2011-08-06
A realization about Dantalian no Shoka
In his usual curmudgeon way, Aroduc has been grumpy about how the protagonists of Dantalian have just stood around for the past two episodes and watched while things happened around them. This has led me to a realization about Dantalian's genre.
Put simply, Dantalian is horror, not action. As horror, Huey and Dalian are our viewpoint to witness things and explain them, but they may or may not have to take any action to resolve the situation and return it to normality. In fact the running theme of the first four episodes is people who do something terribly wrong and are then destroyed by it (often through their hubris).
The first two episodes obscured this by having Huey act, but look back at when he had to act and what he had to do. In each case, Huey only had to act to dissipate the surface manifestation of the destruction (the out of control monsters); the actual responsible person had already been punished by the situation.
This may have already been obvious to other people, especially in light of Dantalian's ending sequence.
(Obvious disclaimer: Dantalian may yet change its genre. The opening has some suggestive bits.)