DNA² - Reviews

Story
As the name would imply, DNA is about ... dna! Specifically, the dna of a young man named Junta who is destined to become the Mega-Playboy. In the future, the world is overpopulated and this Mega-Playboy is the most notorious cause, having fathered 100 children, who each had 100 children, and so on! Karin is sent back in time to stop Junta from becoming the Mega-Playboy, and thus the story begins...

The saving grace of DNA is definitely the humor that stems from Junta's affliction. Whenever he sees a woman's body or anything remotely close to sexual, he vomits everywhere (which is animated hilariously as well, I might add). This humor lasts throughout the series, and also extends to more crude things such as one of the girls who has a slight problem with flatulence when nervous. Though the humor is quite hilarious whenever it's brought up, it falls by the wayside in relation to the somewhat failing plot. DNA starts out relatively interesting, you see. The story is fairly unique and it seems the combination of humor and transformations will make for a great watch. Unfortunately, after the first few episodes the series digresses into something that feels like a typical harem show, and comes off as flat and uninteresting. Everyone wants Junta, and he wants everyone (when hes transformed). We also get a heavy dose of matchmaking from Karin, as she tries to hook up Junta with his childhood friend Ami (who is incredibly annoying and dull, I might add), and a plethora of females at Junta's beck and call.

Even though the story degenerates into a harem comedy of sorts, it manages to fail even further in the last few episodes, with completely unnecessary material thrown in. The last few episodes, quite frankly, should not have existed and really messed up the flow and mood of the story. Without spoiling, I'll just say it involves some sort of ultimate power and a rival that really shouldn't be in the first place. Lots of fighting and angst ensues, leading up to a reasonable but uninspiring ending. In general, I was fairly disappointed with DNA's story by the end. Started off solid (and is an interesting idea, hence the 6), but became somewhat of a bore and a chore to finish.
Animation
The animation, though seeming a bit dated, was still interesting. The characters reminded me of Ah My Goddess OVA days, but definitely more well done. Colors were all over the map, which wasn't necessarily a good thing. I enjoyed the vibrancy of the scenes with Junta's playboy transformation, but scenes with Karin in her ship were drab and colorless since her hair and clothing were white and light pastels, and the ship was white. The transformations themselves consisted of Junta's character becoming softer and sexy, with plenty of hilarious sparkles to go around. The only thing I didn't like about the character designs was Junta's DBZ style hair that looked WAY too huge. No special effects that I can remember were used.

The series definitely had its fair share of ecchi and panty shots, but unlike some series where it annoys me, it made the comedy more hilarious in this one. Simply because, well, every time Junta would see such a thing, he would puke, which was always good for a laugh (just see the screenshots!). The ecchi was mostly panty shots or cleavage, nothing like full nudity, which was a plus (since I don't enjoy such things).
Sound
DNA has one of the catchiest intro songs I've heard in a long time, with a male singer and peppy J-pop in the background. The rest of the music was upbeat synthy beats with plenty of wacky special effects, especially for the sparkles. It was good and fit the mood well, so I don't really have much more to say about it. Voice acting was great for everyone involved.
Characters
DNA has a cast of characters who, for the most part, end up falling flat. Junta is the main character and the most interesting, nonetheless, due to his chronic vomiting whenever he is in an even remotely sexual situation with a female. Due to how it was animated, this ends up being comical every time we see it, and he's a better character because of it. It's also amusing to see his complete opposites of a bumbling boy to a suave man, sparkles and all. Karin would have been a strong independant woman type, until she fell for Junta and became ditzy. Really, that's the problem with every other female in the show: they fall into the stereotypical harem role and fall all over Junta.. ALL of them. Granted, unlike some harem comedies where the guys are complete and utter losers (thus making you wonder WHY all these females want the same person), Junta definitely has it going on when he turns into the Mega-Playboy. Regardless, the characters seemed to lose any speck of interesting features once they decided to follow Junta around and become woman #872. Ami, Junta's childhood friend, was terribly boyish and too reserved for anyone to care about, really, yet we were supposed to feel sorry for her and her relationship with Junta. I didn't buy it. The only other character of note is Junta's rival of sorts, who ends up going from a jealous boyfriend to something totally ridiculous in the last few episodes of the series. Poorly planned.

In general, though Junta was amusing, most of the characters weren't developed, or were developed but then became a generic harem stereotype. The relationships were also shallow, given the harem-ness to the series.
Overall
Overall, DNA really started out strong. The story in the beginning seemed interesting, the humor was plentiful, and nothing was inherently bad. As the series went on, however, it digressed into a simple harem comedy that was tedious to watch and uninteresting in general. Top it off with the weirdness of the last few episodes, and stereotypical (in a bad way) characters, and you have a series that definitely has its good and bad points. If you are looking for a silly romance type show with a harem twist, you'd probably enjoy this. Just don't expect it to be fantastic and you'll probably walk away feeling ok.

NOTICE: This review covers both the series and the 3-part OVA sequel.

ART & SOUND SECTION: 6/10
This show was made with a collaboration of Madhouse and DEEN and I am just baffled with the overall result. One megaton of quality studio working along that piece of shit? So anyways, the quality of animation and sound is not that great but is surely better than most series of its time. Besides some scarce detailed movements, shadowing effects and decent voice acting, the rest feel like a mediocrity at best. All the good parts are further debunked by the silly and superficial practical usefulness they show because of the wacky story; they lose credit and believability because of the way they are presented.

