Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan



"Pipiru piru piru pipiru pi!"

Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan (Club-To-Death Angel Dokuro-chan), released in English speaking countries as Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan, is a small Japanese franchise consisting of 10 light novels plus one extra book, six "pairs" of Anime episodes, 3 volumes of Manga, and a Playstation II video game. The series centers around Sakura, a fairly nondescript Junior High student that was marked for death by God due to the fact that he will invent a form of immortality in the future that prevents women from aging after 12 years of age (creating "a pedophile's world", as one character comments). God sends Dokuro, an angelic assassin, back in time to kill him.

But alas, Dokuro finds herself enamored with him and decides that she can prevent this horrible future by keeping him too distracted to ever stumble upon the method. However, due to her irrational nature, she ends up wrecking his life in the process. One Running Gag is that Dokuro does, in fact, kill Sakura... repeatedly. Usually if he touches her in a way she views as inappropriate... or says something she misinterprets... looks at her funny... is just there... but she always resurrects him immediately afterwards. Drama unfolds when another angelic assassin, Sabato, is sent to do the job that Dokuro is putting off and Dokuro ends up taking on a role as Sakura's "protector" (death by Sabato seems almost preferable).

The series derives most of its humor from crossing every line in parodying the whole Magical Girlfriend genre (and plenty of other Anime tropes). In that in has quite a few similarities with Dai Mahou Touge, with which it shares the directing and screen-writing talents of Tsutomu Mizushima. Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan manages to often be far more brutal in its violence though. Sakura doesn't just get killed, he gets splattered in the most creatively gory ways possible (it actually becomes comedy when he doesn't get killed). Along with completely shattering the Masquerade and the total creepy honesty of most of the secondary characters, it certainly is a unique show.

