Review: DI GI CHARAT: DEJIKO'S ADVENTURE

Broccoli was a short-lived anime and manga publisher in the US, but during their short time they did their best to promote their most profitable, recognizable mascot with manga like this.

DI GI CHARAT: DEJIKO'S ADVENTURE (Dejiko Ado Be n-Cha), by Yuki Kiriga, based on the characters by Koge-Donbo.  First published in 2000 and first published in North America in 2004.

PLOT:

Di Gi Charat is the cute cat-eared mascot for the Gamers! store chain.  Alongside her friends Rabi-en-Rose, Puchiko, Gema, and the store manager, Di Gi Charat tries to rebuild the store they accidentally destroyed.  To do this, they have to raise money by doing any kind of job available, be it working in a bakery, exorcising demons, or entering a beauty contest.  Along the way, they enjoy summer vacation, re-enact Journey To the West, engage in a little high-seas piracy, and a lot more.

STORY:

It's hard to believe now, but 20 years ago Di Gi Charat held a spot in the heart of otaku everywhere in much the same way that Hatsune Miku does now.  Both of them are corporate mascots, slapped onto every medium possible during their respective heydays.  The big difference is in personality.  Hatsune Miku is purposefully made to have no personality save for whatever song or costume she has been given.  Dejiko is a bit more of a character, but not a particularly deep one here in Dejiko's Adventure.

Mind you, she's hardly alone in that respect.  This entire book is full of one-note characters, with maybe the odd vocal tic added for flavor.  When facing any situation, Dejiko will be violent and self-aggrandizing, Rabi will be vain, Puchiko will be stoic, Gema will be dumb, and the store manager will be unfailingly pleasant.  Still, Kiriga manages to bounce these simple personalities and their simpler, cheesier jokes off one another in a way that keeps things feeling fresh.  That's a good thing because the chapter premises are as rote as they come.  Early chapters tend to use stock anime plots (beach trip, hot springs, etc.) that are loosely tied to the plot thread of 'making money to rebuild the store.'  Midway through Kiriga just gives up on that part entirely and riffs on whatever subject they feel like.  It's all very short and snappy, which is ultimately what you want for a manga that's mostly 4-komas.

ART:

It's a bad sign that the mangaka seems to be more excited about designing the paper dolls and stickers that came with the original release of this manga than they were about actually making the manga in their author's notes.  

Koge-Donbo's original designs were already chibi as hell, but Kiriga felt to need to take them to their messiest, tackiest extremes.  Their take on the characters feels almost like mocking caricatures of chibi art, with eyes big enough to cover three-quarters of their squashed little faces.  Yet they also go out of their way to complicate their frilly little maid uniforms and giant poofs of hair.  It's little wonder that she has to exaggerate their reactions so much and make them fill up so much of the page - they wouldn't register to the reader otherwise!  This turns what should be a simple looking gag comic into a gaudy, chaotic affair.  It's almost a relief when it shifts to the 4-komas.  A little restraint would have gone a long way here.

RATING:

Dejiko's Adventure isn't terrible for what it is, but the comedy is dopey, the art is tacky, and these character won't mean a thing to anyone who wasn't a weeb in the early 2000s.  It's harmless, but it is very much an artifact of its time.

This series was published by Broccoli Books.  This series is complete in Japan with 3 volumes available.   1 volumes was released and is currently out of print.