STORY - CHARACTER - ENJOYMENT SECTIONS: 6/10 (spoiler alert!)
This series has a wacky story with an interesting premise that was left undeveloped. A girl is sent from the future to stop a teenage dork from becoming a super charismatic playboy and causing future overpopulation with the millions of his descendants, who also happen to share his talent. She accidentally becomes the cause of him becoming a playboy and falls in love with the guy. So, she decides to help him control his powers until a future colleague of hers arrives who has evil plans about changing the future.

Story and characters make a step forward and another backward. The OVAs continue the story from where the series left off (in quite the open way, I must say) and try to make things feel more serious by adding a world threat to the frame. It does manage to reason some of the scenario holes the series left behind but still ends in a rather blunt way. It doesn’t feel very fulfilling for the same reason as it could have developed its premise far more and end in a more thrilling way.

The cast is colorful but doesn’t develop much. The dork turned playboy and the chick from the future had something good going for awhile but after the whole “You must control your urges” came along, they just lost steam. Wouldn’t it be awesome to see him running around and sleeping around? Adding a generic villain and more cardboard chicks in it didn’t help much, although it did swift from ecchi to the action/superpower which was a nice plot twist.

As much as it felt interesting to see this twist, the internal logic of the series is still messed up to the point it becomes more ridiculous than enjoyable. I never understood how being a womanizer automatically makes you super powerful, or why there aren’t time paradoxes with all the going back and forth in time, or how do playboy genes brainwash people with some weird device. After awhile it is just mambo jumbo. Funny but still tried to eat more than it can chew.

That doesn’t mean it is free of ecchi stuff but it is definitely not overdoing it like modern shows do. It is partially about superpower fighting and partially about erotic comedy without having too much of either; something that makes it less memorable for most viewers. There is also a bit of romance and mystery in it as well but go to waste since the story is simply too silly after awhile.

As far as pacing goes, there is not much time left to waste. Those action and ecchi scenes exchange places fast and keep you interested and as long as you manage to suspend your disbelief enough, you will enjoy it for what it is.

VALUE SECTION: 3/10
There is little replay value in it and it’s not memorable if you are a veteran viewer. It could definitely be a lot more interesting if it had some actual sex in it (being hentai instead of ecchi) or if the story was far more elaborate and excused.

VERDICT: 5.5 / 10
It just scratches the surface of an idea that could be very intriguing if it was more raw and bold. But no, it remains just a silly show for the average 14 year old that is satisfied with boobs and pantsu.

SUGGESTION LIST
Dokuro-chan. It is a much more recent series with a similarly wacky story.

In the new episode of "A Blast from the Past" we have DNA² which is an anime...And the fact that i have to state it is because most people after watching even a sample vid from this turn into chinese psychopaths and sacrifice their daughters to the gods of Olympus to find salvation. And naturally it was deemed by the EU-which is a big thing in Brussels-as a psychological warfare strike from the land of the rising east and was banned.

No not really..Unfortunately this anime survives to this day so people of younger generations can also experience the terror.

So far this sounds like any of my reviews but this anime is so bad actually it's hillarious.DNA² may be the most ridiculous anime in existence. Wanna listen to the story? There's a DNA hunter named Karin,who was sent from the future to stop the so called Mega-Playboy,Junta, from fathering 100 kids that led to the overpopulation of the world.....Haven't passed out laughing, have we? Still with me?

Right...Then, as a plot twist i suppose, we learn that Junto isn't a playboy at all..In fact he’s allergic to girls and vomits at the slightest sign of skin. So you might think that ok, maybe he's gay or something.. NOPE, wrong wrong wrong..I wish he was, cause at least that would be some form of explanation. As for his condition there are no explanations given..He just throws a pink coloured rocket when he sees a woman naked..

My first thoughts-just by reading the story-were "oh fuck" and "somebody pass me the Glock"..You have time travel and the first thing to do with it was stop a lad from impregnating 100 women and not stop Hitler? But they didn't.. Instead they sent the blue haired gal to shoot the unstoppable fucker from..Well..Fucking!

"So how do you stop the sexual beast", you might ask and the answer is with a DNA altering bullet to the head.But since this is an anime and the story had to last for 12 eps, Karin accidentally shoots him with the very bullet that awakens his inner playboy thus making him Caligula incarnate..With funnier Shayan-esque hair.

Of course ALL the girls start dehydrating from lady juice overflow. Don't expect anything than the usual cast here. First of the bunch is Saeki, the hot girl that mocked Junta when his was an ordinary barfing loser, then there's Ami, the childhood friend who secretly loves him and is immune to his playboy trickery and last but not least Kotomi who farts whenever someone pays attention to her...........I have no words..And to end things the antagonist/ex Saeki's boyfriend who hates Junta and his new power up.

What can you expect from this anime? Many nosebleeds, farting, vomiting, boobie grabbing scenes, face-to-ass trip overs and all the usual stuff we have come to expect from these type of anime.Other than that? No, not really much apart from the silly as fuck factor that keeps increasing as the episode count does.

Be that as it may, it had it's funny moments. Like i said it's so ridiculous and bad it makes it hillarious. Its' badness gives it character..Not a good one mind you, but still a character nonetheless.

Animation was bad to the point of blindness even for it's time but then again i didn't expect anything grand from it. If i wanted Dragonball looking characters i'd watch Dragonball.

Voice acting was..I know i keep repeating myself but it was ridiculous. I think i've heard more passionate book reading from morgue keepers but maybe that's just me..Still since the anime itself is bad the bad voice acting makes it even more of a character building experience.

So it all comes down to this..Should you watch it?

Fucking yeah you should. It's bad, it's silly, it's the laughingstock of the anime world but you should give it a whirl just for kicks with your mates over drinks.