Lovecraft's Holiday Special #3: Demonbane

This is seriously torture. I'm barely past the 6th episode and I have ZERO motivation to keep watching.

But I am having fun making quotes for the screen captures

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Squeezing past episode 3... same as last time... seeing that episode 4 will be the same...

I see what you did there.
You Sir are my hero!

-Disclaimers-

Okay, now before we begin this tale of madness, let me give a few disclaimers:

1. I share the same position as Laughingman in terms of anime: I hate it; I can't sit through most of it because I have a burning dislike for most of the stereotypes presented, and many of the cliches that burrowed themselves deep into the cores of most material out there. There are battles that either last several episodes or several seconds, annoying-as-hell characters, pedophilia, etc. However, there are a few out there that I not only stand, but love! Hayao Miyazaki's works, for example, are many examples of anime that is done right! I can even excuse the somewhat ambiguous gender of Ponyo's father in Miyazaki's latest outing "Ponyo" because of how the story was told, and without many of the things that make me hate anime. With that said, let me reiterate my main point here: I do not hate ALL anime, but most of it.

2. I'm a fan of H.P. Lovecraft. When I discovered his vast world and imagination of unimaginable terrors, I began to eat it up like nothing else. It's great, it's freaky, and it's damn creative! My favorite story of his is "The Colour Out of Space" because it chilled me to the core when I listened to it (audio-book), and I was hooked since! I started getting into Lovecraft early this year, but that doesn't excuse me from having to know anything about the universe that this mysterious writer created. It's a good thing that I research whatever I can about him when I'm bored in cinema class! I'm not as well-read as LaughingMan since I've only started to get into him, but I still know enough about Lovecraft to be able to review and critique an anime based on him and his work.

- I've seen films based on his stories like "The Call of Cthulhu" and "Re-Animator," and I'm waiting in anticipation for The HP Lovecraft Historical Society's next movie, "The Whisperer In Darkness"!

- I've read many of his works, including "The Music of Eric Zahn," "The Rats In The Walls," "The Call of Cthulhu," "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," and "The Colour Out Of Space."

- Plenty of research.

3. I tend to give a balanced review of both good and bad aspects of whatever I look at, but I can't guarantee anything too deep in terms of a good section. I mean, I may be able to give them credit for getting names and terms right, but is that really enough? This disclaimer is to give you a fair warning that the bad section will be overwhelmingly huge, sardonic, and cruel to this anime. Ye have been warned!

4. Final disclaimer: This may contain vulgarities, spoilers, and graphic images. Enjoy!

-Introduction-

Welcome to part three of the Lovecraft's Holiday Special bonanza, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! To kick the year off, we're going to give you a monster of a review that promises to give you plenty of spills, chills, and thrills! So what are we looking at this time? .... oh dear God. No, no, no... not this! Are you... are you serious? I have to ... please, tell me this is a cruel joke! No! Don't make me sit through...

DEMONBANE?! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Seriously, what else of Lovecraft's can I look at instead? There's that comic compilation with Edgar Allen Poe - what? I don't have that here? Damn, damn, damn! What about "Shoggoth On The Roof"? No? "Whisperer In Darkness"- that isn't even finished? God damn it! You mean... I have to sit through this?! I'd rather be eaten by rats in the walls! Better yet, just make me sit through this for 6 hours instead:



... sigh. Anyway, to kick the new year off, we're going to review this anime abomination that came out God knows when. I don't really care, because I personally think it shouldn't have been made. I'm usually in a good mood when I review something up until the bad section, but I can't bring myself to like any aspect of this. Thankfully, I don't have to suffer through this by myself! Anime maestro ONOE and local warden of this looneybin LaughingMan are going to join me! What evils have been unleashed?! Anyway, enough stalling! Let's get this review underway!

-Synopsis-

Okay, before we actually review this, we have to know what the story is, right? Right. Now, let me see... it's based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, and is set in Arkham and the Cthulhu Mythos Universe... um... there are giant robots... and... uh... well, there's also jailbait all over the place... uh... HELP ME, WIKIPEDIA!

"Kuro Daijuuji is a poor detective living in Arkham City. One day, he is asked by (pronounced "Looli") Ruri Hado of Hado Financial Group, to search for a magic grimoire. As Kuro searches for the book, he unexpectedly runs into Al Azif, a pretty girl who turns out to be the grimoire Kuro is searching for. While being chased by the Black Lodge, Al forges a contract with Kuro, bestowing him with powerful magic. Soon afterwards, Al also activates Demonbane, a Deus Machina owned by the Hado Financial Group, to combat the mechanical menace from the Black Lodge. With this, the war between the Hado Financial Group and the Black Lodge begins...."

