出典 : Amazon.co.jp
Is there really any chance that a second season of TRIGGER and A-1 Pictures’ original anime Darling in the Franchise, which aired in 2018, will be produced?
We’ll take an in-depth look at it, including the reasons why people are still waiting for a second season, despite the fact that it’s already finished!
A Big Project with Big Expectations
出典 : Amazon.co.jp
As of September 2020, if you do a search on Google for “Darling in the Franchise” or “Dalihura,” you will find “second season” among the suggested keywords.
In fact, there are more than a certain number of people searching for that keyword even if the search is limited to the year 2020, and the data shows that there are still a lot of people who are waiting for the second season of Darihura and are interested in whether it will be produced or not, even after more than two years have passed since the broadcast ended.
This is not unusual for an anime with an original story.
The same is true for original anime that ends with a hint of a sequel.
However, there are very few cases like Dalihura where the story is complete and people want to see a second season even after more than two years have passed since it aired, and even if it is a big hit, there are many anime that are barely searched for “title + second season.
Despite this, why are there still a certain number of people waiting for the second season of Darihura?
In order to find out, we need to look back at what this anime was about.
Darling in the Franxx was announced at AnimeExpo 2017 in LA, USA in July 2017 under the name of “TRIGGER x A-1 Pictures new project “DARLING in the FRANKXX””.
Incidentally, at that time it was announced as one of the three new TRIGGER anime, the other two being “SSSS.GRIDMAN” and “Promea”.
GRIDMAN” and “Promea”. As a co-production between TRIGGER and A-1 Pictures, two popular studios familiar to anime fans, there was already a lot of buzz at this point, but when the staff was revealed, the level of expectation quickly increased.
The director is Atsushi Nishikiori of “iM@S” fame, the series composition is by Nishikiori and Naotaka Hayashi, who was in charge of the original scenario of “STEINS;GATE”, the character design is by Masaga Tanaka, who has worked on many hit works such as “Your Name” and “Ano Hana”, and the mechanical design is by Shigeto Koyama, who participated in the character design of “Baymax”. For the OP theme, Mika Nakajima and HYDE, who scored a big hit with “GLAMOROUS SKY,” the theme song for the live-action movie “NANA,” are in charge.
Even before the show aired, there was a lot of publicity and product development, and at the end of 2017, just before the start of the show, Kentaro Yabuki of “To LOVEuru” fame announced that he would be working on a comic book adaptation.
Why many anime fans felt it was a waste of time
出典 : Amazon.co.jp
Darihura’s sales performance is not bad.
Blu-ray and DVD (disc) sales averaged just under 5,000 copies for all eight volumes.
Although the sales did not reach 5,000 copies, it was enough to be a hit considering the time period.
The comicalization by Yabuki-sensei also got off to a good start, selling over 400,000 copies by the second volume, contributing greatly to the promotion of the anime.
However, in conclusion, this work does not come close to being a “robot anime that represents the times.
I have the impression that it failed to become the representative anime of 2018.
The latter was probably due to the fact that there were many hit anime like “Yuru Camp△”, “A Place Farther Than Space”, and “Violet Evergarden” in the same school year.
GRIDMAN, which aired in the fall of 2018 and is also a TRIGGER anime, was a hit, and it can’t be denied that the shadow of Dalihura has faded even more.
GRIDMAN, which aired in the fall of 2018, has overshadowed Dalihura. Including this point, this anime has always had the impression of being a waste.
And it’s not just about sales and fame, it’s also about the content.
Dalihura is a story about the struggles and youth of a boy and a girl who control a humanoid weapon called “Franks” and fight against a mysterious enemy in a world devastated by tectonic changes and environmental destruction caused by energy problems.
The Franks are piloted by a man and a woman, and the fact that both of their positions are reminiscent of sexual acts caused a lot of controversy.
In addition to the mysterious setting and storyline, it had various types of characters and depicted the dreadful human relationships that is typical of robot anime, so it had a high level of centripetal force as an entertainment work and was highly rated in the first half.
However, in the second half, especially towards the end, negative opinions became more prominent.
The main reason cited was the stalling of the story.
The main reason cited was the stalling of the storyline: “The enemies were not very prominent, so there was a lack of catharsis in the battles,” “The depiction of the human relationships of the main characters, including the romantic aspects, was scattered and lacked cohesion,” “The development was slow or too abbreviated, so there was no sense of calm,” and “Even with the heavy development, the story was half-hearted because it was not fully committed to the dark. On the other hand, many viewers seemed to have the impression that the story at the end of the episode was not as exciting as it should have been.
On the other hand, the sales of the discs containing the last half of the story, volumes 6 to 8, have not dropped that much.
This is a result of people who became attached to the work and its characters by the middle of the story continuing to buy it until the end, and the world view and characters of this work had enough appeal to make people want to buy it until the end, even if the end of the story was not so good.
This is also the reason why more than a certain number of people are still waiting for the second season of Dalihura.
In that sense, Dalihura was a “waste” of an anime.
