Souichi, our main character, is a sweet young man. I'm assuming he's in his early twenties based on context clues. He moves away to Tokyo to achieve his dreams of becoming a musical sensation. He will take the world by storm for his love of Swedish pop music. However, that doesn't happen at all. Instead, he goes to the wrong music producer, and his musical career takes a 180. He becomes Krauser II. Destroyer of worlds and murderer of parents. He's done all the drugs, fucked all of the holes, and chucked every CRT out of every hotel window. There's also Jagi, the bassist for DMC. And Camus, the drummer. I'm sure there is someone out there who legitimately cares for these characters. I'm not one of them. They do, however, have their fair share of funny moments. Jagi is a playboy, constantly hitting on women. And Camus is a weird, perverted freak who mumbles his words. They're only like this in their personal lives.
Detroit Metal City heavily relies on crass and vulgar humor. I've noticed in more recent years that some people label Detroit Metal City's sense of humor to be offensive. Some see that as a positive thing, and some don't. Some of these people can't handle certain words being said out loud. Despite the fact that words have no real power unless you give them power. Words and language are completely made up and mean nothing unless you give them meaning. The reason why the word "Fuck" is considered to be such a bad and taboo word is because we made it that way. In reality, it has no real meaning and was made up by some douche who is probably dead. Or it probably originates from some Germanic word that I'm not aware of. I mention all of this because some people have a problem with Krauser's "Ten Vocialized Rapes in One Second." Essentially his signature. And a bunch of other bizarre rape jokes spread throughout the series. They're not that funny, but they don't bother me either. Characters also say "Fuck" a lot, and that's the punchline. Usually a joke in Detroit Metal City boils down to a character overusing the word "Fuck." That's all. Who cares. This especially applies to the final episode, and the manager of the band. She doesn't have a name, by the way. They just call her "Manager" or "President" and nothing else. Or maybe she does have a name and I already forgot it. And sorry about my unusual take on language. That went on for a while. My personal issue with the comedy is that this style of humor just seems shocking for the sake of being shocking. Which I guess you could argue that that's the entire point of Detroit Metal City. However, the show's attempts at humor are so try-hard and forced that most of the time I don't even end up laughing. Humor is subjective blah blah blah yada yada yada, we all know. You could also make the argument that Detroit Metal City's humor is so exaggerated because DMC themselves are an exaggerated version of a black metal band. I don't know. I Just found the humor lame. I can think of a few other shows that also have a similar style of humor. Like Panty and Stocking. Does nothing for me. I'm sure people love it, but I'm too jaded to actually care.
Another part of the show I haven't mentioned yet is that Souichi has an old friend from his hometown. Her name is Aikawa. She is the textbook definition of pure and innocent. She isn't aware that Souichi is Krauser, so many jokes and scenarios are just Souichi protecting his alter ego. These jokes are fine, but I'm not in love with them either.
This next part of the review is very frustrating for me. I had already written an entire part ranting about DMC's manager and how she was voiced by Yuu Kobayashi. APPARENTLY, SHE ISN'T. I had just made the assumption without checking, but one day I decided to make sure I was correct. It's not Yuu Kobayashi at all. It's a completely different seiyuu who has the exact same last name. Ai Kobayashi, who sounds identical to Yuu Kobayashi. WHAT ARE THE CHANCES!? I understand that names can get very repetitive in Japan, but the fact that I was convinced she was Yuu Kobayashi for weeks, an entirely different seiyuu with no relation or connection, is hysterical. Man, I'm so embarrassed and upset. Most of what I had written doesn't apply anymore. I went on this long diatribe about how people love Yuu Kobayashi and how she's hysterical. I was of the same mind about seven or eight years ago, but now I find her sense of humor to be very scatological and obnoxious. She just screams like a maniac most of the time, and people eat that shit up. However, I guess this particular case applies to Ai Kobayashi. Her performance was pretty obnoxious. Her character in this anime is bizarre. I'm positive that 50% of her dialogue is her talking about how DMC's music makes her pussy wet. Usually, I would be on board with a character like this, considering how often I talk about and mention the word "pussy" in my reviews. Regardless, I found her dialogue rather tiresome and annoying. It's never funny after the first time. Sorry.
There was one joke I can remember off the top of my head that did make me laugh. DMC were in the middle of making they're debut album and Souichi was getting many letters from fans. Souichi reads a letter from a specific fan who is ill, and has to get surgery. This fan talks about how he's excited for the DMC debut album and wants to listen to it after his surgery, but there's a good chance that he might die if it fails. Souichi is moved by this letter and visits the fan as Krauser. It's a sweet scene and one of the few moments of the show where Krauser's soft side is displayed. He even brought him a basket of fruits. The emotions are building up, but it's revealed at the end of the episode that the fan was getting a circumcision and lied. That was hilarious. Can't believe I fell for that. Also, unrelated to this episode, but the song title "Fuckingham Palace" is fantastic. It's a song made by a completely different character and band, don't worry about it.
Visually, Detroit Metal City is essentially a moving manga. It doesn't bother me, but the characters in motion look absolutely goofy and ridiculous. The character designs are not my cup of tea either. Some of the background characters are a little ugly, but I don't mind. The show, in general, looks silly. The only outlier would probably be the OP, which is one other positive I will mention. Satsugai is a great song, and I would highly recommend listening to it if you haven't. The OP is the only well animated part of this entire anime. Go figure.
Overall, I thought Detroit Metal City was fine. Entertaining, but fine. It was never as funny as people made it out to be, and it was on my watch list since 2016. I mostly wanted to get it out of the way, but I was expecting so much more. This is another reason why you shouldn't trust MAL scores, kids. They're usually a little overblown and deceiving. And hey, if you hate this review, don't worry. Always remember that human language has no meaning. Language is just a human construct. So if you hate this review, it means nothing :^)
I hope I made this review long enough to turn people away. I hope no one reads it. It's not great, but I'm going to upload it anyway. Happy Halloween. :)
6.66 out of 10. Hail Satan.
