DRAMAtical Murder being made into anime was not a surprise. Dramatical Murder being made into a family friendly (PG-13) anime was a real surprise. Lol For those who don’t know about Dramatical Murder, don’t be alarmed neither did I. DRAMAtical murder is a yaoi manga and video game which I now know cause I Googled it. OMG, that was a mistake! As soon as I hit “Enter”, my screen was immediately filled with EXTREME sausage fests all over the place. I immediately closed those windows and returned to my fav streaming site where I had an epiphany. This site was never a porn site so why would they allow this series to be shown here if it was? My curiosity led me to click play on episode 1 and I’m glad I did.
PLOT
DRAMAtical Murder is set in a futuristic time on a fictional island, called Midorijima, Japan where the “normal” people who live in the old town have been separated from the important ones that live in a dome resort called Platinum Jail. The dome takes up half the island towering over the old town and it cost a lot of people their homes. In the town, gangs and a game called Rhyme has become popular but for our main protagonist Aoba, it’s also become dangerous. Aoba has the typical quite life consisting only of a few people, his allmate(mechanical pet) Ren, his childhood friend and a gang leader, Koujaku, and his grandmother, Tae. The story kicks off when Aoba is forced into a Rhyme battlefield where all the safeties have been disabled. After taking a few blows Aoba snaps and takes on a completely different persona. This Aoba was darker and unstoppable in the game of Rhyme leading to Aoba winning the battle but when he awoke he didn’t remember a thing. Turns out that Aoba has a power hidden inside of him called Scrap and it allows him to jump inside someone’s mind which the creator of Platinum Jail, Tatsuo Toue, is very interested in. The whole anime is based on how Aoba uses this power, the dark secrets he uncovers about those around him, and how he fights back against Tatsuo Toue’s constant attempts to capture him.
ARTWORK
Due to DRAMAtical Murder’s odd environment of an old town with a fancy dome on the side, you get a nice techy artwork inside the dome with lights, colors, and big screens then outside in the old town you get a very natural, down to earth kind of artwork which I’m sure is intended and fits the storyline well. It’s nothing revolutionary but I would be surprised if any anime artwork really was at this point. All I ask is for things to stand out for me and in this series the artwork of certain characters like Aoba and Koujaku stood out. The environment of Platinum Jail and the local town are nice as well but not as good as some of the character art to me.
ENVIROMENT
Even though the environment of the island doesn’t get too much attention at all in this very short series besides a few quick shots here and there, it was done well even when the environments created inside each characters head to tell their story. The scene of the old town being dwarfed by Toue’s Platinum Jail (shown for literally a few seconds at the start of Episode 2) fit exactly to how the different the people are inside the dome and in the old town. To be honest, the old town kinda gives me a Jet Set Radio vibe when I think about it (Google that game to understand what I’m talking about). The environments were done well and help immerse you in the story.
ACTION
There’s a ton of action in Dramatical Murder after the 1st couple episodes when Aoba really starts to use his power and the story escalates fast. Pretty much all of Aoba’s friends are fighters and I found the fight scenes to be pretty entertaining. However, that’s not the only action in the series. Aoba using SCRAP to jump in and out of people’s minds either breaking them or helping them is really awesome to watch. A power I definitely wouldn’t want but cool nonetheless. I would’ve loved to see more Rhyme battles other than the few Aoba was in during the series. The focused wasn’t really focused on it that much too me.
CONCLUSION
DRAMAtical Murder takes you on a short wild ride that consists of a villain who wants to be a god, the town he turned upside down because of it and the ones who go against him to set things right. Really not original but the path to get to the obvious conclusion was fast, fun, and best of all had no odd sex scenes involved like in the manga I’ve come across online. Despite having to change up a lot of things to not be a porno, the story was neat and enjoyable. If you have a little time between the shows of your favorite weekly anime series, check out DRAMAtical Murder to pass the time.
