D-Frag! Episode 12
What They Say:
The showdown between Chitose and Tama rages on! Kazama tries to help as Shield No.2, but Tama’s sumo slaps and kabuki hair are insanely powerful. Can Chitose defeat Tama for the very first time, or is the Game Creation Club (Provisional) doomed?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the series drawing to a close here, we get down to the final showdown that has been building towards things in the last couple of episodes. The series has brought in a few new characters, something it didn’t really need to do so quickly, and it’s worked with some decent physical humor and other gags along the way that hit the right mark, especially the whole Princess Pinch joke that really does define Kazama in so many ways. But the main thrust of recent events have revolved around the issues with Tama and Chitose, a struggle that goes back to their childhood. Which, thankfully, we see in very cute form here early on with a playground fight that comes into play between the two.
This also brings us the first meeting between Chitose and Roka, which is utterly adorable, though you can see how Roka hasn’t really grown all that much of the years and has largely remained the same in so many ways. All of that serves as nice bit of foundational material and humor as it segues back into the present and we get closer to the actual showdown itself. Not that it goes smoothly since there are so many reactionary personalities in the mix here, and with Kazama getting abused along the way, but he does manage to fulfill the role of being something of the grounded personality in all of this. Particularly since he wasn’t involved in all of the childhood drama itself, making it easier for the others to accept what he suggests and getting to the actual showdown itself.
While we get this kind of back and forth going on, we get a few smaller pieces along the way with some of the supporting cast getting involved, though mostly superficially just to make sure they have an appearance in the episode. It is mostly kept to the core three here, especially with Tama whipping her hair around, and it makes for some cute gags even as it falls flat in the larger sense. Naturally, you can see how things will end (i.e. everyone is friends! The club continues on!) but that wasn’t quite the point of it all. The point was to have fun. And in its own way, D-Frag certainly accomplishes that here as Chitose and Tama have some really amusing moments going against each other as Kazama gets caught further and further into it. But as amusing as it is at times, it’s also just pretty superficial and empty.
In Summary:
D-Frag was a series that I was pretty keen on at the start, but it ended up going in a pretty listless way as it progressed and it left me not finding a whole lot to really latch onto and enjoy. I liked the smaller aspects that we got here and there and some of the character interactions, but the big plus for me was seeing how Kazama and Takao got along. Which was good for a bit, but even that got pushed to the side as it went on, leaving us with more simple stories, overreactions and attempts to kill the club. That card just got played too often in how it felt and we ended up with a group of character that have their moments but no real depth or connection for the viewer to work with.
Grade: C
Streamed By: FUNimation
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.