""It can't be helped that the class representative has been turned into a monkey, so Dokuro-chan may sit next to Sakura-kun.""
 * Accidental Pervert: Sakura almost never has any overt sexual thoughts when he provokes Dokuro's wrath. In fact, these moments are just about the only time he ISN'T having sexual thoughts.
 * Achilles' Heel: Possibly an angel's only weakness is removing the halo from above their head. (Unfortunately for Sakura, who does this several times, the edge is so sharp it cuts off the hand of anyone who forcefully grabs it.) It strips them of their power and gives them explosive diarrhea.
 * Animorphism
 * Art Shift: When a classmate's head turns into a gorilla's head, the gorilla's head is photorealistic, instead of animated. It's quite jarring, to say the least.
 * Batter Up: Excalibolg, at least in appearance. It's actually a real weapon called a kanabō, so it's more Carry a Big Stick than this trope.
 * Blood Sport: Who knew that dodgeball could be so bloody? They are playing with a heavy basketball, but the lightest blow seems to result in showers of blood all through the series.
 * Bloody Hilarious: Oh so very much.
 * Bokukko: Dokuro, who by invoking this trope, puts the boku in "bokusatsu".
 * Break the Cutie: This happens quite fast. It even comes with a crazy laugh every now and then. Dokuro-chan has somewhat of a Higurashi no Naku Koro ni laugh.
 * Butt Monkey
 * Sakura. Poor kid's even got a girly-sounding name.
 * Zanzu even more so, to the degree that he is treated as a Butt Monkey by Sakura.
 * Calvin Ball: According to one episode, Dokuro likes to make up her own board games. The only one we see is the mystifying "Gothello". Hilariously, the special edition DVD set in Japan actually came with a Gothello set!
 * Came Back Wrong: Dokuro's resurrections of Sakura don't always go quite right. Of course, it's Played for Laughs.
 * Celestial Bureaucracy: Heaven is portrayed as a bureaucracy that can only send increasingly ineffectual assassins after a young boy. Though this may be intentional. After all what better way to someone a lesson than to send people that would decide not to kill him yet essentially torture him for the rest of his life. One might say God knows exactly what he is doing.
 * The Chew Toy: Sakura. Also, Sabato, to a slightly lesser extent (this is debatable, however).
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Dokuro-land: population: 1.
 * Comedic Sociopathy: For someone trying to help Sakura, it almost feels like (permanent) death would be preferable.
 * Cosmic Plaything: Sakura, with all the divine agents in this series pretty much existing to do with as they please to him.
 * Cute Bruiser: Zakuro, Dokoru and Sabato all match this trope.
 * Death Is Cheap: Sakura gets turned into gibs and resurrected all the time, and his strongest reaction is "That really hurt!".
 * Double Standard Abuse (Female on Male): Dokuro-chan takes this trope Up to Eleven. It's also one of the few cases where this is Played for Laughs... and we laugh. It isn't limited to that, however, making it a subversion of this trope. To date Sakura has been abused by his male classmates, male animals (who were formerly classmates), his male teacher, his father (in the manga) all for the sake of giggles. Sabato also endures hilarious amounts of abuse and misfortune.
 * The Dulcinea Effect: Sakura keeps trying to help Sabato out in spite of her repeated murder attempts!
 * Embarrassing First Name: "Sakura" is still considered pretty feminine in Japan, and in the Light Novels, Sakura actively laments his name.
 * Everything's Better with Monkeys: The Student Council president.
 * Expository Theme Tune
 * Fetish Fuel Future: What Sakura will create if he isn't stopped.
 * Furo Scene: Season 2 episode 2.
 * Gainaxing: There's a bit of this every now and then. One instance is when Sakura accidentally pulls down Dokuro-chan's shirt, revealing her breasts, the nipples of which are covered by a conveniently-placed plant branch.
 * Gender Blender Name: Sakura is typically a girl's name in Japan.
 * Genki Girl: Dokuro, being Dokuro, takes Genki to psychopathic levels.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: Dokuro's cone-shaped cellphone that she keeps in her panties. Although the satellite that relays information to this show's radar is broken to begin with.
 * Girl with Psycho Weapon: All the angels.
 * Gonk: Angels without halos.
 * Also Sakura, when Shizuki says she likes another guy, he becomes this, while flailing his arms like a Garry's Mod ragdoll.
 * Gorn: Dokuro-chan runneth over with this one!
 * Groin Attack: The most cringeworthy is probably right in the opening, where Dokuro is seen leaning heavily on her spiked club, embedded deep in Sakura's groin. At another point in the opening she punts him in the crotch, sending him flying. Yeesh.
 * Grotesque Cute
 * Hammerspace
 * Happily Ever After: The final scene of the anime's first season shows Sakura-kun and Dokuro-chan embracing on a white background surrounded by a border of an assortment of carnivorous plants.
 * Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Taken to extremes with Dokuro.
 * High-Pressure Blood: Also taken to extremes. On one occasion Sakura's severed lower body flies around like a rocket from the blood escaping.
 * Horned Humanoid
 * Hot Mom: Sabato's mother, Babei.
 * Human Shield: Sakura uses Sabato as one in Episode 2.
 * Hypocritical Humor: Sakura's classmates are probably even more perverted than he is, yet they always seem to be on his case when it's Not What It Looks Like.
 * Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The name of each episode ends with "Dokuro-chan!"
 * Image Song: Rather bizarre and disturbing ones, at that.
 * Improbable Use of a Weapon: There's plenty of bizarre weapons in the show, but Dokuro-chan's Excalibolg is actually a kanabō, a real weapon. You simply don't wield it with one hand... it was an anti-armor weapon.
 * Improbable Weapon User
 * Dokuro wields a kanabō (a huge spiked club) she calls Excalibolg.
 * Sabato wields an electric baton "capable of zapping a blue whale in seconds" she calls Durandal.
 * Zakuro wields a wet towel (no, really) that she calls Eckilsax.