Thanks, Wikipedia! See, I tried to understand the plot, I really did. However, this anime was so damn confusing that I really couldn't think of anything at all that could help me make any connections to where the plot was going, or why I should care. One of my main complaints was that Demonbane assumed you knew everything and anything it threw at you, not actually making any effort to explain itself. More on this later, though. Before we actually start tearing through this, let's (begrudgingly) start looking to see if anything was good about this.

-The Good-

...now. What was good? I need a good while to think about this, but I'll try. As LaughingMan said above, it's incredibly difficult to accurately adapt a Lovecraft work on the grounds that the horrors contained are much more horrifying when left to the imagination than on any visual medium. Thus, when we see Demonbane, I can't help but also feel that there was a lot of potential in the concept of adapting Lovecraft for a new Eastern audience. However, while there were some neat ideas in this anime, not a whole lot sticks out to me in terms of creativity. The animation is pretty, I guess, but I'm not an anime affectionado like ONOE so I don't really know the varying qualities of the Japanese style since I never watch it.

-The Bad-

Where do I begin? Well, how accurate is this to the Cthulhu Mythos and the Lovecraft Universe as a whole? Let me make up an analogy. Say you have a book featuring all of Lovecraft's stories, the entire collection. Put it in a bucket. Pour water to submerge the entire thing, and put a lid over it. Wait an entire night to pass, and notice that the pages are so wet and destroyed that all of the ink used to write the works have been wiped off. Then remember that this was a priceless book you "borrowed" from the museum since you work as a curator there, and that you were drunk when you decided to put it in a bucket. Being the Japanese person that you are, you faintly remember something about giant robots and pedophilia for some reason, so you take a crayon after the book dries, and draw crude pictures of both abovementioned things on all of the pages. You take the defiled, ruined book to the museum, and place it back on the podium in the glass stand, and hope to God or whoever you worship that nobody will notice. Three days later, you are sent a notice that you are fired, and have a restraining order filed against you by the Lovecraft book on the grounds of assault and molestation. Get the picture?


"He touched me in places he shouldn't have!"

"Demonbane" uses the names of locations and monsters, and that's it. THAT'S IT. Everything else about the Lovecraft Universe has been dismissed, and instead of intergalactic monsters we are treated to a story about a war between a vaguely described financial group led by a girl the age of my younger brother, and another vaguely described terrorist organization that's named after a segregated jazz lounge in the 1940's! Seriously, what the hell is wrong with the people who made this series and set of videogames?! How much research did they actually put into this where they thought making anything about the Mythos was a good idea?! This is just the tip of the iceberg, because most of the Bad section will be based on the concepts and elements of the story presented in this anime. The concepts and elements of which drag the entire series down for me as a potential audience member, and instead make me sick to the core. Like a Boomer.


Exhibit A: A Boomer

For one thing, the story doesn't come close to following anything about the Cthulhu Mythos in any sense of the word. There are no intergalactic creatures that threaten to destroy the very sanity of the human race as everything is plunged into eternal darkness, there is no mystery as to why somebody like, say, Eric Zahn, is left alone, only to later discover that there are monsters in his kitchen sink asking for his immortal soul, and there is nothing indescribable or unfathomable save for why I have the sudden urge to burn the nearest Japanese person. Instead, we have mecha wars in Arkham, led by Al Azif, or the Necronomicon, and a slew of other uninspired characters. This is the farthest away you can get from Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos, and I am ashamed of saying this has anything to do with either of them in the first place. The closest "Demonbane" comes to the Mythos is, as I said, naming things after the Lovecraftian Universe. The episodes are, for the most part, named after sayings or stories from the Mythos, the characters resemble nothing like their namesakes, and this will act as a nice segway into my next complaint about this series: the characters.


Wrong segway.

