 Uh-oh. It's a videogame-to-anime conversion, something that (with only a few notable exceptions) has a really bad record with me. This one brings us angels, demons, and a thinly-veiled Flash Gordon, though, which on the face of it certainly sounds promising...
Angel Trainee Flonne has been sent on a mission to the Netherworld to assassinate King Krichevskoy, the overlord and ruler of the demonic kingdom. However, on arrival she finds the castle in flames and discovers her target has already been dead for two years. Her search for answers leads her to a garbage dump, and a coffin containing the sleeping Laharl, the demon king's young son, who on hearing of his father's death decides to claim his rightful place as the new ruler of the Netherworld. But with a seemingly never-ending queue of imposters and claimants to the throne lining up, the job isn't going to be easy...
Some shows you put into the player with a certain sense of dread, and I have to admit that Disgaea was one of those shows. Cutesy animation style? Based on a videogame? Without having done any research into what the show was really about, the first thing that came to mind was something in the Pokemon class. Colour me pleasantly surprised, then, by the action-comedy that I got instead. I love surprises.
So. Flonne is a trainee angel - curiously one on a mission of death, which I didn't think the good guys did, but hey - who finds herself strangely tagging along with Laharl, the son of the Overlord that she's meant to kill. I'm not quite sure how that happened, but never let minor details worry you. Also travelling with them is demonic cutie Etna. With Laharl's father already dead, he's looking to inherit his throne - but first he has to deal with the string of other pretenders to the throne. What he doesn't know initially is that Etna, who presents herself as his loyal vassal, has her eyes on the prize as well.
Now, some shows would make a storyline like that a convoluted, complicated mess of politicking and whatnot, but Disgaea keeps it simple and goes for the slapstick comedy approach. Flonne is a clumsy as they come; Laharl suffers from a bad case of overconfidence, and isn't as heartless and domineering as his PR would like you to believe; while Etna almost steals with show with her shenanigans and (doomed-to-failure) attempts to do away with Laharl without his realising what she's up to. As lead characters go, they're a great trio that play off each other really well and are very entertaining to watch.
The supporting cast is pretty good, too, featuring a shameless knock-off of the Lost in Space robot (I kept waiting for it to say "Danger, Will Robinson!"), the swashbuckling but generally hopeless Commander Gordon, Defender of the Universe (a thinly-veiled Flash Gordon reference, if ever I saw one), and his busty and attractive sidekick Jennifer. Disaster tends to follow wherever they go, and they end up filling a number of jobs on the disc as they try to make ends meet. A serious threat to the lead party? Not a chance of it (and, as we find out later in the series, that's intentional), but they provide another avenue for the comedy to come from and fill that role well. We shouldn't forget the Prinnies, either, the penguin-like creatures that Laharl uses as his personal slaves, but who aren't inclined to do as they're told all that often.
For all its comic roots, though, the series does have a serious side, that comes to the fore most prominently towards the end of the series. The closing arc brings us the story of the invasion of the Netherworld by Earth, but on the way to Celestia to sort out the mess, the gang's enforced layover in what can be best described as Prinny Purgatory reveals a darker, sentimental streak that until then I hadn't been aware the series had. Throughout the series there's an undercurrent of 'love and peace' that Flonne preaches whenever she gets the chance; episode 11 looks at what can happen to a person when they follow that philosophy to its end, and actually manages to be quite touching. Colour me impressed.
The final episode continues the theme of love and peace, insofar as that's what Flonne's boss Seraph Lamington claims to have been trying to bring about, but throughout his appearance there's an almost unbearable urge to lamp him one - his holier-than-though attitude (believable, I suppose, as he is the ruler of Celestia) and belief that that ends outweigh the means combine to make him hugely annoying. Given he's on-screen for so much of the final episode, that does the episode no favours at all. The ending of it all is also rather bittersweet, although in some ways nicely foreshadowed by the trip to Prinny Purgatory. I happen to like bittersweet endings, and while I'm not sure that the serious turn that the series takes at the end is entirely a good thing, it does work surprisingly well and is enjoyable in its own right.
In the end, Disgaea isn't a show that's asking to be taken seriously for the most part - it's something to watch when you're looking for some light-hearted fun and aren't worried about looking for fanservice or other such gimmicks that often go along with shallower shows. It's harmless, enjoyable and entertaining, even if (like me) you've never set eyes on the game it's been spun off from, and that makes it well worth a look.
For full episode summaries and screenshots, check out the reviews of the individual releases:
» Volume 1
» Volume 2
» Volume 3
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