Di Gi Charat (Wonderful Ver.) | An Otaku Media Retrospective

In 1994 the company Broccoli was formed. Over the course of the next decade Broccoli would create several different media franchises, trading card games, and PC games, but most otaku know Broccoli as the creators of the character goods chain store GAMERS. Character goods shops are basically shops where you can buy, well, character goods, stuff like key-chains and wall-scrolls. The first GAMERS store opened in 1996 in Ikebukuro, and by 1998 it was doing well enough to have its own weekly magazine. Kind of like the monthly GameStop magazine Game Informer, except it came out every week and featured cute anime girls. At around the same time, Broccoli commissioned an image character for GAMERS as a brand, one alien maid cat-girl Di Gi Charat and her little round companion Gema. Di Gi Charat would go on to become one of the faces of not just GAMERS and Broccoli, but otaku culture as a whole due to both with her very moecentric design and her wild antics across various media. Di Gi Charat would receive a number of anime adaptations over the years, but today we'll be talking about the very first one. Airing in the "Wonderful" late night variety show beginning in October 1999, this 16 episode banger is referred to by some fans as Di Gi Charat Wonderful Version. 

1

The Makers of the Original Moetron

Di Gi Charat and the 4 panel comic strip Gema Gema that she first formally debuted in were both created by one Koge-Donbo*. At that time, Koge-Donbo* was a rising star in the manga world , getting her start in highschool in 1990 contributing to issues of the fan magazine Fanroad. In 1996 while she was in college she wrote the one shot Hanamaru's Ninja Book (花丸忍法帳) which won that year's Gakken Comic Award for new mangaka. Starting in 1997 she began getting published in the monthly manga magazine Dengeki Comic Gao!, and in 1998 she began writing the weekly Gema Gema 4koma in GAMERS' weekly magazine FROM GAMERS. The main characters of the strip, Di Gi Charat and Gema actually got their animated debut in early 1999 in a GAMERS commercial for the promotion of the then new Akihabara GAMERS store. The Wonderful anime itself was also made to promote the new store. For this late night TV mini-series, the director chosen was Sakurai Hiroaki. Director Sakurai got his start in the anime industry as an Assistant Production Manager for the 1984 car nerd anime Mecha-Doc. His anime director debut was in 1990 with the OVA adaptation of Hidari no O`Clcok!!, a story about a traveling biker. Throughout the 90's, he worked on a bunch of different magical girl anime, directing episodes of 1990's Magic Angel Sweet Mint, 1992's Hime-chan no Ribbon, and 1995's Nurse Angel Ririka SOS. In 1998 he worked on his first Akihabara-themed anime, storyboarding some episodes of Cyberteam in Akihabara, and the year after he directed that show's theatrical debut. Di Gi Charat was his first credited scripting job. At his side was Chief Animation Director and Character Designer Yamakawa Yoshiki. Yamakawa's first anime production was Cutey Honey Flash in 1997, doing key animation for episode 33. That same year he did his first job as Animation Director on episodes 20 and 26 of Shin Tenchi Muyou!. In 1998 he assisted on key animation for the first opening of Record of Lodoss War, and the year after that he worked on his first project with Director Sakurai as the Animation Director and (for the first time) Character Designer on the Cyberteam in Akihabara film. Finally for the core staff is the Music Director, one Sakamoto Yuusuke. Sakamoto was a pretty popular musician of the 90s, debuting in 1995 as the arranger for a band called Key of Life, which released five singles and four albums between 1995 and 1999. Their 1995 debut song "Asayake no Naka" is notable for being the first Japanese song to use sampling. His first work in anime came in 1996, when arranged the vocal album released for the OVA Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer.

Adventures in Akihabara

Di Gi Charat (the anime) follows the adventures of Akihabara GAMERS' three newest employees: the alien maid catgirl Di Gi Charat (aka Dejiko), her half-sister, the seifuku catgirl Petite Charat (aka Puchiko), and her rival, the magical transforming bunnygirl Rabi en Rose (aka Usada Hikaru). Across the 1999 anime's 16 4-minute-long episodes, the three of them get into fights, work at the store, and meet and interact with a variety of Akihabara and the greater Tokyo area's denizens. This description almost makes Di Gi Charat sound like a normal show, but its anything but. Episode plots include the three trying to pawn of a potentially cursed set of trading cards to an unsuspecting new customer, Puchiko trying to learn how to shoot eye-beams like her older half-sister, and the town of Akihabara "coming together" to fend off the attack of a Godzilla knockoff. The show is filled with all sorts of wild visual gags even in moments that would otherwise be totally normal. Its sense of comedy is insane and it's cast a strange cabal of weird characters that find themselves in weird situations.

