea that basically anyone who is momentarily depressed can Character transform. I hated this the most out of the whole story. I felt as though the whole premise in the first season (one can only transform with an actual chara and the ability to Chara Change)was completely ignored.

Art:
The art was probably the highest point in this series. Although it started out nice, it seemed that the more I watched it, the more deformed the art had become. Or perhaps I didn't notice it before...either way, I noticed that most of the deformities had been associated with the face. How the head and eyes had been enlarged and facial features began looking spaced too far apart. For the most part, I did enjoy the clothing, but that's mostly it.

Sound:
I liked the OPs and EDs for the first season. I found them to be quite catchy, "iPod" worthy I guess. But I didn't enjoy any of the OP's in Doki. They bored and annoyed me and I found them to be wayyyy to girly. x_X At points I thought the BGM was only there to sound cute, since it didn't seem to match the mood of the situation. The Seiyuus fit their roles nicely, though no one really stood out.

Character:
Basically Amu hasn't changed much except the whole "with Tadase" thing. Tadase, same except for the reason why he hates Ikuto is revealed. Yaya, annoying and same. Although when it comes to Ikuto, you basically learn about his story and how he actually doesn't want Amu to worry about him. Other characters are introduced, Lulu and her chara Nana. Lulu's basically a snob who wants to make her mother happy and her chara is probably THEE most annoying chara in the series. Then like 20 supporting characters introduced who do nothing except fill up the episode.

Enjoyment:
I greatly dislike this series. The humor that was once there is now gone, all that's left is crappy, awkward, forced comedy; the likes of which would put Rima to shame. It's filled with stupid fillers that make you want to tear your brain stem out. In my opinion, the only reason worth watching is to see what happens to Ikuto. I would have dropped this about 15 episodes back, except that I had hoped that it would get better. Now the only reason I'm sticking with it is because I would feel like all the time spent watching would be wasted if I didn't follow through. read more