Therefore, in a blatant attempt to take advantage of any possible momentum from the release of the newest spin-off, Arc System Works' 2.5D fighting game DNF Duel, let's take a look at the anime adaptation of this South Korean/Japanese phenomenon... The first one, at least, as I don't think 2020's Arad Senki: Gyakuten no Gear has an English translation of any sort, astonishingly enough.
At the Hangame 2008 Summer Festival, it was announced that Dungeon & Fighter would be receiving an anime adaptation by Gonzo & its Korean subsidiary GK Entertainment, titled Arad Senki: Slap-Up Party, or Dungeon & Fighter: Slap-Up Party in South Korea. Loosely based on the characters seen in the official webcomic at the time, Arad no Hourou Party/The Wandering Party of Arad, the anime would debut first in Japan on April 3, 2009 & last 26 episodes... right as Gonzo was going through some notorious financial troubles. This culminated in Gonzo's parent company GDH absorbing the studio completely (creating the Gonzo that exists today) & being delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange on July 30, 2009, right in the middle of Slap-Up Party's run on TV Tokyo (as well as Saki & Shangri-La's runs on their respective networks). However, unlike its fellow Gonzo anime from 2009, Arad Senki: Slap-Up Party has never been licensed for English release yet, not even streaming, though it did at least eventually get fansubbed back in the day. So did the English anime market miss out on something worth watching at the time, or was Slap-Up Party rightfully overlooked, especially since Dungeon Fighter Online wouldn't even exist until another year after this anime debuted?
(That being said, I'll be using the official English terminology, as defined by the official DFO website, where possible)
On the Arad Continent in the year 981, a party lead by a warrior named Aganzo embarked on a quest to kill the monster Sirocco that was causing a series of demonizations amongst the populace, including that of a dark elf Slayer named Roxy within the party itself. The party succeeded, but only after Roxy allowed herself to turn into a full demon, and the resulting kill wound up spreading the phenomenon, now called "Kazan Syndrome" across all of Arad. It's now 994, and Baron Abel is a Slayer roaming the land in search of a cure for Kazan Syndrome, as his affliction resulted in him being cast away from his own village as a child. Inhabiting the great sword he wields, the same one that killed Sirocco 13 years ago, is the spirit of Roxy herself. Soon enough, Baron creates a party of his own with Capensis, a Gunner who claims to be from the "Heavenly Realm" of Empyrean; Ryunmei Ranka, a female Fighter who primarily wants to continue training & fight stronger foes; Ixia Jun, a young elven Mage who had previously been kicked out of a prior party due to her inexperience; & on occasion Jedah Lucsuppa, a burly warrior of a Priest who has a strong fascination with Baron. Along the way, "The Party" also find themselves going up against the Slayer forces of the human De Los Empire, led by Irbek, a member of Roxy & Aganzo's old party who has his own reasons for figuring out the truth behind Kazan Syndrome, and if it can truly be cured.
With a subtitle like "Slap-Up Party", I think it's easy to see that the first Arad Senki anime isn't meant to be taken 100% seriously at all times, and that's very easy to see once the initial prologue with Roxy's party is done with in Episode 1 & we're introduced to Baron himself. While the designs of our main cast are extremely accurate to Dungeon Fighter Online's character classes, even to how they're drawn to this day (Jedah's the only exception, as he's just so muscular), there's a definite focus on softening everything so that the anime can play up the relaxed & easy-going nature it generally aims for; serious moments are still taken seriously, but this is definitely aiming more for a "let's just have fun" vibe. That's not to say that the show doesn't eventually enter a more serious fashion once a stronger overall plot is established in the last portion of the show, though we'll get to that later on.
But let's move on the the main cast, who do have very strong, if standard character traits to themselves. While Baron's goal is the find a cure for Kazan Syndrome & he is afraid of what might happen should he go full demon, he's also nowhere near the brooding & sullen type that this kind of character is usually associated with, instead being generally more uplifting & ready for the next job everyone takes on, though this also results in him being the straight man to some of the more silly moments. Alongside him is the chibi spirit of Roxy, who usually appears to offer advice to or console Baron, though no one else can actually see her but him; oddly enough, though, there's only one instance of Baron talking to Roxy actually being mistaken by someone else. Capensis is a talented Gunner & mechanic in his own right, & is reliable in a pitch, but he's also incredibly vain & self-assured, resulting in him often being hard to take seriously, with even his claims of coming from Empyrean feeling fake at first; to be fair, even the official DFO website says that the chances of Capensis falling to Arad from above are "slim to none". Ryunmei is similar to Baron in that she's very straightforward & ready to go, but she's also more than as capable of a fighter as Baron; she's also shown to slowly become more & more affectionate towards Baron over time, though he's obviously oblivious to it. Meanwhile, Ixia initially debuts as a pompous young mage who's not willing to take blame for her own inexperience costing others, and while she does still occasionally mess up a spell at times early on with her new friends, she's usually the most reasonable member of the party, often following Ryunmei's lead. Ixia also has a handful of familiars with her, primarily Plohen (a small white head who resides in her mini top hat) & Welly (her living magic rod); Capensis later gets his own little pal in the form of the robot Capecho. As for Jedah, he's an extremely powerful ally due to his ability to heal almost any wound & his powerful holy magic (plus a giant metal cross that he can swing around like a sword, which is awesome), so he only makes a handful of appearances, at least in the first 2/3 of the show; he does, however, appear in both OP sequences, so he's literally in every episode.
