Kora
“He saw something inside me I couldn’t get out… and knew we were kindred spirits. But I would soon come to regret meeting him, with all my heart.”
There is an underlying irony to Dorei-ku’s release, because, no matter what, I’m going to be comparing it favorably to Magical Girl Site. Is it uncomfortable? Sure. But it never threw a kitten in front of a train. Is it creepy? Absolutely. But it didn’t beat a 14-year-old until she vomited. In a sense, Dorei-ku has a better balance with regard to its use of creepy themes, and, ultimately, it’s not about intentionally making the viewer miserable. But this is all pertaining to how it relates to that prior trainwreck of the season. How does it stand on its own? Frankly, I have to admit Dorei-ku probably defies ratings. As I mentioned before, it’s definitely uncomfortable, but if the underlying themes play into your kink then that may not be an issue. This might be the epitome of a “Your mileage may vary,” title. Personally, I think it’s pretty mediocre, but, even then, I’ve found myself bouncing around on where my numerical rating would fall. In the end, I can only go off of my personal reaction to this series which was something to the extent of, “Well… you do you.”
The narrative of Dorei-ku is constructed around the idea that a technology has been developed that, when worn in one’s mouth, increases the wearer’s sense of obligation. When a wearer of this device, called SCM, ensures that if a person wearing it loses a challenge, they will become the slave of the winner. The episode spends a little bit of time on it, but, despite its efforts, can’t gloss over the fact that this is magical pseudoscience that turns individuals into slaves. Frankly, given the clear acknowledgement of the creepy overtones of the device, it’s a little strange that they spend so much time bothering with the pseudoscience, but it’s not as much of a narrative speed bump as it could be. Speaking of that acknowledgement, the opening shows a young man commanding a woman to sleep with him after losing a card game, so the show doesn’t shy away from the creepy. However, it also serves to establish the stakes in this series. If you lose a game, your agency is what is at stake. On a conceptual level, that’s an intriguing approach. Anime is chock full of games where your life is at stake, but this makes degradation and loss-of-self the penalty conditions. However, while intriguing, the subjugation aspect is also a tricky and delicate thing to pull off, if you want to be high brow about this. This show doesn’t care to be high-brow about it.
On a more frustrating level, I’m going to have to spend a bit more time threading the needle with this conversation, since the episode touches on some sensitive topics, and I don’t want to move on without addressing them. A character is raped in this first episode. Since an attempted rape was enough to push me past the breaking point with Magical Girl Site, one may wonder why I’m being less harsh on this show. Frankly, I think it was an unnecessary step for the episode to take, but it had a purpose beyond making the viewer upset. You see our B-story in the episode centers on a young woman who meets a friend from a chat room for a dinner, but finds he is an uncomfortably older man. Despite her misgivings, she finds him to be nice enough, until he offers to give her a ride home and assaults her in his car. Most of this is told in flashback and is used to explain what follows. Specifically, she tricks him into a SCM challenge and then uses clever wording of the rules to beat him at the game. This serves a dual purpose of showing how the SCM device can turn the subject of control on its head, and how one can manipulate parameters to come out ahead. The difference between how Dorei-ku and Killing Bites used rape and attempted rape, and how Magical Girl Site used attempted rape is that one approach uses it to inform the audience of a detail and provide context, and the other uses it purely to induce emotional distress. I don’t think either approach is warranted, but I hope the key difference in my reactions can be understood.
The visual design of the show is nothing special. It can feel a bit drab at points, particularly during its seedier moments. Though, it breaks it up enough to avoid being dreary. However, it can’t escape the artistic cul-de-sac of this season, poorly integrated CG!!! It only rears its particularly ugly head on occasion, but there were two instances of note. The first instance would be the aforementioned rapist’s car. The second time would be when our, as yet unmentioned, main character meets with a man for a ride in a swan boat. Let’s just say that animating water can be hard. That being said, there are details that I appreciated. The reflection of the light off the water onto the roof of the swan boat was a nice touch, and I find that, in most cases, I’m particularly partial to the way this series does eyes. It reminds me a little of the style used by Steins;Gate. I didn’t devote significant to our main cast, because, frankly, they didn’t do much in this first episode. Our main character, Arakawa Eia, spends the majority of the episode meeting an individual who is planning to take part in SCM games and learning about the nature of the device itself. I do like her character design though, more so than anyone else in the promotional material. She has a dressed down quality that almost makes it difficult to ascertain her gender at first glance. It’s an approach to character design that you don’t see too often in anime, and it’s refreshing to see it here… I’m wary of making a statement like that regarding a show like this.
Before I wrap up, a few Notes and Nitpicks:
- My understanding is that Dorei-ku translates to ‘slave district’ which is… It just is.
- Of course this would be the longest review I’d write this season. Why wouldn’t it be?
- I’ll concede I’m mildly curious what the ultimate plot for this series will be. Since, so much of this first episode was about setting up the SCM and its applications, there were only the slightest hints of where the narrative may go from here. I’d say I’d check out the second episode, but those statements prove to be incorrect more often than not.
- Eia’s friend (I don’t think she was ever given a name.) is the primary exception to my, “I like how this anime designs its eyes,” statement, since hers are just weird black smudges. I’m not a fan of that choice.
- The production for this anime was jointly carried out by Zero-G, who are relative newcomers, and TNK, who had previously handled the High School DxD franchise (but not the new season) and School Days… pedigree?
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