Disgaea

It started with someone's LiveJournal Icon.  She was a very slender red-headed demon girl, with a DFC and kind of a kinky outfit.  It turned out her name was Etna, and there was a fair amount of fan art and Cosplay photos of her on DeviantArt (it's a really easy costume).  So I took a flyer and looked for a Torrent, and amazingly found one from 2010 that was still live (the show is originally from 2003), and after a very rocky start - fools, why turn off DHT and peer exchange? - it came down in a day or so.

I'm not going to say this is some neglected gem or masterpiece, but it is a little fun.

Meet Flonne, another DFC.  She's an Angel Trainee, sent from Celestia two years ago to assassinate the Demon Overlord.  She's not exactly good at the job, having been wandering around for two years without finding the Overlord's castle.  But no problem, it's been revealed that two years ago the Overlord choked to death on a dumpling ("of the damned").  She does run across a crypt/garbage dump with a coffin in it with the Overlord's Crest on it, and unleashes Holy Hell on it to open it.  Okay, her magical bow, dynamite, throwing axes, a steamroller and a missile launcher.... So you can tell what kind of series it's going to be from here.


Her efforts are enough to awaken this guy, Laharl, who is the overlord's son, and who was apparently poisoned and dumped in the crypt by forces unknown until halfway through the series.  Flonne is a little conflicted, because she doesn't really approve of assassination, but she was told to do it and had to follow orders.  Laharl doesn't really respect this, and tries to blast her, but his powers are severely weakened.  She's rather upset by the fact that Laharl is unmoved when they find out about the death of his father (from a conveniently wind-blown newspaper) but he explains that Demons don't know love, and thus they also don't know sadness.

A battle with guardians of the crypt ensues, but Laharl can barely fight them off, and that's when things go really gonzo, as a spaceship crashes through the wall, piloted by Captain Gordon, 37th Defender of the Earth, with his gorgeous, scientifically brilliant, and tremendously endowed sidekick Jennifer and loyal robot/giant cannon Thursday.


When Jennifer goes to comfort the "Children" they've just saved from the demons, we discover that Laharl's kryptonite is major cleavage, and we're talking original Green K.  The Robot scans him, discovers that he's been poisoned, and Flonne heals him.  The Humans are amazed to discover that they've saved an Angel, and upset to discover they've also saved the next Demon Overlord.  They draw on him, and he's about to blast them, when a glimpse of Jennifer bouncing knocks him back, ill.  Flonne shields him, and he buries his face in her (lack of) chest, and springs back.  With his power restored, he blows the humans, and the rest of the crypt, into the sky like Team Rocket.  This becomes a recurring theme.

One of the guardians isn't so dead, and a fully powered Laharl flattens him, and interrogates him trying to get to the bottom of his poisoning, but the creature ends up dead without talking.  Flonne abhors his violent ways, and makes it her new mission to either assassinate him, or teach him Love (no, not THAT way, it's a kid's show).  Unfortunately the pendant that allows her to survive in the underworld got stuck to the Robot somehow, and she collapses before she can make good on her threat.

Just as they're about to start fighting, Etna arrives and watches from a distance.  When Flonne falls, she reintroduces herself (Laharl knows her from the castle).  Etna expresses surprise that Laharl doesn't just blow away his helpless opponent, and wonders at him showing kindness.  Laharl nearly blasts her for the accusation, and insists it's actually because he wants her to die a slow death.  "Oh, I get it!  That's my prince!" she says, and they leave to go find the Overlord's Palace.


Etna is now one of Laharl's Vassals, but she has some Vassals of her own.  The "Prinnies" are the souls of sinners in these odd stuffed penguin bodies who have to work in the netherworld to earn a chance at rebirth.  Generally stupid, they're a whiny bunch, but usually productive.

Through a chain of events too long to go through here, Flonne gets back the pendant, and ends up attached to the crew.

They go on a number of short adventures on the way back to the castle, taking on other pretenders to the throne, and find out who poisoned Laharl. It was Etna, but she was under blackmail, and she was supposed to kill him.  Periodically they run into Gordon, who is determined to fight the demon prince, but is so simple-minded that Lararl actually uses him and his ship as a shortcut to get them to the castle.

Then, after half the series, an actual plot breaks out.  Gordon has unwittingly been a pawn of the humans, and in their travels, Thursday has been planting beacons that will help open up a gateway to the netherworld big enough to bring in a million-ship-strong space fleet from Earth  Earth wants to invade and wipe out the demons because they're demons, and because Earth needs more room for the population.

The Earth forces, in turn, have been pawns of the second in command of the Angels.  But Laharl is powerful enough to turn it all around, and after conquering everything... he abdicates and dumps it all on Etna, who at one point aspired to the throne, and now learns to be careful what she wishes for.

Technically, the files were encoded in an odd 3:2 aspect ratio, so I had to correct the screen shots, although after looking at them enough, I became unsure what was right.

In any case, I tossed a bunch more shots of Etna below the fold.

Posted by: Mauser at 08:04 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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