"Demonbane" is full of different characters, but most of them leave a salty taste in my mouth that begs to be washed out with bleach and neurotoxins. The main characters are plain, the secondary characters are plain, and the tertiary characters are plain. If I knew what tertiary characters were, I'd tell you QUIET I'M ON A ROLL. Anyway, let's begin with the two main characters, Kuro and the Necronomicon. Kuro is a poor detective who takes advantage of free food drives from local churches, dates 4-year-old girls, and apparently has skills at piloting giant robots without any prior knowledge or training. He suffers from a usual anime archetype, "The Chosen One" Syndrome. Kuro has no idea what he's getting into, he's suddenly thrown into a giant mech, becomes a magic user, and defeats an undefeated Death Robot piloted by a poser named Dr. West. I'm tempted to go on a tangent and rant about West, but I'm saving that for later. Anyway, Kuro defeats an undefeated bot ON HIS FIRST TRY. Where is the logic behind that?! Who would seriously be able to pilot a giant robot and be able to defeat someone with years of experience under his belt ON THE FIRST TRY?! Remember that really fat kid who pwns you at Halo 3 all the time because he sat on his ass 24/7 playing the bloody thing while you were doing better things like getting laid and running a business? Imagine your frustration if he suddenly got off of his fat ass, ran a business, and pwned yours in just a week. How annoyed would you be if that happened? The same illogical thing happens in "Demonbane," except with giant robots. If only Cthulhu read the script for this...


Cthulhu is not amused, Japan.

Al Azif, or the Necronomicon, is the forbidden text, the dreaded container of knowledge that would most certainly drive the reader mad, the tome of spells able to summon Gods, the love interest of a pedophile- wait, what? Yes, in "Demonbane," the Necronomicon gets royally screwed over. What is the most perilous book in existence is now this:


Don't let Bleedman anywhere NEAR this.

Yes, the most feared book in the Lovecraft Universe is now jailbait. Al Azif makes her entrance by landing panties-and-crotch-first in Kuro's face (see: LaughingMan's review, "Jailbait"). Give yourself a moment for that to sink in.

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

... ARE YOU KIDDING? THIS IS ONE OF THE BOOKS CONTAINING ULTIMATE EVIL IN THE LOVECRAFTIAN WORLD?! THIS IS THE BOOK WRITTEN BY THE MAD ARAB THAT CAUSED INCOMPREHENSIBLE BEINGS TO DEVOUR HIM WHEN HE FINISHED ITS COMPOSITION?! JAILBAIT?! ARE YOU SERIOUS?! Not only this, but it goes chibi while Kuro battles the members of the Black Lodge, which in itself just annoys the crap out of me for some reason. We get an underage, purple-haired lolita wearing all white, and you're telling me that I am meant to see this as one of the forbidden evils of the Lovecraft universe? No, this I cannot do. This is just too unbearable as a Lovecraft fan to comprehend. I can't understand this logic, I refuse to understand this logic, and I will not obey this logic. Not only does Japan slap the Necronomicon in the face, but it also uses more lolitas as personifications of other forbidden texts, or grimoires, in the anime. For instance, we have the Pnakotic Manuscripts (or Etheldreda), who serves as the obedient servant of the leader of the criminal organization The Black Lodge, Master Therion. So let me get this straight: a tome that predates human civilization, and was thought to have been started by the Great Race of Yith (an alien species) in Lovecraft's Universe, is subservient to a little brat who happens to be a great sorcerer, and heads a criminal organization? That's ... really retarded, actually.


This even makes better animes cry shamefully.

This logic also applies to the Necronomicon, and it just weirds me out. Imagine if the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis of "Evil Dead" fame (which, although not the same book, bears inspiration from the Lovecraft tome) took the form of a young child and followed Bruce Campbell around as he battled the Deadites in the three movies. That wouldn't be quite as scary or funny, would it? That would be flat-out horrifying, and Sam Raimi would be a notch below Uwe Boll.


A little like this.

Anyway, let's not delay anymore from discussing the other characters, but who is there to really talk about? Aside from the main protagonists, everybody in the show is really on- oh wait, I forgot one. Dr. West. What the HELL have they done to Dr. West?!


Remember HIM from "Re-Animator"?!

Yes, Dr. West is now loud, bombastic, annoying, and flails around a guitar like Demyx from "Kingdom Hearts 2". Seriously, give Demyx a new skin, and you've got Dr. West. His role in the show is to battle Kuro and Al Azif, and fulfill the wishes of his master and Black Lodge. When I first saw him make his intro in the show, my jaw dropped. I was seriously expecting a bespectacled nerd like his movie incarnation or something, and I'm sure Japan could have done something along those lines and still make him the obnoxious comic relief. Oh yeah, did I mention he was comic relief? I use that term sparingly because I found nothing really funny about him, but I did find him to induce another unexplainable bout of wanting to bludgeon a Japanese person over the head with a large, loud musical instrument. He's like a lot of TV Tropes mashed into one character, and they threw him in just to reach the "Annoy the Westerners" status-quo that animes seem to have for me. Dr. West is the scientific genius of the Black Lodge, and creates a series of things to try and destroy our hero, like the Destroyer Robots (and its 12 incarnations), another lolita named Elsa, and a clone of the main giant robot, Demonbane, that Kuro pilots. Other than those, Dr. West serves no real tangible purpose for me, and that's a bummer. Thank god they didn't make him fall in love with little children like the hero, though.


