Chocolate Underground

Alternate Titles: チョコレート・アンダーグラウンド

Original Japanese Release Date: June 12th, 2008

Episode Length/Run-time: 13 episodes (3 minutes each)

Summary:

It’s the Fahrenheit 451 of anime!  The “Good For You” political party has outlawed chocolate and all other foods that are bad for you!  That won’t stop Smudger and Huntley from eating it though!

Review:

I give this anime props for its originality.  You won’t find another anime about chocolate being outlawed and people forming underground groups to not only create the sweet stuff but also to simply eat it.  All in all, the general populace is depressed (clearly chocolate is the answer to fighting depression) and in the end, the children cause a rebellion against the government.   That being said, the story is pretty much the one of the only good things about this anime and even then it is marred with problems.  Namely, the ending is god awful.  One of the worst examples of Dues Ex Machina you’ll find in anime wraps this one up with as much cheese as a bag of Cheese-its.  It was pretty obvious that the creators had no idea how to wrap it up under their limited time constraints.

This shows downfall into mediocrity comes from its format; 13, 3 minute ONA episodes.  In this format, the span of the series’s content is little more than a single regular length anime episode.  This is far too short a time to really develop any kind of cohesive story.  The characters get no development either.  How could they?  There’s no time!

So let’s recap.  Original concept that gets killed off by the short episodes and an ending that’s fit only for the mindless and a lack of character development that could choke a moose.  Ultimately, I gave this a 3/5 because I found its originality refreshing.  If you take this away…it might as well be a hentai, underage kids or not.

[starrater]