Demonbane

Information of Anime

Kuro Daijuuji is a poor detective working in Arkham City.  He receives a job request from Ruri Hado of the Hado Financial Group to search for a magic book.  While searching for the book, he runs into a powerful grimoire named Al Ajifu who was running from an organization named Black Lodge.  Caught in the middle of the action, Kuro had no choice by to forge a contract with Al & receives her magical powers.  Also, he has the power to activate a deus machina named Demonbane which is owned by the Hado Financial Group.  With his newly summon powers, Kuro now joins Hado to fight against Black Lodge.

Demonbane is based on the ero PC game by Nitro+.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  This section does contain some spoilers.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

After forging the contract with Al, Kuro is forced to help the Hado group fight against Black Lodge as he is now a marked man to that organization leaded by Master Terion.  While defending against Black Lodge, Kuro & Al search for the missing pages that Al needs to obtain her full powers.  The show goes into a lot of goofy situations & somehow manages to get the show going without going off track.  There's a lot of humour here & most of it is based on ecchi content.  Past the 70% mark, the show gets serious as Black Lodge awakens a power evil god & the struggle for power occurs within them; including an attempt to kill their own leader.  Losing Al in the fight & protecting everyone in the town, Kuro fights with all he's got to the final boss.

Battle after battle, Al reappears to Kuro after confronting herself in another dimension.  Together, they fight until Master Terion gets reborn & enter into another dimension to battle it out in a final battle that lasted for many years.  Upon unleashing their most powerful attacks, Al & Kuro realize that a powerful evil is control all of this chaos & destroys it.  Free from this cycle, Master Terion gets a change of heart & drifts around in the empty dimension.  Meanwhile, Al sends Kuro back to his world even though he refuses.

Time passes and the show ends with Al returning back to Kuro's world as another Al & Kuro watches from the sky & fly into space.

My Personal Review

Demonbane is something you think you have seen in a lot of anime genres today, but it isn't much.  It's a bit unique from other shows that uses a harem theme & somewhat has an interesting story.  The problem with the show is that it may not be suitable for a lot of people.  Most of the female characters here are loli types & the show's ecchi humour on the girls may not be tasteful to some.  If you like some mecha action with an unique storyline & don't mind loli ecchi humour, give this show a whirl.

Animation

The character designs are pretty much on the silly side.  The girls are pretty much either on the cute loli side or the mature big breasted side.  The men tend to vary a lot as well.  They are a bit on the wild side with their tight clothing that barely covers much of their upper body.  The clothing have a bit of Goth feel to them with all those dresses.  The eyes are unique as well as they look more like eyes you would find on a robot.  It's a number of thin circles in the pupil.  Also, there are cases where Al goes SD mode when Kuro transforms.  Plus, Al tends to have a lot of sexy or cosplay type of clothing.

The deus machinas are animated in 3D CGs.  The CGs are aren't bad, but has a fake feel to it.  Also, the designs of the deus machinas are weird.  The limbs are thin & the arms & legs are huge.  It's hard to imagine how the thin joints would support body parts that big.  Plus, I didn't like how Demonbane's face looked.  It really didn't seem to fit the image of the mecha.

The backgrounds are pretty blurry.  This is probably because of the dull & flat colours used in the show.  Also, the backgrounds tend to change the mood of the show a lot.  From dark action to happy harem.  This is the reason why I can't tell if the show is dark or just harem based.  It somewhat affects the show's story too.

Sound

The sound effect are a mixture of realistic & silliness.  I found that the show uses more of the funny sounds after each episode.  Most of the time it involves the harem situations or Kuro getting punished. 

The seiyuus for this show is ok.  Nothing too great; pretty average.  I get the impression that they don't fit their character much & there's a number of them.  They either are voiced funny or they don't give the impact of the characters the seiyuus are role playing.  One part was when this small girl sounded like an old woman.  That was really freaky & nasty.  I don't know how the studio allowed that kind of voice acting for a little girl.

The music is ok, but not memorable.  I didn't like the soundtrack much.  It didn't set the mood well & they seem to be overpowered by the voices.

Story

Basically, Al & Kuro finding the magic pages to restore Al's powers while helping Hado defend against Black Lodge.  Every situation that doesn't seem to involve with Black Lodge will somehow be link to them, no matter of how big or small that situation is.  I really like how the show stays on track on things, regardless of the "off tracking" humour it produces.  It really shows some potential in the plot & it was interesting on how the the show picked up a lot after a couple of episodes from the halfway point.  The story sounds simple, but it gets a bit darker as it draws to a close.  The game is what drew fans in & it shouldn't disappoint.

The ending of the show was a bit confusing for me a bit.  Everything tied up nicely even though it felt a little rushed to the final battle.  But the very last part was a head scratch for me.  Maybe it's explained better in the game.  It was hard to follow on how "they" appeared like that.

As for the humour, it's not something everyone would enjoy.  The show has a fair amount of loli content in it.  By loli, I mean small girls with flat chest.  There is 1 scenario where Kuro fondles with Al passionately.  Since this is based on an ero-game, you should expect scenes like these as most of the girls are loli sized.

Overall Conclusion

Demonbane has potential in its storyline.  In fact, it's pretty good for a 12 episode show.  However, it's not something people will like due to the amount of loli sexual humour it has.  Although the story stays focus a lot, the humour seems to appear more.  If you don't mind loli ecchi or actually into it, this show shouldn't be missed; especially if you like mecha action.

Demonbane scores a 7.5/10 from me.  The story is quite simple, but looks promising at the moment.  The show stays on track, despite the jokes showing up more.  However, it felt a little rushed when it was in the final arc . As mentioned. the loli jokes would turn some people away from this show.  Judging from what I'm seeing, I don't blame them.

Last updated on December 26, 2007