| about
trismugistus.com
and digital-bondage.net
are my web sites.
trismugistus.com
is where I upload my anime, manga and tv&film reviews,
and also where I occasionally post short stories and
longer works I've written.
digital-bondage.net
is my wallpaper site and provides anime, manga and other
desktop wallpapers in a variety of resolutions. I also
have a few tutorials and some resources, such as psds
for you to download.
I also run a site called scan-city.org,
which provides scans from the latest japanese anime
magazines for you to download and use in your wallpapers.
You can also read my blog here
or check out my anime list here. |
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| details |
| The Genre: Romantic Comedy with fan-service
elements |
| The Format: 13 episodes across 4 DVDs from
Geneon. |
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| The plot: One year ago, a spacecraft carrying
a group of aliens crashed in Tokyo Bay. Not possessing
any skills to return to where they came from,
they officially obtained Japanese citizenship
and were given the name of "DearS,"
which stands for "beloved friends."
In order to learn Japanese language and customs,
a home-stay program was created and they were
integrated into society. Then, one day, a high
school student named Takeya Ikuhara meets a mysterious
girl wrapped in a blanket. He reluctantly takes
the girl -- who is not only shivering from cold
and hunger, but who also doesn't seem to know
any language -- to his apartment...but the girl
turns out to be one of the DearS... |
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| opinion
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| I've talked before in my reviews about the
statement some new anime fans make about anime
being original and new; but if you've not read
one my little rants before, here's the jist:
Basically, many people new to anime often claim
that all anime is "new" and "original".
However, this is a very false impression. What
they're mistaking for newness and originality
is more about familiarity and perceptions.
In anime, a lot of stuff is just as recycled
and un-original as anything produced in the west,
or other cultures. However, it's just that what
they're recycling and re-telling are a set of
stories, or story structures, that these people
simply haven't encountered before.
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This therefore doesn't make them original
as such, just original to these people.
And it's sometimes funny to note that after
a while (either having seen a couple of
seasons worth of new anime, or having surfed
back over past series) these people often
end up claiming that newer series are poor,
and lack originality!
I think it's pretty obvious where I'm going
with this--DearS is far from the most original
of series out there.
It falls quite squarely into that ecchii/rom-com/harem-flavoured
group that you can guarantee there will
be at least one of each year. And unfortunately,
there's really nothing to make this incarnation
distinct from the crowd.
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Our protagonist is one Takeya, a high-school
student who happens to find, and rescue, an alien
girl. The girl is one of the DearS, a slave race
that crash-landed on Earth and is trying to blend
in. But this particular alien is a little bit
different from the others.
As it turns out, this alien is a kind of 'blank',
without any sort of education, or programming
or anything; not even a proper name. She does,
however, have a 'code number', and so she ends
up being called 'Ren' by Takeya.
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Takeya, for his part, fits very much into the
mould of a grumpy, but fundamentally kind-hearted
young man. However, he has a bit of an issue with
the DearS and isn't keen on them. The fact that
Ren ends up bonding with him and becoming his
slave, and hence staying with him is the source
of much of the plot of DearS.
If you can call it a plot, that is.
You see, the fundamental problem with DearS is
that nothing much of anything actually happens
beyond the first couple of episodes. And what
does happen is pretty formulaic.
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Takeya, of course, is in the rather enviable
position of either being surrounded by or
doted on by the utterly gorgeous women that
fill his life. In terms of human women,
there's really only Neneko at Takeya's age,
who fits into a nerdy, shy stereotype, and
has loved Takeya from afar since they were
childhood friends. But also there's his
sister, Natsuki who loves him too.
She's not really his sister, by the way,
she's the daughter of his father's second
wife. Here we find DearS only real deviation
from the standard models--Takeya clearly
fancies his 'mum' and this is actually why
he's living away from the family. This also
partly explains why he doesn't take advantage
of Ren or the other DearS when given the
opportunity.
And speaking of older women, Takeya's teacher,
Mitsuka, is a rampant sex-pest. Now, as
I've said, this isn't original (a stand-out
example of the type would be the teacher
in Mahoromatic), but they do take her to
an extraordinary extreme. Normally, these
teachers either mellow, or there character
is developed, or they just drop away, but
here Mitsuka is always 'on-song'.
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As the episodes come along we're introduced
to a whole menagerie of DearS who, presumably,
as slaves (including the sexual kind), are bred
to be pretty. They include Miu, Nia and Ayu, as
well as plenty more, some of whom are male.
The DearS society appears to be arranged into
three levels of Hierarchy. There are the sheep
(the slaves, like Ren and Miu), the sheepdogs
(or "barkers") and then the leaders,
or watchers, who are nominally in charge. Takeya's
clash--as someone who strongly believes in free-will
and choice, the diametric opposite of the DearS
purpose in life--forms the rest of the plot.
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The above probably makes the anime seem more
complex and involving than it really is, and really,
if you'd just watched the anime you probably wouldn't
pick up on half the points and subtleties I've
mentioned above. That's because the manga is much
deeper than the anime, and I've read 8 volumes
of the manga.
But even then, the manga isn't all that deep
either.
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The problem with the DearS manga is it
stays too rigidly stuck in its ecchii rom-com
genre. At its heart could be a very interesting
story about the struggle between the concepts
of duty and loyalty, and independence and
making choices, especially pertinent to
Japanese society. However, instead of exploring
these in any real depth, DearS focuses more
on showing us panties, or revealing yet
another secret crush one of the characters
has on Takeya.
It also tends to side-step plot development
in favour of introducing more and more characters.
The injection of these characters obviously
means that the series becomes more and more
bloated as it goes along, and many of them
really don't add anything other than a new
source of comedy or a new romantic possibility.
It's a shame, and it's an even bigger shame
that the anime shifts even more closely
towards the genre staples than the manga.
This shift also reveals a fundamental problem
at the heart of DearS--it's too much like
Chobits.
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Anyone vaguely familiar with Chobits will watch
DearS and, at the very least, be struck by a severe
sense of deja vu. Full fans of Chobits will probably
be more than a little annoyed at just how similar
they are.
Unfortunately, this similarity, combined with
one of the most predictable and cop-out like endings
I've seen in a while, is the proverbial straw
that breaks the proverbial camel's back, turning
it from a lack-lustre missed opportunity into
a down-right un-original rip off.
Overall, the DVD package is as fair-to-middling
as the series itself. The dub is okay, never quite
straying into bad or good, the extras are okay,
but nothing special, and the four disk package
represents entirely average value when compared
to other series' similar disk-to-episode ratios. |
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| summary |
| The Summary: Disappointing, basically--the
end, especially is very abrupt and unsatisfying. |
| The Score: 2/5 |
| The Pictures:
(click for larger versions) |
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