Misute♡naide Daisy

Great stories can be told about psychopaths who are obsessed with imprisoning their victims, whom they love and fear. Stephen King's _Misery_, for example, is a decent story about a writer who is held captive by a mentally imbalanced fan of his work.

"Don't Leave Me Alone Daisy" casts the psychopath as a lovable boy and the victim as a lovable, but terminally stupid and passive, girl. And then it deals with this horrific premise as if it were a light romantic comedy.

The opening theme song is notably good. The art is mediocre.

The characters are unlikable. It's bad enough being a madman ... who wants to imprison the object of his affection, but maybe a good actor could make such a character sympathetic -- much like Hannibal Lector became a sympathetic anti-hero. But when the madman is basically a boring nobody with a poorly-explained trove of advanced weapons and technology, there is no drama.

It's painful enough to watch a story about a girl who passively suffers, or a story about a girl who makes a doomed rebellion against her unjust fate. But the victim in this story communicates nothing other than her lack of consent. She will say something like, "Hey, don't do that, I won't let you," and then lapse into idiotic passivity. Somehow, watching a brainless doormat get tramped on is even worse than watching a sympathetic character get trampled on.

This anime is beyond salvaging. The victim-girl is already a doormat. Don't be a doormat. Don't watch this anime.

This review CONTAINS MOSTLY SPOILERS. Read with caution.

This will be a rant basically, but I will make sure to explain my reasoning for the aspects that I hated.

I collect anime VHS. I found this as a box set, seems to be pretty rare and I was happy to own it! I did minimal research onto what the show was about, the box art made it seem pretty self explanatory and I watched an official trailer for the show which made it seem interesting... I was not prepared for what this show actually was.

The synopsis written for this anime is a little bit over ... exaugurated in some ways, but that doesn't excuse what this anime IS about. Techno is a stalker with no redeeming qualities and gets his hopes set on a girl named Hitomi. He claims ownership over her immediately to which she refuses. BUT, he insists and uses gadgets and experiments to get his way no matter what she says.

There are many aspects about the "relationship" that forcefully develops between these two that aren't ever good. He is nothing but awful to her and to everyone else in this show. It was very uncomfortable to watch as the show TRIES to frame Techno as sympathetic and attempts to get you to side with him. But, his actions are inexcusable and NEVER change. It doesn't help that despite all of the characters in the show hating what he does, he ALWAYS gets his way.

It gets to the point with Hitomi, who Techno has named "Daisy" since he thinks he owns her, starts to fear a life without him there. She constantly hates what he does, yet she's now so used to it that she fears being alone. If you do a quick Google search on "Why don't some people leave bad relationships" the first thing it says is "fear of being alone"... that is the title of the show. Don't Leave Me Alone Daisy is not about a relationship that starts terribly but through learning different things that occurred in Techno's past blossoms into a mutual understanding and a more healthy relationship... it is about an unhealthy, abusive, and manipulative relationship that the creators try to get you to root for.

The beginning premise could have been done well, but they write no redeeming qualities for Techno and it ends with nothing changed besides Daisy's mind somehow. Its really unsettling and hard to watch at some point. I was baffled that it ended that way. Since they gave Techno no redeeming qualities at all, it just does not work AT ALL. Take this situation for example... if someone is bullying others that's not good at all. However, the bully is only acting out because they are self conscious or something. The takeaway from that is NOT "Oh man I'm so sorry. You can keep bullying me". If you see what I'm trying to say here....

The fact that it ends (SPOILERS) with Techno getting his way despite having no character development or growth. It is mind blowing and results in a show with almost no redeeming qualities.

With all of that being said, are there ANY good things about this show? Yeah, sure! The music is all pretty good! I'm a sucker for this era that the anime came out in and the art style is something I do enjoy. And ONE character is memorable and fun, even if he's just played off as a punching bag, that being "X".

So would I recommend Don't Leave Me Alone Daisy? No, I would not genuinely recommend this to anyone at all. The best thing it has going for it is just the fact that its so bad and if you want a good "hate watch" it may do the trick. As long as you're not there for the "its so bad that its funny" type of entertainment you get from low budget horror movies or something like that. Here, you get the "its appalling that this exists and that they want me to root for this horrible character".

Thank you for reading this. I HAD to talk about it and I had A LOT to say.