Daimidaler: Prince vs. Penguin Empire Review (Anime)
Koichi Madanbashi is a hot-blooded youth with a lust for busty women, and he’s Beauty Salon Prince’s secret weapon against the Penguin Empire. It might be attempting to parody other genres, but it does not succeed in being entertaining based on its own merits or the merits of those it parodies.
Daimidaler isn’t for everyone, and I can’t count myself among those who enjoyed it. Koichi has to fondle his co-pilot’s breasts, among other’s breasts too, to gain super abilities known as “Hi-ERo” so that he can combat the Penguin Empire. Daimidaler is basically the show non-anime fans think of when they assume all anime is hentai, and it’s only redeemed by an incredible English dub.
There’re a fair few laughs to be had, mostly thanks to the English dub and a small handful of visual gags, but the amount of groping scenes on show really detracts from its parody elements Whilst some shows manage to get a laugh out of sexual situations and misunderstandings, Daimidaler just feels incredibly sleazy and inappropriate. TNK do a pretty good job animating the show though, but I was not surprised that the majority of their catalog consists of ecchi titles.
It feels like that for every genuinely funny moment, there’s a moment right around the corner that leaves you groaning and wondering why you still have the show on. This is a complaint I have about many fan-service-heavy harem anime because they can be pretty funny when they’re not focusing on trying to sexually arouse me — I’m always left feeling pretty uncomfortable. The English dialogue is pretty great for Daimidaler though, in the way that the English dub for Ghost Stories is stupidly hilarious — this seems to be one of the rare cases where the English dub got free reign to insert a lot of jokes because the subtitled version isn’t anywhere near as funny.
I watched some of the show back in Japanese to see how it compared and the jokes feel more straight-forward and stiff, making the scenes feel different so that we’re supposed to get laughs from sexual harassment – the English dub can’t fix this, but it does subvert it a little by having self-aware dialogue and embraces that it’s simply not a good concept or execution. It’s odd because the humour and intent to be silly is clearly always there, but it just fails to feel anything other than stifled and creepy in its original Japanese voice-over – and always in the visuals department.
The English dub realises how dumb this show is and goes full-out with it. The English dub jokes are presented in an obvious, over-the-top and slightly sarcastic way, and it’s a breath of fresh air because if I was judging this show solely on the original Japanese voice-over, I’m not sure I’d be able to give it a score at all. It might not be as drastic as Ghost Stories changes were, but voice director Clifford Chapin and the scriptwriters did their best in salvaging what I found to be an awful anime, and the voice-actors and actresses clearly had a lot of fun with the show’s newfound stupidity.
I can only imagine that the likes of the outstanding Matthew Mercer and Emily Neves only signed up because the script was re-written with a bunch of laugh-out-loud worthy jokes, as the original version of the show isn’t something to be proud of on your portfolio. As an adult who loves anime and has watched a vast amount of it, there’s only a very small handful I’ve watched and felt like I’ve wasted my time. Of course, Daimidaler is clearly aimed at teenagers, but that doesn’t excuse just how dire it truly is.
The English dub is brilliant though and proves that this could’ve been a pretty funny show, and one that’s aware of how stupid it is, so the English script and performances can be thanked for being the only truly positive aspect of Daimidaler. Remove the English dub and what you’ve got is an incredibly unfunny, perverted show which fails to be enjoyable — how a show with such an outlandish premise ends up feeling so flat is shocking, although it would still have issues due to its concept. The difference between the two versions is stunningly vast and there’s only one version that’s worth checking out if you decide to pick this up, and the English dub is the only part I enjoyed as it tries to make the best out of a poor situation. I can’t recommend checking it out, though.
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