As for our antagonists to "The Party", while their small handful of appearances in the first half make them out to be more devious & villainous, the second half humanizes them more, especially in Episode 16, which is all about them exclusively. Much like Baron, Irbek also suffers from Kazan Syndrome, though his affliction is indicated to be much more powerful, due to circumstances from all those years ago that get revealed in full near the end. Over time he encounters Halsen, who has both of his arms hit with Kazan Syndrome, and the two manage to gather together other Slayers & gain the approval of Emperor Leon, ruler of the De Los Empire, who wishes to use Irbek's forces to enforce his rule over all of Arad. To keep watch over him, Leon sends his daughter Hyria out to join Irbek's Slayer Army, though this results in the two falling in love with each other; Slap-Up Party's Hyria looks to be VERY different from DFO's Hyria, however. Though Irbek's intentions are understandable, and he does have pure & honest goals in mind, it's also plain to see that Irbek is using Leon just as much as Leon is using him, if not even more so, and he certainly has no problem with doing terrible things to achieve his goals. However, he did initially look out for Ixia when he first meets her in Episode 4, in an attempt to keep her out of things, likely because she reminded him of his own little sister. As for Irbek's partners, Hyria also has a past with Ryunmei, as the two were once friends-in-training & Hyria admits that she's the reason why Ryunmei's grandfather/master Balane, the last member of Aganzo's old party, was killed by her Emperor father, making the two instant rivals. Meanwhile, Halsen is a bit of a battle freak who is willing to do anything for his two friends, but in other ways is essentially their equivalent to Capensis in that he can be just as much the butt of a joke; fittingly, Halsen & Capensis instantly become semi-rivals, themselves. Overall, this helps give Irbek & his crew a little bit more to chew on the more you see them & prevents them from being just generically evil, which is nice. They still do terrible things and are the main antagonists, but aside from Emperor Leon (who is just plain evil) they have understandable meaning behind their actions.
In terms of the storytelling, Slap-Up Party is mostly an episodic series, with each episode telling its own self-contained story, though our leads do tend to stay in the same location for a couple of episodes at a time, helping give the show a stronger sense of progression of time, as well as allowing some otherwise one-off characters to be seen for more than one episode. Also, some one-off characters do return at points in later episodes, allowing for better overarching storytelling. That's not to say that this is 100% the status quo, as Episodes 12 & 13 are a two-party story & Episode 18 is actually made up of two non-canon mini-stories told in an SD style, but I imagine the general concept was to follow the game's focus on taking on various missions, rather than telling a larger overall story... until the last 1/3 of the show. Going against type, the final 8 episodes of Slap-Up Party tell one giant story that brings everything to a head. A potential cure for Kazan Syndrome is revealed, the Behemoth's Tear, but it requires entering Empyrean to acquire, and the only way up is to climb the Sky Tower in West Coast, which reaches high up into the "Middle Ocean"; it's also revealed that Aganzo has previously gone up the Tower, in his own search for a cure. After some initial set up, including an amusing play on the whole "The main characters disband for reasons, only to reunite later" trope, we get our final set up: The Party (including Jedah, so you know things are serious) vs. the De Los Empire Army, with the fate of not just Kazan Syndrome but both Arad & Empyrean at stake. In all honesty, while this final story arc is pretty good on the whole & features some nice bits of characters arcs coming to an end, it also essentially goes "Now here's the REAL ultimate villain behind everything!"... and the reveal is for a character who had never been hinted at even once until literally just two episodes before the show gives the first hint as to who it is in the antepenultimate episode (i.e. the third-to-last episode); yes, it is a character from DFO's lore, but it's never even mentioned until this late into the show. A bit unfulfilling in that regard, though I guess hardcore fans of the game might enjoy the reference, but beyond that it's a still solid enough way to end the series, as a storyline in & of itself; the only other nitpick would be that you don't really see much of Empyrean itself.