At the top of them is Dejiko. Dejiko is, for the most part, a Chaotic Neutral character. She's loud, she's rude, and she's constantly scheming to the point that when a Dejiko impersonator goes around Akihabara committing crimes, even her closest friends just assume that she is the culprit. But she's a hilarious character, and in my opinion that makes her a great lead for the series. You really never know what random plan or scheme she might be up to next, and I think she's featured in my favorite visual gags in the show. Her smirking face when she's up to no good never fails to make me laugh. The bit episode 11 where she suddenly jerks awake is one of the funniest bits in the show in my opinion. And of course, her constant frying of various members of the cast with her Laser Eye Beams is always a funny time. But in spite of all of this, I don't think she's the funniest character in the show. That title belongs to lil Puchiko. Puchiko is hilarious. She far and away has the best lines of any character in the entire cast. That's a feat too, since some of the minor characters have some truly fantastic lines. The first time I laughed out loud at this show was in episode 3 when Dejiko, Puchiko, and Usada are trying to pawn off some cursed trading cards to their new customer Takuro. After Takuro says the cards are too expensive for him, Usada says they're on the house, Dejiko says their free, but Puchiko says they're 60 million yen. That killed me! Puchiko's one focus episode where she's trying to learn to use the Lazer Eye Beam is my favorite of the show. Puchiko is the greatest. She's so quiet and has almost none of the visual gags (outside of her focus episode where almost all of the visual gags feature her), but almost every line she has is comedy gold. Finally of the main trio there's Usada, or as she prefers to be called, Rabi en Rose. I actually really like Usada as a character, but I think she's the least funny on her own of the main trio. She has some pretty funny and memorable bits, like when she pulls out all of her weapons against the Godzilla type monster, or when she flies in and kicks dust all over Dejiko and Puchiko's picnic. But overall Usada is the most straight man type character of the main trio. In spite of her ridiculous backstory and penchant for getting into it with Dejiko, she's not really featured in that many gags aside from getting crisped by Dejiko's Lazer Eye Beams. But I think that's OK, because on top of having my favorite design of the three leads, I think her relatively more grounded nature makes the main cast feel more complete, if that makes sense. Like Usada expands the comedic capabilities of the show by providing a more grounded angle. Or maybe she really doesn't, and I'm overcompensating for her lack of comedic value because she was one of my first waifus. I don't know.

But Di Gi Charat isn't just the main trio. There's a whole host of weird and wacky minor characters that fill out the cast. Gema is technically also a part of the main cast, especially since he was actually the first character introduced in the comic strips. I described Usada as being the most straight man of the main three, and while that's true, Gema is actually the most straight man character of the cast as a whole. Don't get me wrong, I definitely have not forgotten about the many gags featuring him (almost all of the gags in the OP are just him getting abused after all), but when he's not the one on the receiving end of the gags, he pretty much always plays the straight man, and that really can't be said for any of the other characters. Even when you think it can at first. Case in point, Takuro. When he's first introduced, he seems like he's going to be another straight man introduced. But basically by the end of his second appearance in episode 7, he's pretty quickly confirmed to be another goofy Akihabara resident. Same with elegant linguistics aficionado Takuro Kimura, aka the other Takuro. He doesn't appear until episode 5, and the OP sort of portrays him in a cool fashion (for the one second he's in it anyways). But he too is another goofy gag character, although the linguistics part of his character is dropped pretty quickly. Finally of the recurring GAMERS customers there's Takeshi and Yoshimi, known together as Bukimi, the otaku fans of Dejiko. I like all of the customer side characters, but these two are my favorites by far. Of course one reason is because I always like otaku characters in shows, but also because they have some of the funniest gags in the show, both for visual gags and lines. The scene where they randomly stumble into hell in episode 6 is a truly hilarious scene, and I think their line about sending Dejiko mail while she's in jail in the imposter episode was one of the funniest parts of that episode. They're just hilarious.

There's really only one more character I want to highlight. This weird dude gets its own section because I really can't fit him in either of the other two sections. It's name as listed on AniDB is Nanda Koitsu, which literally just means "What the hell is this?" And that's pretty accurate. The design is right in line with the sort of creepy-cute dolls that seemed to burst up in popularity in the mid 2000s. He's weird, his scenes are all hilarious, and the first time I realized he was in the background of one of the final frames of the OP I about died.

