It's been a while since I've seen this anime, so most of the finer details are a bit fuzzy. Please keep this in mind as I rip this series apart.
Am I the only person who thinks that this anime was spinning its wheels from the very beginning? I watched about half of season one before I gave up hope. Let me start with the positive aspects.
First, I will say that the setup is very well done. The world is well-drawn and full of detail and the characters are interesting. The actions scenes are also very well made and easy to follow.
The main problem I have with the series is that the characters never do anything worthwhile. And I do mean never. In most classic anime/manga/cartoon series (FullMetal Alchemist, Avatar, Death Note), the story gradually unfolds as you watch each consecutive episode. Not so in DNAngel. In this anime, the plot continued to evade me no matter how hard I looked for one.
I'm serious, there appears to be no overarching plot whatsoever. Your anime has serious problems when you can put all of the episodes on your computer, queue them all up in your video player and push Shuffle without losing any plot coherency.
Each episode consists of the same basic format. Daisuke struggles with girlfriend issues. His mother struggles with regret over not becoming a Dark Thief. Dark struggles to come up with new ways to steal some item that appears to have no importance to the plot whatsoever. Daisuke's pet rabbit occasionally does something cute. Rinse and repeat.
I hate to compare this to such a mindless and pointless anime, but DNAngel is a bit like the Pokemon series. It is similar in that each episode is pretty much irrelevant to the ones before and after it save for a few superficial plot ties. You follow Ash and his friends as they slowly progress toward a goal that they will never reach. The main difference between the two is that Pokemon at least gave you a main goal that had to be reached for the series to reach an end (Ash wanted to be a Pokemon Master). In DNAngel, you don't even get the courtesy of a MacGuffin. There is no goal, there is no story, and there is no progression.
If you view each episode as a self-contained story, DNAngel is not a bad anime. In fact, it's pretty good. But if you are expecting a well-told story that you can watch unfold and progress, you will be sorely disappointed.
Am I the only person who thinks that this anime was spinning its wheels from the very beginning? I watched about half of season one before I gave up hope. Let me start with the positive aspects.
First, I will say that the setup is very well done. The world is well-drawn and full of detail and the characters are interesting. The actions scenes are also very well made and easy to follow.
The main problem I have with the series is that the characters never do anything worthwhile. And I do mean never. In most classic anime/manga/cartoon series (FullMetal Alchemist, Avatar, Death Note), the story gradually unfolds as you watch each consecutive episode. Not so in DNAngel. In this anime, the plot continued to evade me no matter how hard I looked for one.
I'm serious, there appears to be no overarching plot whatsoever. Your anime has serious problems when you can put all of the episodes on your computer, queue them all up in your video player and push Shuffle without losing any plot coherency.
Each episode consists of the same basic format. Daisuke struggles with girlfriend issues. His mother struggles with regret over not becoming a Dark Thief. Dark struggles to come up with new ways to steal some item that appears to have no importance to the plot whatsoever. Daisuke's pet rabbit occasionally does something cute. Rinse and repeat.
I hate to compare this to such a mindless and pointless anime, but DNAngel is a bit like the Pokemon series. It is similar in that each episode is pretty much irrelevant to the ones before and after it save for a few superficial plot ties. You follow Ash and his friends as they slowly progress toward a goal that they will never reach. The main difference between the two is that Pokemon at least gave you a main goal that had to be reached for the series to reach an end (Ash wanted to be a Pokemon Master). In DNAngel, you don't even get the courtesy of a MacGuffin. There is no goal, there is no story, and there is no progression.
If you view each episode as a self-contained story, DNAngel is not a bad anime. In fact, it's pretty good. But if you are expecting a well-told story that you can watch unfold and progress, you will be sorely disappointed.