Anime: Di Gi Charat

Being a big fan of anything related to Koge-Donbo, (Snow Fairy Sugar, Pita Ten) this fairly popular and well known anime 'Digi Charat' really bothered me. I heard it was cute, very funny, and very weird. Being a fan of everything cute and funny (maybe not weird...) I decided to give this a try. I had no idea it was a low budget, poorly animated anime that's less than an hour long overall!

Animation

Quite sadly, the animation may be the weakest point physically. If you're judging on presentation, such as the backgrounds and character designs, this anime doesn't deserve anything higher than a 4. It's got no detail or shading whatsoever. I know Digi Charat is supposed to be cute, so they made things undetailed on purpose, but in my opinion that makes things ugly. It's far from realistic, all of the characters have hardly any detail and are what you might call chibi. I can't call this unique, maybe disturbing and low budget, but I definitly haven't seen animation this bad before.
Was this animation style memorable?
Yes, I've been scarred for life.
The fluidity wasn't Air TV or Azumanga Daioh, but it definitly wasn't Mahou Chocolate (One of the worst anime ever in the animation area, give it a try, it's only 8 minutes long) either. It was very choppy. The opening sequence (there is no real ending until the last episode, if you call that an ending sequence) definitly describes the anime well. Crazy.

Sound

I've spent alot of time being negative about the animation, so lets go to something positive! One of the strongest points of the anime, the sound is something to hear. Exellent voice actors, from Digi Charat to Gema, Puchiko to Usada, each voice actor matches the character nearly perfect. As it says in the 'Anime Review Howto' the voice actors make a bad story interesting. The opening song is a bit serious for the series even though I really like it, but because it doesn't match I can't really give sound a 10. The sound effects are great, there isn't an episode without 'em and the sound natural.

Story/Character

Negative and positive here, the story and characters are kind of a mixed bag. Now, you can't expect much from a 54 minute TV show that isn't even an OVA, no character development or story, right? In this case, no, there is no story or character development. The story possibly only appears in the first episode, Digi Charat and her friends come to planet earth to live for some reason, have no house, so they work at a store called Gamers to pay the rent for a house the manager gave them. After that, it's all about Digi Charat working at gamers and different characters being introduced. I really love all the characters, from obnoxious and arrogent Digiko to quiet and serious Puchiko. They all have wonderful designs thanks to Koge-Donbo, but sadly they don't develope at all.

Value

Digi Charat isn't exactly what I'd call funny, but entertaining in it's own way, and because of this it's rewatchable. I have it on DVD and I watch it when I need a smile on my face, but sometimes it plain annoys me. Sometimes it's watchable, but if you just came from watching something serious, Digi Charat might just annoy you to death.

Overall Digi Charat is a mixed bag. There were good things and bad things, and while Digi Charat is considered a classic with memorable characters, it's very overrated and not really funny at all. But as I said it's entertaining in it's own way, and if you're in need of some crazy cuteness, watch Digi Charat!

Wow-gema.

It's really difficult to describe this anime-gema. While some episodes will almost make you pee on yourself from laughing, others are so strange you can't help but wonder what was going on in the writers' mind. The randomness of it all is what keeps you watching, because you never know what's coming up next between an alien invasion, intense drama, a bowl of rice(!), an exorcism or a music video... I think only Excel Saga, Puni Puni Poemi and Boubobo exceed the strangeness of Di Gi Charat. One thing is sure though, those three-minute episodes are worth your time-gema!

Usually, I'm not in love with the chibi-style, but the Di Gi Charat characters are really, really, really loveable, especially Puchiko. Even that cheesy orange Gema is fun-gema.

Animation and sound are nothing out of the ordinary and not really worth discussing.

It's difficult to rate the "story", because there is none. This series is made up of stand-alone episodes that you can almost watch in random order. How do you rate that? Hmm-gema.

However, if you're a big anime fan, you'll enjoy the multiple references to otaku stereotypes, especially since the setting of this series is inside a game store.

The characters are great, but only in the context of this weird setting, as jonatan says. It's even surprising they made some effort to somewhat deepen a few of them (like episode 9 where we get some flashbacks about Rabi~en~rose).

Overall, I really enjoyed this series, but you have to keep in mind it's light and simple with some things you'll like, and others you'll be like eh? what the...?. It's worth a try-gema!

My first thought: What the.. is this!?!?! Then I started laughing, and I didn't stop.

I have no idea what the target audience for this anime is - my wild guess is kids, but it's making fun of concepts such as otaku's, japanese idols, game shops and the anime culture in general. And it's doing it with a style I've never seen before.

So what style is that?

As you can see, the characters are chibi styled and they act it. The primary characters - Dejiko-chan and Puchiko-chan are really uber cute and the fact that Dejiko acts like a spoiled monster baby only makes them more fun. As the description say, they are from the planet "Digi Charat" and come to earth for no apparent reason to be Idols. At least dejiko has this desire. Doesn't sound very thrilling does it?

Part of the deal with this anime is the fact that the characters and the sorroundings are so completely out of control. Everything is totally exaggerated and if you accept it as it is, the childishness is so silly that it becomes really hillarious. Delivering loads of anime cliche with a crazy twist (or no twist at all, just blatantly stupid) is another thing that makes this fun. At more than one occasion you go: "Why on earth was that thing there?" when seeing some of the strange little things - clouds with megaphones, gingerbreadmen made of slime standing on the roof and that sort of thing.

The reason for me giving 10 in character development is that for the purpouse I don't think the characters could be more appropriate.

The animation is not top notch but this is proof what can be done with a small budget. It's 'good enough' to carry the story forward.

The sound is good, especially the voice acting of the main characters but also the fanboys sorrounding them sound like the cliche fanboy. The intro music is also very catchy!

It's also good to know that the episodes are very short, but contain a lot of information.

Conclusion: Try it out - see if you like it, if you have the same wacky sense of humor I have, chances are you'll love Di Gi Charat!