MY SOUL, IT HURTS.

Now, as I was saying, none of the other characters really do anything for me in terms of their presence, or the story. Sure, there are the Anticross Members, but they didn't do anything for me either. Who are the Anticross? They are members of the Black Lodge that battle Kuro. Are you noticing a trend here? Demonbane strikes me as another one of those shows that really seem to focus on just fighting instead of a tangible plot. You know what else does this? Dragonball Z. Pokemon. Oh dear, we're in trouble here. Apart from the really confusing story elements, Demonbane seems to really just focus on the giant robot battles, and Kuro fights about 13 robots, including different forms of West and Nyatharlotep's robots (Who's Nyatharlotep? See LaughingMan's review, he covers her well there). This is in the span of TWELVE EPISODES, PEOPLE. I can't possibly see how much plot can be in here if there are thirteen robots to fight, if I'm correct in the number of enemies encountered in this series. This is one of the main weaknesses of the series, too; everything is shamelessly rushed, and it's annoying as hell. The main story goes by way too fast, and when there are moments where plot can be inserted, there are giant robot battles to make everything a clusterfuck instead. This confused me so badly that I couldn't understand the last couple of episodes as a result!

You know what could have helped Demonbane significantly in terms of plot? Explaining some of the key elements, but that doesn't happen. AT ALL. When I turned on the first episode, I seriously thought that I missed something else, but it was Episode 1: I Am Providence. Why are the grimoire bad things, for instance? This would be explained for audiences who like Lovecraft, but all other audience members would be lost as to what the fuck a grimoire is. In the first episode, for another instance, who the fuck is Hadou Ruri, and WHY is she important enough for Kurou to kiss her ass all over the place in the beginning? Why should I care about her financial group? What the hell is the Black Lodge? I mean Jesus, the audience isn't a bunch of clairvoyants! Explanation is necessary to produce a good plot, people!


Well, this IS a staple of Lovecraft stories, but he never fully explains the horrors or monsters for a GOOD reason.

Alright, NOW are we done here? Is there possibly ANYTHING else to go over? Okay? Good.

-The Verdict-

As I briefly mentioned in the Good section, there was a lot of wasted potential that could have made a great Lovecraftian anime. However, instead of getting an epic tale of the Great Old Ones threatening the sanity and lives of every mortal being on Earth, we get an unoriginal, plain, boring tale about giant robots, lolitas, annoying doctors, and the bastardization of as many Lovecraft concepts as possible. We also get so many cliches that anime seems to love carrying around, and it's unfair to taunt Lovecraft fans with what could have been. Demonbane is the bane of my existence, it doesn't deserve to be associated with Lovecraft on any level, and it gets:

1/5



This concludes the H.P. Lovecraft's Holiday Special Triple Header! We hope you've enjoyed this wild, creepy ride, and we hope to see you again on Cheshirecatstudios.com!

IT BEGINS... THAT SECOND CTHULHU PICTURE AT THE END IS NOT MEANT TO BE THERE, BTW.

My review of Demonbane is complete.
The verdict?
AAAAAAAAALFJLDSFSDFLSDFJLDSJFLBHOEIRERLWERLFJBHOEAQPRJLDFKJVBHALJ!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.cheshirecatstudios.com/reviews/demonbane-anime-lovecraft/#LaughingMan

I'm waiting to see who else notices.

@Kenny and everyone else

I've upped the attachment limit from 5 to 10. Bon Appetite!

Just from looking at your review, I think I'm throwing a lot of bile on mine so far. Should I attempt to tone it down or just let nature take its course? (dumb question, I know )

It's up to you. The damn thing rotted my brain and it'll be until tomorrow that I can recoop. I wrote all of my venom first, then tried to squeeze in a little extra to be 'fair'. (otherwise people get pissed and call your review a 'rant' like my Devil May Cry anime review)
http://www.cheshirecatstudios.com/reviews/devil-may-cry-anime/

I think that your 'Good/Bad' format should make it pretty fair. It's up to you, though. Speak your mind, not someone else's.

I'm posting your Re-Animator review right now.