God’s Dolls 1 – This Series Will Proceed to Go to Crap Now

Is it just me or does Kukuri look like Kyubey from certain angles?

Anyway, it was brought to my attention recently that many of the series I blog end up turning to shit. Obviously, it’s not due to poor taste in anime, because I have the best taste in the blogosphere. No, I think it’s more that I have turned into a magnet for terribad, and my subconscious drives me toward awful shows by tricking me into thinking they have potential in the beginning. So if this show turns out terrible, I’m sorry. Just kidding. I’m not sorry, because it’s not my fault.

P.S. I’m calling it God’s Dolls even though there is no possessive in the title, because God’s Dolls sounds like a burlesque act, and it makes me laugh.

So the big danger with this series so far is that most of the initial episode is built on intrigue; the actual content ranges from eh to OK, with a premise that is not entirely original. (Then again, how many original premises remain in anime?) We’ve got the college-aged dude who needs to get away from his rural upbringing; his clumsy little sister; a gray-haired psychopath; the love interest with huge bazongas; and RahXephon/Brave Raideen/etc. style gods that blow shit up. Nothing’s really explained — not that this is a totally bad thing — but the audience pretty much gets what is going on because it’s all familiar territory.

With stories now, the intrigue is all in the characters and the specific details of how everything plays out. It all really depends on what kinds of reasons Kyohei has for ditching the village. I imagine there’s some Higurashi-level crazy shit going down in that place, and like a normal person, Kyohei wants no part of that. When you’ve got gods that shoot laser beams as personal pets, there’s no way you aren’t using them for something seedy. I do kind of wonder how far the village’s power spreads since it seems like there wasn’t much trouble even after all the fighting and whatnot went down at Kyohei’s apartment. Yeah, he’s not going to be living in that place anymore, but you’d think there would be police or ambulances or, like, anything around other than two dudes who are like, “lol we’ll take the crazy guy off your hands; by the way, Vegas won’t even touch the odds that we will be murdered before the end of the episode. Bye!”

A sign of vast power from the village, or a logical lapse that portends shit to come? Only time will tell . . .

Then we get to this guy, Aki, who is our villain so far. He’s straddling the line right now between potentially interesting and hilariously stock. On the one hand, if there is indeed more than meets the eye to the village, and Aki has a legitimate beef with the way they do things there, that could be interesting. In pro wrestling, the best villains are the ones who are convinced they are right, and would have the audience convinced they are right, too, if they weren’t such assholes with the way they spread their message. Aki gives a few vague hints about being that sort of villain, although it also could have been an excuse for him to whisper in Kyohei’s ear and provide slash material. He’s not wearing that tight black outfit for no reason, after all . . .

But he also gives out strong hints of being a generic, “Ahahaha, I am so much more awesome than you; check out how little power I need to employ to kick your ass!” type of villain, which would be lame. For me, anyway, his charisma seems kind of forced like, “Man, I’m so evil, dudes, you don’t even know.” But to be fair, we get like a couple of minutes of him, and it’s just the first episode. Plenty of time for him to become someone interesting rather than gray-haired bishie who likes leather. (And even then, at least that will be of interest for some people.)

At the very least, I want to watch more due to the opening scene of the episode. It looks to be something from the past — you’ve got a young Kyohei dragging along who appears to be a young Aki with all kinds of crazy shit happening behind them — which is clearly the genesis of Aki’s beef with the village. I doubt many of us would be too happy with a place that housed monsters who tried to laser us to death. It would be a slight point of contention with me, anyway. Really, I just want to see shit blowing up and maybe human enslavement by the gods. Let’s make that happen.

P.S. Boobs.