Is Diabolik Lovers the Worst Anime Ever?

Let me start off giving you a very quick answer to the question posed above:

Yes.

At least from my experience thus far.

Light Spoilers. If you care, anyway.

Also: trigger warning to those sensitive to the topic/depiction of sexual assault.

For those of you who don't know what this anime is: good for you. If you still have as bad a sense of morbid curiosity like me, then here's the basic run-down: This chick named Yui is sent by the church (with no apparent explanation being given to her as to why) to live in a mansion with six vampire brothers, and her blood just smells and tastes so good that they all want a taste of it. They try to add more plot to it later, but, really, it's just stupid, and that's about all you need to know.

I ran across this flaming garbage heap a couple of times in the form of some of the "Top 10 Reverse Harem Anime" lists that litter YouTube, though all I really got outside  of those was that this somehow ranked above Ouran High School Host Club in most, so while I had put it on my watch-list for a while, I never got around to it until this video was released by Anime America. A drinking game. After listening to the rules, I became kind of horrified and mystified at the same time, so my curiosity won out very quickly. Now, as I was under 21 (the legal drinking age in my country) at the time, I played with goldfish, but it still had the affect of me not wanting to look at those delightful little snacks for at least another week, and I had wanted to kill myself after just the first four of those fifteen-minute episodes. It was pretty bad.

And what made it so bad? Well, here's a list of things that happened in that short span of time:

• Lead boy, Ayato, assaults lead girl, Yui, within the first five minutes of the anime.
• Nobody seems to think this is wrong or mentions this again.
• This disgusting scene is what established Ayato as lead boy.
• Literally all the boys constantly go on about how much they want to drink Yui's blood, and how abnormally good it tastes.
• None of the boys can stop talking about the smell/look of fear in her eyes, and how much they love it.
• Yui doesn't know how to stand up for herself except by shouting "no," "help," "please stop," and "God" when being assaulted.
• I feel so awful for this girl that I literally can't listen to this with both earbuds in.
• Lead boy Ayato constantly claims Yui like she's an object.
• Yui never even thinks to tell him otherwise.

• At one point early in the anime, Ayato dumps Yui- who can not swim- into a pool for no reason and- while she is still under the water and in the process of drowning- decides to kiss her and drink her blood.
• This is portrayed as being romantic.
• The writers still try to make Ayato, like all the other awful characters, redeemable with a tragic backstory later.
• It doesn't work

• Yui is sexually assaulted twice in one episode by one character, Laito. The first time, he only presses his leg between hers and bites her neck once before she escapes. The second time is in a church, where he unbuttons the top buttons of her shirt, and bites both her neck and the inside of her thigh. The anime cuts to the end credits, and I'm pretty sure a lot more disgusting stuff happens afterwards.
• The only thing Yui upset about in the next episode is that Laito told her the obvious fact that the church sent her as a sacrifice. Like that hadn't already been obvious by that point.
• The writers still try to make Laito, like all the other awful characters, redeemable with a tragic backstory later.
• It doesn't work

And, you know, I probably wouldn't mind the fact that Yui is being insulted, slut-shamed, body-shamed, put down, man-handled and physically assaulted if not for the fact that the anime is obviously trying to portray the boys as being broken and in need of being fixed, like that solves all of their character issues and makes any of this romantic. Because it doesn't. I always like to say that a person's past only makes up a part of who they are; the fact that someone had a bad past or childhood does not excuse them from being an awful person in the present. And the fact that Yui actually shows any semblance of affection for these boys when they've done nothing but be terrible people to her makes me absolutely pissed. In fact, Yui in general makes me pissed, so let's talk about her real quick.

Yui is a completely weak and spine-less lead role, and is completely void of any personality whatsoever. I suppose it's so other girls watching this can put themselves in her shoes, but, and consider this for a moment: WHO THE HELL WOULD WANT TO BE IN HER SHOES??? It makes no sense at all because Yui makes a show of being miserable and not liking it when she's being touched by the guys, so I'm really not sure why she's a character you're supposed to want to insert yourself into.