Gonzo Digimation's heyday was definitely during the early-to-mid 00s, and the studio quickly found itself notoriety for the way its productions looked, from a visual perspective, both in terms of the variety of art styles as well as the "digital animation" execution the studio utilized. Come early 2009, though, Gonzo had more or less lost that unique & notable style to it, and the end result is that Slap-Up Party looks a bit "plain" for a Gonzo anime. The character designs by Tomokatsu Nagasaku (Battle Game in 5 Seconds), based on the original work done by Kang Joo-Sung & Kim Jang-Hwan, are honestly nice & appealing in its generally looser & more silly feel, though I'd argue that it results in the anime not really doing a good job advertising Dungeon Fighter Online, at least on a visual level. Unfortunately, it is hampered a bit by some lackluster animation at points, usually in the occasional awkward face or body proportion; that said, I am going off of the original TV version, & the show's visuals improve as it goes on. However, there's no getting around the fact that it'd be hard to prove that this anime came from the same studio that had previously made stuff like Gankutsuou, Speed Grapher, Last Exile, or even Bokurano earlier that same decade. Of course, part of this is also likely due to the fact that this is technically a co-production between Gonzo & GK Entertainment, so the Korean staff get a much stronger presence here, in terms of staff. For example, Slap-Up Party technically has two directors, Takehiro Ikezoe (Show By Rock!, Shinkalion) & Lee Jin-Hyung, and while Ikezoe would go on to direct other titles this is his debut work as director, while information on Lee is rather hard to find. Likewise, while Kazuki Yamanobe (Fafner, Onegai My Melody) is credited for "Series Composition", there are also three Koreans (An Nam-Gyu, Jung Hun-Il, & Kim Yun-Jong) listed alongside him in the credits under "Storyline". Luckily, as I've indicated earlier, the writing for Slap-Up Party is overall very solid, with enjoyable gags, likeable characters, and clever usage of one-off characters in later episodes in ways that either work for more gags or actually make sense for the larger plot in the last third of the show. Said one-offs are also actual characters from DFO, like Gale & Breeze Elapse, jar seller Danjin, and Mintai & Orca of the Bantus Tribe, among many others. The only one wildly different, aside from Hyria, looks to be the dark elf Kargon, who in DFO is over 500 years old, but in Slap-Up Party is only around 15 or so.
A true low point, though, would be the overall soundtrack by Takeshi Nakatsuka (Magical Girl Ore, My Dress-Up Darling), which sounds extremely generic for the most part, and any time there's some sort of dangerous moment about to happen you get what sounds like the most stock horn stinger ever, one that I am 150% sure I've heard in countless other productions, usually outside of anime. It's not terrible music, and it does generally match the tone & scenes well, but it's utterly uninspiring & I'd like to believe it's not reflective of the music found in DFO itself. That said, though, the OP & ED themes in Slap-Up Party are all really damn good, with the two EDs in particular being absolute standouts, both because they're just excellent songs & because they each utilize an 8-bit video game sound to them. I originally felt that this aesthetic was a bit weird for DFO, but I've heard that the game does feature 8-bit renditions of some of its songs for certain quests & the like, so fair play. ED1 is "Hateshinai Sekai" by YMCK, an actual chiptune band that had also done the soundtrack to DSiWare game Pictobits around the same time as this show, and it's just a very breezy & fun little song that utilizes its 8-bit style well; YMCK's Tomoyuki Nakamura even made the 8-bit visuals seen during the ED sequence. ED2 is "LEVEL∞" by Akiko Hasegawa, a fast-paced & exciting little song, though its 8-bit sound is especially notable as it was composed by Kenji "Itoken" Ito, the man behind the soundtracks to various entries in the Mana, SaGa, & Culdcept series; in fact, Ito would go on to compose the soundtrack for Arad Senki: Gyakuten no Gear! As for the two OPs, "Party Play" & "Sokujin no Pandora" by Sakura Nogawa, they're both very good songs in their own right (especially "Party Play"), though the sequence for OP2, where Baron uses Plohen & Welly as a golf ball & club to sink a ridiculous hole, feels more like something you'd see done for an ED sequence, as it explains nothing about the show itself.
