Dokkoida – Ultra Diaper Man: Volume One
Picture: B Sound: C+ Extras:
C+ Episodes: B+
Dokkoida!? is the zany comic-book tale of an unlikely hero, the jobless teenager
Suzuo. It’s also the tale of the
understaffed Galaxy Federation Police, and their search for mechanized power
suits to fill out their diminishing ranks – or at least protect the few
officers they have remaining. The two
plots soon collide when Suzuo, desperate for work, accepts an offer from a
mysterious little girl to help her test the prototype suit designed by her toy
company. In an effort to test the
limits of the new suit, the Galaxy Federation Police then sends a string of
off-the-wall criminals straight at the panicked Suzuo, now transformed by his
suit into the powerful vigilante Dokkoida.
That is, the powerful, periwinkle, bobble-antennae-d, diaper-wearing
Dokkoida. He meets with competition
from two fronts – first, the Class-A criminals, purposefully pitted against him
(though Suzuo seems a little dense regarding this fact), and second, a girl
testing the power-suit prototype of a rival company. Strapped for cash, the Galaxy Federation Police decides to save
money on its power suit tests by arranging for all the interested parties to
live in the same apartment building… as their mild-mannered alter egos, of
course. The tests will fail if they
recognize one another out of costume, but, in true comic-book form, all it
takes is different clothes or hair to remain a mystery.
Dokkoida!? is every bit as silly as it sounds.
Everything is over the top, from the villains all named after flowers to
the impromptu truth-and-justice monologues spouted by our hero. Dokkoida!?
manages to be both a send-up of standard comic book clichés and a decent
story in its own right. Okay, so it’s a
silly story in its own right. But it does have originality on its side, as
well as an adept sense of parody. The
material is more adult than one might expect, due mostly to a bondage-themed
pair of villains who appear in episodes three and four. Other than that, the material is no more or
less child-friendly than the majority of classic American comics.
The DVD, while not
sporting a lot of special features, is still fun. The best thing about it is the selective interfaces, which look
like comic book panels – perhaps from the original comic on which the story’s
based? Sound is all right (2.0 English
or Japanese stereo, but with no surround option), and subtitles are well paced
and accurate. The dub absolutely
shines. Voices are well matched, and while
never straying too far from the original lines, the translation is altered just
enough to sound natural and have a good comedic flow. The general content is always kept intact. There is still the slightly irritating
tendency to toss a word in here or there in a previously silent scene. Sometimes I think no one trusts American
audiences to stay interested if they have to go ten seconds without someone
talking. But at least those instances
are kept to a minimum, usually just someone murmuring a name – it isn’t like
they throw in a whole new paragraph of dialogue. What I appreciated most about the dub was the wordplay, which
they surprisingly managed to incorporate.
One of the show’s running gags is using a word with two different
meanings, and having poor Suzuo always interpret it incorrectly. To my amazement, the English translation
found a way to keep each joke intact.
Dokkoida!? may not be for everyone, but it has a lot of things to recommend it: a
big-hearted but hapless hero, zany villains, fun animation, and creative fight
sequences. All around, it’s a good new
example – as well as parody – of the superhero genre.
- Anne Moffa
