Anime Discovery – TIME OF THE SEASON Summer 2014 Edition: DRAMAtical Murder

Um…….*checks info on show* OK, this isn’t a SHAFT anime nor is it directed by Akiyuki Shinbo. That’s the good news. The bad news is…….I don’t know what to make of this. Again, another anime has stumped me. Am I that easily confused? Or this stupid? No, really, I’m asking you.

This is DRAMAtical Murder.

Director: Kazuya Miura

 

Series Composition:
Kabura Fuchii
Touko Machida

 

Screenplay:
Satoko Sekine
Touko Machida

 

Music: Yuuki Hayashi

 

Original Character Design: honyalala

 

Character Design:
Etsunobu Iwanaga (sub)
Yukiko Ban

Animation Production: NAZ

Internet Streaming: Crunchyroll

Licensor: Unlicensed (at the time of this review)

Plot Summary: Aoba lives on Hekishima, a small island to the southwest of the main islands of Japan. He lives with his grandmother Tae while working part time at a junk shop. The popular pastimes on the island are the ongoing turf war called “Libstease” and an online game set in the virtual world of “Rhyme.” Aoba isn’t involved in either, preferring to live peacefully, until one day he is forced into a Rhyme battle.

First Thoughts: OK, maybe this isn’t as confusing as I made it out to be. The anime itself is based off of a Nitro+ChirAL visual novel game and boy, does it show. The mention of the virtual world “Rhyme” does remind me of something like Log Horizon and Accel World as this aspect was the only interesting thing happening in the series as everything else just really felt unmotivated, including its characters. The main lead, Aoba, is just another male character with really feminine hair with not much of a personality and of course, there’s a whole bunch of handsome dudes that some of the girls will squeal over but who cares about them? Anyway, the show does managed to draw you in this world of “Rhyme” and what goes along it although you might need to repeat watch just to get it. The animation and artwork is a little eccentric to say the least. I have never heard of Studio NAZ, whose only other work is Hamatora and I’ve never seen that but it is pretty off about it. The music is actually one of the better things about the show as it is something more digital, more of a style that I feel like should be more appreciated in music scores, whether it be TV, film or animation.

However, I’m just gonna WAIT TO MARATHON because while the premise sounds good, it doesn’t exactly excites you to watch it that quickly.

 

And until then, this is MAK2.0 aka The Blue Hybrid, bringing all the Rhymes and Reason into this world.