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| Does DFO allow classes to cross over & use each other's weapons? If not, then maybe they really should, because this is awesome. |
As for the voice cast, it's a rather solid set that helps rise the show up, in some regards. Leading everyone is Takashi Kondo (Terry Bogard starting with The King of Fighters XIV) as Baron, who mixes together all the character's emotions (happy, sad, angry, hot-blooded, straight-man to various gags, etc.) very well. Almost always with him is Akeno Watanabe (Rose in Street Fighter IV & V) as Roxy, who usually modifies her voice to sound more "chibi" as the spirit she usually is, though in some moments you get her more natural voice, for when Roxy is shown in "full-size". Ryunmei is voiced by Sakura Nogawa (Eric Hartmann in Strike Witches), and while her more girly voice initially comes off as a total mismatch with her badass fighter style, you quickly realize that said mismatch is partially the point of the character, and when Ryunmei has to get tough Nogawa has no trouble sounding like she'll kick your ass. After that would be Kenichi Suzumura (Yang Wen-Li in Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These) as Capensis, who absolutely plays up being the often most-hapless member of The Party, with the occasional moment here & there (especially two different episodes where he takes the primary focus) showing that he truly is as capable as he often claims to be. Ayumi Tsuji (Kozue Orihara in Chaos;Head) is probably the most "standard" casting as Ixia, as she gives the youngest member of The Party the expected young girl voice, though it's never in a way that can be taken as pandering to some; it all feels earnest. Finally, when it comes to The Party, there's Takaya Kuroda (Kazuma Kiryu in Yakuza, Don Giuliano in Ring ni Kakero 1) as Jedah, whose iconic cadence doesn't exactly sound fitting for a priest, but you don't really care, because Jedah is a badass, and Kuroda's voice automatically equates to that; plus, he gets a few moments to be silly, as per this show's style. We also get radio actress Mari Orito & comedian Shiro Tsubayaki as Plohen & Welly, respectively, though all they really say are they're own names, Pokémon-style.
As for our antagonists, they're lead by Ryotaro Okiayu (Byakuya in Bleach) as Irbek, who's deep & serious-sounding voice matches very well for the character, and helps give the feeling that, if things went differently for him, Irbek could very well have been a much more noble character. Hyria is voiced by Rie Tanaka (Treyni in That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime), who likewise delivers a fitting performance, one that shows that, despite being willing to do the same things as Irbek, she too could have been a more caring person from the start, if things played out differently; also, being the Ring ni Kakero 1 fan that I am, I smile at Okiayu & Tanaka playing a pair of lovers. Meanwhile, Halsen is voiced by Mitsuo Iwata (Isami Toma in World Trigger), and much like Kuroda as Jedah, Iwata is absolutely perfect casting here, as his own iconic cadence matches perfectly with battle freaks like Halsen, while also giving moments here & there of more subdued & reflective feelings, which Iwata is also great at. Beyond them are the variety of people who voice the various one-off characters, like Ami Koshimizu (Breeze), Ryoka Yuzuki (Gale), Tsubasa Yonaga (Kargon), Daisuke Ono (Danjin), Kenji Hamada (Aganzo), Kenjiro Tsuda (Orca), Emiri Kato (Mintai), & Koji Ishii (Leon), among others.
Overall, Arad Senki: Slap-Up Party is a solid enough anime series, one that doesn't feel weighed down by being a loose adaptation of a webcomic adaptation of an online-focused RPG/brawler made in South Korea that's published by a Japanese company; I had no real experience with DFO before this, and I was able to enjoy it just fine. The show's focus being primarily on episodic adventures might turn off those who want more of an overarching story, though, & there's no doubt that it doesn't shine visually (even if only on an aesthetic level) in ways that Gonzo anime earlier that same decade used to. I'm honestly not too shocked that it got skipped over, despite fellow 2009 Gonzo anime Linebarrels of Iron, The Tower of Druaga: the Sword of Uruk, Saki (this one at least got streamed!), & Shangri-La all getting licensed at one point or another, as compared to those this might be the weak link. However, that's not to say that this is a bad show, because I certainly had a good bit of fun while watching it. It's just that it's maybe nothing more than a solid 7 or 7.5/10 kind of series, which to some might as well be the same as a 3 or 4/10. As a promotion for Dungeon Fighter Online, though, it might just be a little too visually incongruent with the game today, and that might be why the Arad Senki: Gyakuten no Gear anime was made in 2020; ironic how that one doesn't have any English translation at all, then, even via fansub.
Also, I do wonder what exactly this anime would even be called if it was to get licensed for English release today, and this would apply to Gyakuten no Gear, too. I mean, being an anime, it'd be weird to rename it "Dungeon Fighter Online: Slap-Up Party" when it's not actually "Online" in any way, while both "Dungeon & Fighter" and "Arad Senki" are not used in any way for the franchise outside of Asian territories. I guess maybe "DNF: Slap-Up Party" would work, since DNF Duel is using the original title's abbreviation worldwide?
Anime © 2009 NEOPLE/NEXON・D&F Production Committee
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