A Retro-Modern Otaku Anthem

So that's characters, but one of my favorite parts of Di Gi Charat is the music. The show has a delightful soundtrack, but I think the most interesting composition contextually is the opening song. Di Gi Charat already had a pop type song associated with it, since Dejiko and Gema had been appearing in commercials for GAMERS starting in the early months of 1999 alongside the GAMERS theme song "Welcome!" by Hiroko Katou. This song still to this day is the one most associated with GAMERS and Di Gi Charat as a brand, but for the first anime they decided not to use "Welcome!". Instead they opted to have legendary anisong singer Masami Okui ("Rondo Revolution" from Revolutionary Girl Utena, "Get Along" from Slayers, "Shuffle" from Yugioh Duel Monsters) and prolific composer Toshirou Yabuki put together a new theme song, "Only One, No. 1." For my part, as much as I like "Welcome!", "Only One, No.1" is easily not just my favorite Di Gi Charat theme songs, but also one of my favorite Masami Okui songs of all time. I played bass back in highschool, and either because of or in spite of that I'm drawn to songs that have great basslines. "Only One, No.1" doesn't have a particularly complex bassline, but the actual sound of the bass is FAAAAAnTASTIC. I don't know the proper musical terminology, but it just has such a full, deep, meaty sound, I can't get enough of it. And of course, Masami Okui's vocals are incredible as always. Another musical aspect that I like that's present in this song is a backing choir. This comes up quite often in Japanese music from the 80s and 90s (it pops up in the ED of a show I'm currently watching, 1985's Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam). It's not an element that everyone likes, but personally a lot of the music I grew up listening to had choirs or backing choirs in them, so that adds a layer of nostalgia onto the song for me. An additional layer of nostalgia is added with the classic 90s sounding synths. Since they provide all of the melody, the whole song feels very late 90s retro. And for the drums, the looseness of the snare in the drumloop makes a nice contrast with the bassline. Just such a great song, I wish I was more well-versed in music theory so I could go even more on and on about why I like this song so much. I'm happy that they went with this instead of the more classic Di Gi Charat song "Welcome!."

But "Only One, No.1" isn't the only vocal song to be featured in the show. Episode 15 is just straight up a music video set to the song "Party Night." Or rather, the "Hyper Parapara" mix of it. This remix and the original song were both released on a single on October 9th, 1999. I really like this song! I don't really have as much to say about it compared to "Only One, No.1" since parapara music isn't really a genre I've spent a lot of time listening to. But it's a fun, upbeat song. Dejiko, Puchiko, and Rabi en Rose's voice actresses, Sanada Asami, Sawashiro Miyuki, and Hikami Kyouko are great singers and they bring each characters energy into the song. The synth melodies feel like typical parapara fare, but that's OK because they're fun and make you want to get up and dance! The series composer Sakamoto Yuusuke composed both the original and this remix, and they're both great. Making an episode of great animation and fun gags set to this song was a great idea.

The rest of the sound track is, as I said before, delightful as well. "Ukiuki Morning" is probably my favorite of the bunch. As I've talked about before jazz is my favorite genre, so I love the song's jazzy feel. The sax actually reminds me a lot of the song "Naruto's Daily Life" from that show. The guitar and piano groove really nicely, and I gotta say I really appreciated the guitar's mowtown type solos. And of course, the little throw to "Party Night" is cute. Overall just a really fun song. And then there's the other favorite, "Osahre Ni Midnight". It sounds like the type of song that plays when you run into your rival in the Pokémon games, so it functions pretty well as "Rabi en Rose's theme". Which of course is another reason I like it so much.  

In Defense of Moetron

The visual design in Di Gi Charat is pretty funny too. All the characters that appear originally appear in the 4koma, with the anime featuring slight redesigns by Chief Animation Director Yamakawa Yoshiki. This includes, of course, the main characters, but also the designs of the townspeople. They all are simple peg shapes with face cutouts and names written on their bodies. Even a seemingly more important minor character like the Akihabara GAMERS manager is designed this way. Originally I thought this design was anime original, but it turns out background characters where design this way starting in the original comic strip. According to the English Wikipedia page for the series, non-major characters were designed based on thumbs, because "Akihabara is one of the largest shopping areas of Earth for video games[...] and thumbs are most commonly used by people to press buttons while playing video games." This is actually a hilarious design decision and reflects the creativity of Koge-Donbo*'s design process. This might be an improper evaluation, but I feel like some people perceive the design philosophy of Di Gi Charat as lesser, especially since it's one of the main examples used by cultural critic Hiroki Azuma to describe the idea of database consumption theory in otaku culture. Dejiko and Puchiko's designs especially are very "moe"-ful, with the design elements of a maid uniform, seifuku, and cat ears and tails. Hiroki Azuma himself didn't really imply that Dejiko's design was bad because of this, but I feel like some people think of the designs as simply being slapped together to maximize otaku affection. And while I would agree that the main trios designs definitely were made with otaku in mind, I don't think they were mindless slapped together with popular moe elements. The visual balance, analogous color scheme of each characters main colors, and again, the level of humor baked into things like the designs of the background characters, to me, shows a level of care that you can't get by just slapping stuff together moetron style. Maybe I don't know enough about design theory to be making grand counters to critiques of these anime characters, but I'm gonna make an effort dammit! Because these character designs are great!

