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[R1 DVD art]
AKA: みすて♥ないでデイジー (Misute♥naide Daisy)
Genre:
Length: Television series, 12 episodes, 23 minutes each
Distributor: VHS and R1 DVD from Bandai
Content Rating: 13+ (violence, adult themes and situations, general creepiness)
Related Series: N/A
Also Recommended: My Dear Marie
Notes: Based on the manga by Noriko Nagano.

You read that right: this was written by a woman.

I wonder if she's heard of Stockholm Syndrome ...
Rating:

Don't Leave Me Alone Daisy

Synopsis

A sheltered high school student named Techno Reijiro falls in love with a girl who he names Daisy, and goes through all sorts of scientific hijinks to win her attention.

Or, a girl named Hitomi Matsuzawa is stalked incessantly by this creepy mad scientist named Techno, who terrorizes her and her friends with weird scientific experiments.


Review

Don't Leave Me Alone Daisy is one of the creepiest and most unsettling series we've ever seen. Unfortunately, it's supposed to be a romantic comedy.

With a possessive, psychotic, obsessive, and totally unlikable lead in Techno, a constantly bewildered doormat in Hitomi/Daisy, and a host of brain-dead or generally strange accessory characters, it's really hard to find anyone you can sympathize with or follow in this series. There's nothing like the feeling of sick fascination watching just how far Techno degrades his "property" Daisy (and the hapless viewing audience) in the name of love and science. It's romance comedy for only the basest and most isolated loser - anyone with even the least bit of social skills would be embarrassed or offended by this title's blissful ignorance. Even the most willful suspension of belief isn't enough to compensate for the unrealistic and damn freaky characters and events this series displays on your television. It's enough to make grown men cry.

It doesn't help that the dialogue and screenplay seem to have been written by idiots. For idiots. Man, we hope the seiyuu got paid a whole lot of money for this, because they must've felt pretty stupid spouting off lines like, "Even if there were only one body part of you left, I will protect you," and "You must follow the will of the teacher or you will fall victim to her laser eye beams." With the constantly pointless cameos of X Yamakawa, the simply idiotic homeroom teacher Ms. Rarako, and the myriad stupid "science experiments" and mecha (like Techno's "cute and wonderful pet missile", Mimi-chan), it's easy to dismiss the pointless weirdness for what it is. This is hardly Urusei Yatsura, especially not when our brave protagonists (the THEM reviewers) are starting to turn purple and die from the brain cells leaking out their ears.

The plotting, and storyline are laughable - laughably bad, that is. Slapstick jokes, pick-up lines, and the like get imbued with this awful stalker vibe that makes the viewer laugh out of nervousness rather than amusement. The animation itself is weak for a late 90s TV series, and though it occasionally attempts gloss, it betrays its low budget often, even on a DVD. What doesn't help matters is the lousy DVD press Bandai settled for. Apparently, they didn't care to give this show the quality it obviously doesn't have. At least the music is adequate, but that hardly saves a series like this from the black hole of tastelessness it creates.

For us anime reviewers, watching this "scientific" series gives the same feeling as dissecting a frog in biology class. It's repulsive, gives us a sick feeling in our stomachs, yet it has to be done. The only parts of this series we liked were the opening song and credits. The most amazing thing about this title is that so many episodes were created - even the most dedicated MSTer would be hard-pressed to last two episodes into this utter excrement.

Perhaps this series might ring more true among the most socially isolated and impersonal Japanese otaku, but to American fans, Don't Leave Me Alone Daisy will probably remain incomprehensibly idiotic, especially with a lead character that the series claims to be highly intelligent.

Leave this one alone. Trust us.

I see why Eric was so quick to pawn this off as soon as he got it. And Christi now has a new least favorite anime of all time. Somehow, I wouldn't be proud of that distinction.Carlos/Giancarla Ross

Recommended Audience: Theoretically okay for older children or above. But the only conceivable audience for this title is anyone who's been raised in a missile silo, like the hero of the series, and we all know this isn't the sort of encouragement they need.



Version(s) Viewed: R1 DVD, bilingual
Review Status: Full (12/12)
Don't Leave Me Alone Daisy © 1997 Noriko Nagano / ASCII / Project Daisy
 
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