Demonbane TV

[Merryberry]

Demonbane TV
(a.k.a. Kishin Houkou Demonbane TV)

Synopsis, screenshots, recommendations ~ Add Recommendations


Discuss the completed anime or post full reviews here. Post format and full rules can be found here.
__________________________________________


I did see that there was a thread for the OVA, but wasn't one for the TV series, so I went about making one. I did a review for it, since I noticed that no-one had done so yet.

-----------

Story: 2

D is for Dreadful
D is for Dire
D also happens to be for Demonbane…

…notice the trend.

I rarely ever say this about an anime, but this is perhaps one of those ones out there that never deserved to have the time and effort wasted on making it. The plot tries to mix mecha and magic together, ultimately failing in a quagmire of typical power-ranger style fighting, whereby they fight each other with magic before retreating into their vast mecha to continue on from where they left off…this time just surrounded by a flimsy bit of metal.
It wouldn’t have been so bad had the story been anything other than this, but alas, the makers must have thought they were onto something, or maybe not, since it’s only 12 episodes long (that’s 12 episodes too long). Poor excuses with the typical style hero doing typical style fighting against your typical style bad guys who are just there to do their typical taking over the world.
Script-wise, the show is exceptionally poorly written. It seems that the writer thought that every character should be shouting either the enemy who they are fighting name (must be because they’ve all suffer from exceptionally poor memory and thus have to keep reminding themselves) and also explaining exactly what they’re doing (because telling the enemy the moves your performing is a really sensible thing to do). As a result, the show lacks any form of surprise, interest or a true direction.
The magic book that take a human form is perhaps the only interesting aspect of the series. This series lacks everything, with entire episodes built solely around getting to the mecha stage. Seriously, it’s dire, dreadful, disastrous and whatever other words of general badness that could be strung together.
Plot was like a worn piece of string, so thin that you could predict what was going to happen and so fine that it often didn’t account for anything.

Visuals: 3

The animations are average, with some parts lacking desperately while others are just plain ordinary. Even the mecha fights don’t really show the true appreciation of “3D modelling” instead, the attempts just look bad and flawed, failing to blend CGI with the normal animation. You can tell parts where they clearly didn’t put any effort into it. In addition to this some of the lip syncing is off with the Japenese speaking, which is again just poor effort in the production of Demonbane. I wouldn’t have minded had it been an old anime, but released in 2006, it must certainly be one of the poorer end of the spectrum.
You just wished that the fighting wasn’t so repetitive, but it seems that the visual effects seem to mimic scripted style of the fighting, with the same moves accompanying the action.

Sound: 6

Perhaps with the rest of the slating that Demonbane has received from me, it comes as a surprise that the only redeeming feature of this show is the soundtrack. It’s not absolutely brilliant, but it does what is needed to support the action on screen. The ending song is actually rather nice and seems to be like a hidden gem embedded within something that truly doesn’t deserve it.
The voicing within the series is not what I could truly say is the usual standard offered by animes. Certainly, they are dreadful, but they aren’t that good either and sometimes you wish that they’d actually written the show in a way that made the voice actors/actresses actually work for their money instead of just repeating the same phrase time and time again.
The opening was rather standard and plain and although it might have helped get you in the mood for the anime, it wasn’t that much of interest to sit through and listen to.

Characters: 1

Welcome to the world of your general typical characters. Introduce the main hero - a man who never really finished becoming the mage he could have done and likes to act like a hero. The heroine a book who is just your plain female who falls deeply in love with the hero despite their differences. Your young female general, who likes to feel important in a command room and whine a lot about numbers and things that shouldn’t be done. A mad scientist who, like all mad scientists, builds upgraded versions of robots to continue coming back to annoy the hero. And lastly, but not least, your good old evil bad guy who likes to do his evil things and merely extend the lifespan of the hero for some unknown-not-ever-told reason.
Because of this, it doesn’t really matter what you’ve seen before, you’ve seen all these characters before and they’ve got the depth of an ironing board, and probably the consistency of one as well.

Overall: 2

One of the very few shows that I wouldn’t recommend, unless you enjoy something to heckle at. The script was exceptionally poor and you wished that it would get away from the game style element that it was based upon to actually producing something original than being tided down by the original game it was taken from. In addition to this, the animation quality is below average for a show made in the year that brought us Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.
I was tempted half way through to start a drinking game, downing one every time someone said anothers name, since the entire show loved shouting it at the top of their voices. If there wasn’t any other show of this type made, it wouldn’t be a bad thing, but a blessing, since few could achieve this level of badness even if they tried. So fine something better to do instead with your time, perhaps re-watch a series you have only recently seen or if that seems boring, stare at the wall for 4 hours…it’d be a more constructive use of your time.

[VivisQueen]

Oooh, I liked your review. I shall be avoiding Demonbane in future. Thanks for the warning!

[Sheex]

Heya Merry, thanks for submitting. =)

I apologize with the delay, but I've been terribly busy with real life stuff and haven't hardly had a chance to log on A-P, much less browse the forums for reviews. Anyway, I think I can spell out most of my thoughts through some general comments:

- You write the review in a manner (especially the story section) which almost implies that the reader has seen the series in question. Try to preface your commentary a bit to provide context to your work; having not seen it myself, it's a bit hard to understand what you're talking about. For instance you mention "the plot tries to mix mecha and magic together...[and fails]", but this doesn't mean much to someone who hasn't seen it. Narrow down your comments to be more specific versus being overly generic - your referencing of the "book" is a perfect example of this.

- You have a tendency to use long-winded run-ons. Take a look at the second sentence of the first paragraph (not the intro) of the story section - that thing is ginormous! Overall the ideas (and wording) of the sentence is great, but it simply never ends. Try to fragment your larger sentences into strings of thoughts instead of one massive comglomerate of ideas.

...and I must take off for now, but hopefully I'll be able to edit this later tonight with the rest of my comments.

[Drahken]

Demonbane TV | Anime-Planet