Di Gi Charat To The Future

After the completion of the Di Gi Charat Wonderful Version anime, the original creator would continue working on the comic strip weekly for the next 15 years. After that, the strip was published once every other month until its final strip in May of 2019. All the while Koge-Donbo* would continue to contribute to the all of the Di Gi Charat anime that would appear, as well as create several more moe works popular with otaku, such as the Pita Ten series which began a little before the Di Gi Charat anime in October 1999, as well as the Kamichama Karin series which began in December 2002. Additionally, she contributed art and character designs to many other Broccoli media projects over the years, such as 2007's Princess Conerto for the PS2. These days she works as an associate professor of manga at Kyoto Seika University, and you can find her work on Twitter as well as on her recently created YouTube channel. As for Director Sakurai, he would continue to direct every Di Gi Charat anime that release in the following decade, and has already been announced as the director of the upcoming Fall 2022 anime Reiwa no Di Gi Charat. But he didn't just work on the alien cat girl anime, and in fact directed several extremely popular works over the years. He assisted with management during the second half of 2000s Fooly Cooly, directed the hilarious 2003 anime Cromartie High School, and storyboarded episode 12 of Mushishi in 2005. More recently, he directed the 2016 anime adaptation of The Disastrous Life of Saiki K., storyboarded episode 4 of Little Witch Academia in 2017, and in 2019 directed Machikado Mazoku. He's directing that last one's sequel for the upcoming 2022 Spring season. Chief Animation Director Yamakawa continued to move up the industrial ladder after his work on Di Gi Charat Wonderful Version. He started out doing more key animation work throughout the 2000s, such as on 2005's magical girl OVA Otogi-Juushi Akazukin, another shoujo series Sweet Valerian in 2004, and the opening of 2008's Toradora. In 2008 he got his directorial debut with the movie HELLS. From 2012 to 2013 he directed Little Busters and its sequel Little Busters Refrain, and in 2018 he began directing the Netflix anime adaptations of High Score Girl. His most recent work was last year in 2021 when he directed The Duke of Death and His Maid. And Music Director Sakamoto? He continued to work with Broccoli on pretty much every media project they put over the years. In 2013 he provided the music for the film Neppuu Kairiku Bushi Road, and his most recent anime work was as music arranger for the 2014 TV anime series The World Is Still Beautiful.

And that's basically all she wrote. Like I said, Di Gi Charat would go on to have many more anime adaptations over the coming years. Some where more or less continuations of the same ideas of this 99 series, while others (namely 2006's Winter Garden) presented the Di Gi Charat concept with a wildly different approach. Later this year we're supposed to get that aforementioned new Di Gi Charat anime, Reiwa no Di Gi Charat, which I'm excitedly looking forward too. But even if that one is really good, this anime will always have a special place in my heart as one of the first otaku anime I ever watched. Next up, at the end of this month (if all goes accordingly), I'll be writing about the next anime on my list, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. So look forward to that and I'll see you in the next one.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

- Di Gi Charat AniDB page: https://anidb.net/anime/553

- Di Gi Charat Series JP Wikipedia: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%87%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B8%E3%83%BB%E3%82%AD%E3%83%A3%E3%83%A9%E3%83%83%E3%83%88

- Di Gi Charat (1999 Anime) JP Wikipedia page: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Di_Gi_Charat_(%E3%83%AF%E3%83%B3%E3%83%80%E3%83%95%E3%83%AB%E7%89%88)

- Broccoli JP Wikipedia page: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%96%E3%83%AD%E3%83%83%E3%82%B3%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC_(%E4%BC%81%E6%A5%AD)

- GAMERS JP Wikipedia page: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B2%E3%83%BC%E3%83%9E%E3%83%BC%E3%82%BA

- Di Gi Charat English Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Di_Gi_Charat

- Newtype Magazine May 2003 Special 5: Nyotype

---

[Editor's Corner] FINALLY DONE! So originally I wanted to have this done by the end of February, and I assumed I wouldn't really have that much to say about such a short show. But inspite of the length of my rant about "Only One, No. 1", the part that took the longest was actually the introduction. It may not look it, but the intro went through four drafts before I finally settled on the one published here. It was one of those things where I'd write it, do an editing pass, but then back up and add or change something. Every instance of me using "Wonderful Version" was added in the final pass. And since I write in such a tight fashion that I usually don't have room to add anything without changing a bunch of stuff, what was supposed to be done in 3 days took 7. But hey, it's done. I'm going to go ahead and try to finish up Zeta Gundam by the end of the month to get back on track for my goal to post at least one article a month. So if all goes well, look forward to that! [Editing pass finished at 12:10AM, 03/05/22]