- Episodes: 24 + 2 OAV
- Published: 04 (JP) 05 (US)
Antispiral – Hi there everyone, and welcome to another Anime Twin’s review! Well we’re finally out of the Lodoss universe this time, and we’ve moved back to Earth. Not modern day Earth mind you, Earth sometime in the future, after the entire planet’s been flooded, leaving only small mountain top bits of land, as well as a group of floating cities. Welcome to the Earth of Daphne in the Brilliant Blue.
Tenjobito – The story more or less follows a young woman named Maia Mizuki. When we meet her she’s just finished her exam to get into the Ocean Agency, a sort of multinational peacekeeping/military organization. However, she’s rejected and it ends up she had no back up plans for jobs. With her old place already vacated and very little money, she eventually falls into the not so tender care of the Nereids Kamchatka branch, the local branch of a multinational corporation that will do any job for a price, no matter the danger.
Antispiral – Most of the series revolves around the Nereids and their various adventures, especially the first half of the series. Each of the women in the group has a very stereotyped personality that they play up, from Shizuka’s overly trusting air headedness to Gloria’s shoot first attitude. Even the antagonists, when they’re recurring, are fairly one dimensional. That said, the second half of the series takes a deeper twist, going into not only Maia’s mysterious past, but also the past of the floating cities themselves, coming off as a lot more serious than the almost slapstick first half.
Tenjobito – Apart from “wacky hijinks” and the picking up of Maia’s plot, the biggest part of the series is the fanservice. It seems the work uniform of the Nereids consists of skin tight bikini things, c-strings, hotpants, and the like, all showing off bodies that are generically toned to a T. It never gets R rated, certainly only pg13 hijinks, but it’s an inescapable fact that the series is certainly playing up on it, with a frankness we haven’t seen since our Divergence Eve review (though perhaps Demon King Daimo gets there).
Antispiral – Much like in Divergence Eve, no one seems to notice how things are overly sexed though. There WAS one comment from an old couple about one of the characters dressing like a hussy once in the series, but that wasn’t even one of their “work” uniforms. Generally, they all seem to traipse about in their more gone then there outfits surrounded by criminals, police, or even the general public, with no one batting an eyelash.
That said, Daphne also reminds me of Divergence Eve in the fact that the creators seemed to aim for a look that would be overly sexy, yet seem to instead just make characters that end up boring and one dimensional. That’s not only in appearance (as flashy as they try to be), but as if the creators made their eichi characters and tried to build a story around that.
Tenjobito – It IS rather tropey in its characters, though no more so than many series. And I certainly found the characters more interesting than Divergence Eve, though perhaps part of that was the pretty good quality of voice acting.
All around though, if I had to give a grade to Daphne myself I’d be talking about the C+ to B range; It definitely fits into the early 2000’s brand of “ecchi action” animes along with Burst Angel, Divergence Eve, or Vandread (which we have yet to review I realize). But either way, it has a plot I was actually interested to see to the end, good voice acting, some humor that actually had both Anti and I laughing out loud, it doesn’t overly use the CG that can plague some of these things, and I personally found something to like in some of the characters. Clearly though this series is NOT high art, and it lacks depth, teeth, and any shine that would make it actually stand out above and beyond other animes.
Antispiral – I can see that in some senses. I will certainly say I think the second half of the series saves it from utter mediocrity, since the plot involving Maia’s past catches my attention quite more than the random antics of the first half, even if there’s some humor there. Even then, I’d give it a little lower grade than you because, while the positives aspects were good, there over the top eichi design visually, along with the one dimensional characters (other than Maia) meant that the series just had less to hold onto me and keep me interested.
If you can get past the horrible character design and somewhat slow first half, the second half makes the series worth a view. Just get ready to roll your eyes a few times.
Tenjobito – Higher opinions of inanity and cheesecake from me is pretty par for the course. So take that how you will folks!
Antispiral – Anyway, that’s that. Stay tuned for a series that we’ll hopefully have a little more to say about next time!
Thousand Years of Darkness Anime Reviews 