Also, while she obviously doesn't like being abused the way she is in the show- as shown by her constant shouting of "stop" and her minuscule amount of struggling- she never really tries to get out of her situation. She never tries to fight by flailing her limbs, biting, or kicking the boys between the legs when she has the clear opportunity to do so. She just takes everything that's thrown at her and kind of accepts it without much complaint, which just annoys me because she obviously isn't happy with the situation AND SHE JUST MAKES NO DAMN SENSE.

And, really this has no no place as being an actual complaint, but I legitimately cringe any time one of the guys bites her because it sounds like they're biting into an apple, and she sucking noises that follow are just so gross and I- I just- I just can't even. Just everything about this show grosses me out and makes me feel so incredibly unclean.

Plus, they dragged poor Monica Rial into this train wreak. I really liked her, too. :(

The worst part, though: it somehow worked. Women actually like this crap. I'm not even kidding you. I can't count the number of times I would scroll down into the comments section while re-watching this abomination looking for some comfort, only to find girls saying things along the lines of "Kanato is so cute," or "we need more anime like this." Because, no, Kanato is as freaking psychopathic as all the other brothers, and no, we certainly do not need more anime like this. I'm distrubed by the sheer amount of people that think this, and I mean, yes, I do find even more people on my side of things, but that doesn't change the fact that there are some girls out there that find this anime romantic, and that... that's a little scary, actually.

I can't say that I don't see whypeople like it, though, to some degree, anyway. It's a shame, really, because Diabolik Lovers has quite a few things that even helped it: the art is beautiful (I absolutely adore the colors), the soundtrack is great, and the character designs are pretty decent (well, some of them, anyway- I hate it when the animators make so that you can see a character's eye through their hair like with Subaru, and pretty much all the designs in the second season are total garbage, honestly).

Ah, yes, there it is- I watched season two. I can already hear the comments: "Why the hell did you watch the entire thing if you hate it that much?" You're probably asking right now. And, yes, you have a very valid point. I do normally stop watching a show if I realize I'm not going to like it early in, and in this case, I would have stopped in the first five minutes at the earliest or the end of the second episode at the latest. But, here's the thing: Diabolik Lovers is like Amnesia in that while I can tell this thing is a train wreck, I am also mesmerized by the absolute absurdity of it and feel the overwhelming desire to see just how much worse it can possibly get.

Also, because the characters were already awful, and the later addition of plot only served to make things even more pointlessly stupid and confusing, it just made me so mad. And, as I said in my Harry Potter post, I'm not a confrontational person by nature irl, so there are only two ways that I am really able to release my anger: 1) road-raging, and 2) yelling at fictional characters and stupid shows that personally insult me on a philosophical level. That's what Diabolik Lovers did to me, and so while I get extremely angry and frustrated while watching this thing, I feel like I can't stop. I want to see how much worse it can get, and I do want to release some of that pent-up anger by shaking my fists and muttering obscenities at the computer screen. It just makes me feel so much better when I finish a season and move on to something else. It's almost kind of therapeutic, actually.

It's still extremely awful, though, and probably one of the worst things I've ever seen. I just love hating it too much, I guess.

Td;dr: Diabolik Lovers is complete and total garbage, but it's the kind of garbage that you can't stop watching because it's on fire and you just want to see what else it'll catch.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go swan dive off a cliff. Y'all have a good day.

Let's Talk Seriously For a Moment: The Ending to Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea

Warnings:

Spoilers

If you are triggered by, or sensitive to, the topic of rape, either don't read this or tread carefully; I will also advise you not to play the game if this is the case for you.

Earlier this month, I made a little post where I put down some of my thoughts and theories on a Deep Sea Prisoner game called The Gray Garden, but today, I just wanted to share some of my thoughts and opinions on the controversy over the ending to one of its sister games, Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea.

