There are innumerable possible classifications for anime series. There are ones that are unique and one-of-a-kind, ones that could never be bettered or impersonated. There are ones that are distinctive, flourishing because of their individuality. There are genre pieces that may not stand out on topic but do by embodying the best of their genre. There are derivative series that cherry pick the tropes du-jour and throw them together in the often futile hope of producing a hit. Then there’s D-Frag. A series so staunchly bereft of personality, so picked over by committee and with all its rough edges sanded down that it’s difficult to lump any kind of praise upon it beyond “it’s not terrible”.
Not great, but not terrible. A pleasant mediocre. It goes laser like for the apathetic part of the brain that isn’t particularly engaged with any of the characters or events, but isn’t offended enough to discontinue watching. Its a school club love story with a light comedy scaffold with an all-too familiar one guy - multiple girls setup. The protagonist, spikey haired delinquent and chronic screamer Kenji, has been coerced into joining the “Game Development Club” in order to save it from forced disbandment; cue hijinks.
The club itself is regularly under siege by other organisations and bodies within the school, whether that’s the “original” Game Development Club or the dead-eyed stare of the third year ex-student council president meaning that the majority of the series is taken up with foolish bets and extended “battles”. The latter of which go from simple “who can get the most people during the school festival” fluff through to a protracted game of cell-phone tag. It starts enjoyable enough with the individual character’s personalities - Takao and the pint sized Roka early highlights - providing much of the impetus to continue watching; six episodes in though and the tedium begins to build until the utterly crackers finale that sees a crystal skull and a basketball team used with bizarre effect.
Indeed the shenanigans are at their best when the humour is off-the-wall rather than falling back to the tired love quadrangle that forms around Kenji. Takao, the first to fall to his dunderheaded charm, is a surprisingly genuine addition to the core cast, however she’s all too quickly played for her physical attributes rather than her burgeoning puppy love. Demure and easily startled Funabori meanwhile is critically underused much like Kenji’s sister who, despite being in a prominent Ben-To! style pose during the raucous opening credits, is only featured in one episode. They add a lot to the overall texture of the series but then the other member of the Game Development Club, Sakura, is given short shrift throughout.
This is saying nothing about Kenji himself who plays the straight-man to the ongoing bedlam and, in a question that could have come right from the audience, is asked whether he ever gets tired of shouting all the time. I know I certainly did, his signature faux exasperation wearing thin even before the end of the budget-burning first episode. His role as the everyman though - despite being suspended from school in the first episode - also brings along the other punks and thugs of the school, including a comrade who is modeled almost verbatim from Kenji Harima from School Rumble. Bizarrely though, the protagonist’s gang is often on the receiving end of the repeated kidnappings resulting in somewhat of a gender role reversal, however that goes hand in hand with the weird focus the series has on light masochism and torture.
D-frag is about as by-the-numbers as you could get for a series. It lazily ticks all the popular boxes with nods to popular video game series like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and Ghosts and Goblins through to the school club chicanery and romantic overtures of all the school’s most sought after females. It’s at its best though when it goes completely off the reservation and comes up scenes like the infamous “zipper boing” incident (endlessly immortalised in GIF format), or the basketball team constantly dribbling around Kenji while he’s on the phone (“Is that dribbling I hear?”), or even the brief vignette of the porno pirates’ comedically cut-throat universe. It’s worst though is stretching those jokes out too far and relying upon the block-headedness of Kenji to somehow inspire or keep momentum when in practice he accomplishes neither. There is affable fun to be had here but it is often fleeting and not keen enough to rise above the otherwise limp remainder.
