Dramatical Murder Anime Review [Data_10_Faith]

Also known as "the birth of our Lord and Savior Mink the Bara" and "the day the Noiz x Clear fans spontaneously exploded".

I'm going to level with all of you here: I actually hesitated on watching this episode, and I have no idea why.  I was all set to watch it on Sunday, and even had the tag on my page ready to load up and play.  And yet...I held back.  I don't know why I hesitated, because I knew full well that the thing that held me back in the game from watching most of his route wasn't going to be in here due to the PG rating.  So here comes Monday morning, where I have steeled myself up to finally get this thing watched.  And thank our new Lord that I did, because Mink has done it again.  He finally comes into the story and EVERYTHING THAT I HAVE BEEN COMPLAINING ABOUT UP UNTIL THIS POINT HAS BEEN FIXED.

Remember the review two weeks ago, where I mentioned that I would've liked more interactions between the boyfriends, and not with Aoba himself?  BAM.  Come Mink's episode and now all three of them are talking to each other about the plot in general and making game plans.  THIS is what I wanted.  Heck, all of them are reacting to Clear being an android!  They're all reacting as a whole to the fact that Aoba totally has the Force- SCRAP in his voice.  They're reacting to the goddamn plot in general.  Make a note of this, anime fans, because we game fans never get that luxury.

Remember when I mentioned that the animation has been a bit sloppy?  Well...yeah, okay, it's still a bit sloppy (Akushima looks like he's having a stroke), but there's a lot of CG going on in this episode.  I love how the guard dogs of animals basically ripped out of the Resident Evil live action moves turned into those Hello Kitty bots in the anime.  Apparently they weren't PG enough.

Okay, rewinding back for a minute, what exactly did I like about this episode?  Honestly, I like the changes.  I like the fact that part of the reason why Aoba went with Mink was because he didn't want to drag the others into this.  I like the fact that he found some kind of kinship with Mink because both of them want to take down Toue without bringing in anyone else.  I really love the fact that the part where they're sneaking into the tower became so memetic with Metal Gear Solid.  And I really like the fact that this will most likely bring in some Mink fans.  The fact that all the crazy, character-hating things that Mink did in the game couldn't be animated actually comes to help me like him, because without it you just see...well, Sasuke Uchiha.  You know I'm right: people who are crazy hell-bent for revenge because their family got slaughtered and would go through some crazy hoops in order to obtain it.  And people like Sasuke Uchiha (well, I don't, but that's not the point).  The only difference is that Mink actually cares about Aoba.  He just hates Sly Blue.  Mink haters tend to forget that because the game doesn't make it as obvious (or extremely hard to watch, one of the two), but fortunately the anime shows us this in spades, not bogged down by creepiness and all around hate.

Oh, and by the way, the Scrap sequence?  A-MAY-ZING.  With a "y".  I love how Mink egged on Aoba to use Scrap, and then Sly Blue comes out and was like "SCRAP TIME" and Scrapped him.  I love the Scrap scene here; it might be the best one yet.  I love how Aoba fills in the blanks of the dying villagers with the side characters such as those brats.  It was the only way that Aoba could empathize with Mink (which is what he needed for Scrap to work) and it makes the Good Route a lot harder to go to.  Remember, in order to achieve the Good Route with Mink, you have to let all the villagers you bump into die by Toue's soldiers.  Dickish move, but it's to symbolize the fact that you can't change the past, which is one of Mink's problems.  Making all of these villagers people Aoba knows makes it even harder to ignore them.  I love how we have to watch Mink on the hill and seeing all the dead people (though I always thought Mink would've been younger when this happened.  Apparently they were the same age?).  I love the swamp of liquadized people and all the hanging chains.  It actually makes going into this guy's mind terrifying to do, compared to the other Scraps which just involved darkness and stuff.  I love how we finally figure out who was trying to tell Aoba to stay away.  We all assumed it was Mink, but in the game the words were never actually uttered in words; it was only in the text box.  I love chained Mink (and bandaged Clear for that matter, but he already had his episode).  I love how they kept that thing in his route where Aoba touched the chains and his arms rusted off (that's kind of the reason why I wanted to watch this episode so badly).  But the best part of all this?


You see, in the game, Aoba was able to do some kind of Scrap on Mink, which was basically telling him to move on with his pain and live a life of his own.  It broke...one chain, basically, but it was able to be enough for Mink to finally move on and survive after the game.  But Aoba was the one who initiated it in the game.  In the anime, it was Sly who initiated it, and I wouldn't be surprised if Mink pushed him out because he thought it was Sly.  But now that Aoba knows what the heck was bogging down on him, he could talk to him face-to-face and not be "technically brainwashed" to forget.  Friendly reminder that Mink hates anything and everything Toue, especially brainwashing, so for Aoba to tell him this without any need of brainwashing or power makes it even better.  And if Mink chooses to move on after this, it's not because he was brainwashed to, but because of his own choice, which is a theme ripped straight out of Clear's episode.  Not sure why Mink decided to ditch Aoba and leave him in the middle of the Tower, though.  Even I wouldn't have done that.

Other than that fine summary, I'm glad that Mink's Route hasn't ended as well.  In the game, the Route ends with Toue dead in the tower, which basically means that Mink's Route will end when the main plot ends.  Which basically means that Ren's Route can technically finish before Mink's did.  And for all you people wondering why Clear's Route was explored before Mink's even though the game wanted us to do it the other way around, I would argue it's for the sake of the plot.  Remember, Aoba wanted to do this on his own after he realizes just how much sacrifice was done in terms of brainwashing.  Koujaku suffered the consequences, Noiz was a direct sufferer, and Clear died for it.  After so many sacrifices, no wonder he took up Mink's offer.  Either that, or the argument is that Clear had to get out of the way for Mink to have direct access to Aoba, or else he would've directly interfered when Mink goes to "collect the debt".  I'm pretty sure that if any of the other guys were awake when Mink came around, you'd bet your bottom dollar they would've jumped between them.

Now I really want to see animated Ren's face.  I want snarling and rage and AWESOME (which probably won't happen because animation budget).  I really want to see if Clear is going to run into the Tower with all them bandages on him.  And I really want to see if they're going to end the next episode on the revelation that Virus and Trip were Morphine leaders, or the fact that Aoba is a designer baby.  One of the two will work.

By the by, hello bug-that-will-start-the-Ren-route.  I was wondering if you were going to show up again.  I might as well call it GUILT because I've been watching Game Grumps recently.