Table of Contents:
Page 1 - Intro / La Pucelle
Anime - Makai Senki Disgaea (2006)
Shortly afterward, Disgaea was also fully adapted into a twelve episode animated series, published in North America by Geneon and Madman Entertainment in England. It does not use any of the animation from the previously released trailer. Although it follows the basic story of the game, many of the episodes feature completely new substories and characters. Amongst the changes to the story - Flonne is the one who wakes up Laharl, not Etna, and Gordon and his pals right in the first episode. It also follows the "Normal Ending" of the game, rather than the "Good Ending", which is otherwise considered canon. Of the many new adventures, some are particularly amusing, like one episode where Flonne and Etna switch bodies, a run in with Hoggmeiser's bratty little kid, and an encounter with Laharl's long lost sister, Maharl, who tries to take on the throne. In the episode where the group encounters the demon Maderas - who's portrayed a bit differently than in the game - Laharl and Flonne are tossed into a gigantic dangerous board game, while Etna needs to face him by herself.
It's an alright show, but like a lot of anime based off of video games, you really need to be a fan of the series and already be familiar with the characters, because the plot itself isn't particularly interesting. Although the artwork is decent enough, the animation is rather subpar, and visually it pales in comparison to the trailer that preceded it. Additionally, while the characters were amusing when taken in brief bursts during the gameplay, it takes a lot more than that to flesh out a single 22 minute episode, let alone a whole season. This could have been done with some quality writing, but it really isn't up to par with the games. There are some amusing segments which keeps it from being a total wash, but even those are brought down by boring (albeit brief) fight scenes. At least it covers more of the main plot than the manga, and most of the soundtrack is taken from the game. Overall, it's pretty average, and fans should probably just stick to watching selected episodes and not bothering with the whole series.
Disgaea (Anime)
Disgaea (Anime)
Disgaea (Anime)
Trailer Screenshots
The second series focuses on Disgaea 2, and is currently scheduled with three volumes. It's drawn and written by Hekaton, and it's significantly better than the first manga on all accounts - the artwork is closer to Harada's work, and the goofy writing is on par with the games, complete with "next episode" parodies narrated by Etna. The first few chapters bridge the link between the first and second games, showing how Etna fell out of favor with Laharl, before introducing Adell and Rozalin. The main problem with the series is the one that affected the game - the supporting characters are fun, but the leading couple is almost insufferably boring. It's still a decent read though. Both have some amusing references to other Nippon Ichi games, like a La Pucelle kart racer style game, and extremely brief cameos by Pram and Zetta.
Disgaea Manga
Disgaea 2 Vol. 1 Manga
Fan Books
The World of Disgaea
Links
NIS America Nippon Ichi America Homepage The English website for N1.
Pram (Makai Kingdom)
Page 2 - Disgaea
Page 3 - Phantom Brave
Page 4 - Makai Kingdom
Page 5 - Disgaea 2
Page 6 - Soul Nomad
Page 7 - Disgaea 3
Page 8 - Anime/Manga
DVD Cover
Disgaea (Anime)
Disgaea (Anime)
The first Disgaea anime feature was actually a brief trailer, showing various scenes from the game in animated form. This was a special DVD release in Japan, and was included in the localized version of Disgaea 2.
Manga
There are two Disgaea manga series have been translated into English by Brocolli Books. The first is only a single volume and covers the events of the first Disgaea game. It's obviously pretty compressed, hitting only the most major of plot points. It was drawn and written by Arashi Shindo, whose art style leans a bit on the shoujo side. The characters are proportioned a bit differently than the slightly super-deformed Harada artwork, and the whole thing just looks weird. Furthermore, since the storytelling so compressed, it's missing a lot of the wacky humor, in favor of lame fight scenes where Laharl takes on his would be attackers. There's a lot more of Mid-Boss, but there's nothing regarding Gordon and the earth people. It's pretty dull overall.
Fan books are special type of publications that straddle the line between strategy guide and artbook, combined with tons and tons of supplementary information. They're common in Japan, and there are several for Nippon Ichi games. Brocolli Books was also cool enough to publish the books for Disgaea 1 and 2 in English. (There are books for Phantom Brave and Phantom (Makai) Kingdom, although those are only in Japanese, since they aren't as popular.) There are also interviews, concept artwork, tables detailing all of the weapons (and their humorous descriptions) and plot details of each chapter. They're fantastic, incredibly detailed books (and bound nicely in hardcover), making them must have goods for Disgaea fans. The only problem is that the translators didn't take any screenshots of the English versions and just left the Japanese shots intact. Most of the time there are captions detailing the scene, if not translating it outright, but it still sometimes misses out on the funny dialogue.
Considering how quirky Nippon Ichi games are, it's a surprise that they've found a sizeable enough audience that publishers are willing to translate them. Considering the landscape sometimes, they really are rare treats. Despite the friendly demeanor, they aren't exactly friendly to newcomers - but the SRPG genre tends to attract a very particular kind of gamer anyway. And for them, Nippon Ichi gives these fans untold amounts of depth, fantastically memorable characters, and one of the most addicting experiences in all of modern video gaming. They've also created a bizarre point-of-no-return - almost every single other strategy RPG seems lacking after playing any of these. It says something when a series of games are so in depth that it makes the entire rest of the genre totally pale in comparison.
Nippon Ichi Japan The official Japanese homepage
Akurasa.net Includes wiki-style guides for several Nippon Ichi games.
TacticalRPG.com A website devoted to N1 games
Creative Uncut Excellent artwork website, nabbed some of the pics from here.
Siliconera A more in-depth review of Disgaea 2 that I wrote.