Chances are that if you've heard of this game, you know about how controversial it is due to one of its possible endings, the worst possible normal ending that you can get, and the one that every player is forced to go through before moving on to see the two other, better endings. The bad normal ending has enraged and triggered a lot of people, and the controversy over the entire thing is so intense that Mogeko (the name that the game developer, Deep Sea Prisoner, often goes by) has been receiving lots of death threats over the game, despite the fact that the game's main page even has a warning about it containing implied sexual assault. The threats have gotten so bad that Mogeko has even asked that no one releases any more play throughs, let's plays, or livestreams of their games.

So what is this even all about? Well, in the bad normal ending, with the Red Sea Witch, the main character, Wadanohara, is implied to be raped by the antagonist, Sal. Also take note that this is done in front of her severely injured shark boyfriend (and Sal's younger twin brother), Samekichi, who is helpless to the entire situation.

A lot of people seem to be writing those offended off as being overly sensitive to the subject due to this not being the first game Mogeko has added sexual assault into (as that's pretty much the entire plot of Mogeko Castle, and The Gray Garden does contain a scene where Ivlis is implied to be groping poor Yosafire), and also due to the warning put up on the main page. And while I'm not saying that this last point, at least, is wrong, I also don't think that the rape scene itself is what got most people upset about the entire ordeal. I think that the real problem lies with the fact that we are forced into sending Wadanohara in to Sal's hands.

You see, at the end of the game, we're given a "choice" of what to do in order to get to the endings. The problem, however, is that each choice pops up one at a time. So only after we get the Red Witch and play again do we get the option that leads to the Blue Witch, and finally, the choice that leads to the Sea Witch. In other words, we are literally forced into selecting the choice leading to Wadanohara being raped before we can get our bitter-sweet ending with the Sea Witch. The worst part is probably that, once you see the option "Trust Sal" come up, you know what's going to happen; I mean, he had already tried to sexually assault Wada before but was stopped by Samekichi. I mean, what else do you think he'll try, when Samekichi is more or less out of the picture, Wadanohara is desperate to save her home, and Sal has just stated that literally the only true thing he's told her is that he loves her? The dude pretty much just told her that she shouldn't trust him. But in order to progress in the game, we are forced to trust Sal.

I don't think it really helps that, throughout the first half of the game, Sal was someone that we (or at least I) trusted and saw as Wadanohara's comrade, so when his true nature was revealed, it suddenly becomes a lot more uncomfortable than if Wadanohara was being pined after by a complete stranger. This is someone that Wada trusted, that she saw as her friend. The entire situation somehow manages to make itself even more uncomfortable when you consider the fact that Wadanohara is still just a young girl, mentally (but somehow 100+ years old physically). I mean, the girl's bio says that she likes everyone in the sea and has no dislikes, for Pete's sake! "Still so young, she doesn't know the dirty side of the world"! So this just makes Sal's actions seem almost pedophilic, more disgusting. Which is why Sal is total trash and belongs in the garbage.

All this being said, I'm not trying to say that sending poor Mogeko death threats is justified in any way (especially since they did put up a warning), but I am trying to explain why the Red Witch ending has made so many people upset, as I think its stupid and insensitive to say that everyone is being overly sensitive to the game's contents. And if you were offended by the game, just keep in mind that just because someone creates or likes a character who does horrible things in no way means that they condone their actions. That'd be like saying that just because I happen to think that Idate, the strolling orca in the game, is a fun character, I want to go out and rip peoples' arms off.

So, despite everything I said, I still personally enjoy the game and will continue to do so. Just understand that there can be a fine balance between disliking a game because of its contents and sending death threats to people because of something in a game that they made. Seriously, not cool!

OK. Rant finished.

Now let's bask in the beautiful bonus material Mogeko provided us of Wada taking out the trash. I'm sure that this is something we can all enjoy.