12-Days of Anime, Day 3: DanMachi- Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?

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“My grandfather always told me, ‘Bell, a brave adventurer always picks up his girls in a dungeon’“.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…what kind of grandfather actually says that?

What’s up, everyone, my name is Ken, from thebuttonsmashers.com, and today, I present to you Day 3 of the 12-Days of Anime, featuring my immediate two-cents on the show with another very long and nonsensical title:  Danmachi- Is it Wrong to Try to Pick-Up Girls in a Dungeon?

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Danmachi takes place in the world of Orario, a mystical realm where a huge underground labyrinth is situated on.  This labyrinth contains monsters and horrors of unspeakable sorts:  the perfect place to find a damsel in distress!  Brave adventurers scour the dungeons and brave whatever beings reside in them, from weird reptilians to minotaurs, in hopes of finding treasure, adventure, and girls to rescue (??????).  The story follows the young dungeon explorer Bell Cranel and the goddess of his representing family, Hestia, as they respectively strive to improve from a novice adventurer as well as gain more members for Hestia’s family.

Yeah, right off the bat, it starts off rather well, with an interesting premise coupled with a setting that has potential to be a great world-building device.  The world itself does seem to be massive, and the entire labyrinth lends itself to be something that can be further expanded upon.  There are semblances of an RPG-style MMO-esque feel to the show, being akin to a classic dungeon-crawler game, complete with stats, items, their own form of money converted from magical stones that come from a killed monster’s carcass, and skimpily armored female characters.

The plot itself is nothing new, it’s almost like a mish-mash of concepts that I’ve seen from many other anime, from the dungeon-style setting to the divine-being plot devices to the RPG-style McGuffins.  Yet DanMachi presents those common tropes in a way that made it a bit more watchable than I first expected, I’m not sure exactly what it is.  Either way, the setting itself makes for a pretty interesting plot device on its own, so there.

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So far, I am liking the male protagonist.  DanMachi is a show with the theme of “trying and trying until you eventually kick the bucket” sorta thing, and Bell is the probably the best thing you’ll have for that.  He is an adventurer who wants nothing more than to become stronger through continuous dungeon crawling, even it means going through dungeons that are a much higher level than what he currently should be in so that he can eventually catch up to the woman who saved his life at one instance, and I find that remarkable.  He is entirely selfless and only wishes for the well-being of others, even if he is a bit on the dense side but hey, at this point I’m not really surprised.

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Everyone else is kinda like a cookie-cutter stereotype though that I really wish weren’t so prevalent to the show as they were, but alas, that’s not the case.  But I suppose that the interactions and the dynamics that the cast have, especially between loli-big-boobs Hestia and Bell, both being kind of the “underdogs” in their respective states, as it were.

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So what recommendation do I give this show?

Check out the first few episodes.  i would suggest that you give the show a try.  For how meta it may seem at times, it has a setting that just makes you wanna learn more about the world and its inner machinations.  The characters might be a bit too one-dimensional, but not to the point that it hinders possible development, sooooo yeah give it a shot.  Much like the main male protagonist, this show might just have more hidden potential than you might initially think.

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Aaaaaaand, with that, I bid you all adieu.  This has been Ken for thebuttonsmashers.com Anime Reviews, and I’ll see you guys tomorrow for Day 4!