 * Innocent Cohabitation: Subverted in Dokuro's case, because she's sexually teased him a few times when trying to get her way. Straight in Zakuro's case.
 * Kids Are Cruel: Sakura's classmates lead to many uncomfortable moments when they're picking on him.
 * Lady of War: Who would ever think that fighting with wet towels can be so elegant?
 * Love Can Make You Gonk: Sakura is an excellent example.
 * Love Hurts: More like "love kills".
 * Ludicrous Gibs: You should know this by now.
 * Lyrical Dissonance: The Anime Theme Song is an upbeat J-Pop number that also flat out states the horrible things that Dokuro does to Sakura.
 * Made of Plasticine: Sakura. Arguably also Made of Iron for the (very few) times her abuse doesn't kill him.
 * Magical Girlfriend: Deconstructed and parodied relentlessly. In the first episode of the anime, Dokuro talks about having studied various manga, including genre classic Urusei Yatsura, to get an idea of how she should behave.
 * Male Gaze: Again, Sakura. Used in the first episode when Dokuro-chan is flailing around on a table, and he states clearly that her panties are showing, which causes Dokuro-chan (who is trying to keep Sakura from working) to lift up her nightgown, giving Sakura (and the viewers) an incredible view of her panties and the undersides of her breasts.
 * Manic Pixie Nightmare Girl: Dokuro-chan.
 * Meaningful Name:
 * The angels' weapons are named after weapons belonging to heroes of legend. Dokuro's club "Excalibolg" is a portmanteau of Excalibur, the legendary sword of King Arthur, and Gae Bolg, the spear belonging to the Irish mythological hero Cu Chulainn. Sabato's shock baton Durandal is named after the sword belonging to Roland, the paladin of Charlemagne.
 * Ichiro Binkan, star of the Show Within a Show: "binkan" meaning "sensitive", and well...
 * Named Weapons: Dokuro's club Excalibolg, Sabato's shock baton Durandal, and Zakuro's towel Eckilsax.
 * Naughty Tentacles: One of the traps in the Locked in a Room episode. Only Sakura suffers its molestations, of course.
 * Noodle Incident: Everyone is... extremely disturbed... by Sakura-kun's painting at the sketching contest -- even Dokuro-chan—but we never get to see the picture itself.
 * Ondo: The OAV ending.
 * Only Sane Man: Sakura... though you do have to wonder how well his sanity is holding up after the eighth reincarnation.
 * Our Angels Are Different: And not very angelic either!
 * Paint the Town Red
 * Panty Shot: Dear, God, this trope is everywhere in the show. Odds are, if there is a female character introduced, you will see her panties at least once. Angels often get multiple shots.
 * Potty Failure: Removing an angel's halo gives them a bad case of diarrhea, apparently. Could also be seen as Potty Emergency since they're never shown failing to make it to the bathroom.
 * Refuge in Audacity
 * Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: It is speculated that Sakura would create his Pedo-World BECAUSE he met Dokuro-chan.
 * Shallow Love Interest: Parodied with Shizuki. Both Sakura and Shizuki love each other, but circumstances conspire to prevent them from ever making that official.
 * Shout-Out:
 * The manga makes one to To LOVE-Ru in the first chapter, where Sakura demands Dokuro to show her (non-existent) tail, claiming that it is her weakness.
 * Episode 6 has Dokuro-chan admit that she doesn't believe in ghosts, with Sakura retorting that since Dokuro-chan is an angel, anything is possible, including a cat robot from the future, a reindeer who's a doctor, a witch who's a nurse, and even moving castles.
 * Show Within a Show: Sensitive Salaryman Binkan, along with the accompanying Merchandise, a sausage that makes you extremely sensitive to every sensation. We probably don't want to know all of the implications of that.
 * Slasher Smile: Dokuro, Sabato, Sakura's classmates... anyone who is about to beat the crap out of Sakura.
 * Stock Footage: Subverted, in that while resurrection is done in a manner that looks like stock footage, it actually changes to accommodate what Dokuro is wearing at the time.
 * Stockholm Syndrome: A possible explanation for why Sakura resigns himself to putting up with Dokuro. The finale of season one is the best evidence.
 * Stop Helping Me!: Sakura ends up saying this a lot.
 * Super Strength: All of the angels in the series have this ability.
 * The Tease: Dokuro, though she doesn't really indulge this in the anime. It is mentioned in the Expository Theme Tune, though.
 * They Killed Kenny: Sakura dies in just about every episode. Sometimes he dies multiple times in an episode.
 * Too Dumb to Live: Sakura, in spades. One would think he'd get a clue to stay away from Sabato the fourth time she tried to kill him in ten minutes. Or as soon as he saw the halo and horns, especially given Dokuro's record of killing him repeatedly. Considering how much he's died he just might not care that much anymore.
 * Verbal Tic: "~zanzu!"
 * Victoria's Secret Compartment: Dokuro keeps her holographic cellphone in her panties, somehow.
 * Weirdness Censor: Nobody but Sakura seems the slightest bit weirded out by Dokuro and her antics. When she turns one guy's head into that of a photorealistic howler monkey, the teacher shrugs it off as though it were normal and she had nothing to do with it. Sakura repeatedly lampshades this throughout the whole series whenever nobody takes any notice of something especially odd that Dokuro-chan has done.

""It's the Wood Glue Club!" "And what are we supposed to do?" "To continuously watch the process of wood glue drying, hardening and eventually turning transparent." "I QUIT!!!""
 * WMG theory is that they are aware but keep their mouths shut out of fear of Dokuro, which is a pretty good idea considering that Dokuro only seems to revive Sakura.
 * Mundane Made Awesome:


 * Widget Series: Though by many counts it's more popular abroad than it is in Japan.
 * Wistful Amnesia: Even though there's really no reason for them to miss her.
 * With Friends Like These...: The real reason Sakura's classmates waited for him before eating dinner was to find out if it would kill him. Sakura's classmates (sans Shizuki) are really only slightly better than Dokuro-chan, in that they only regularly abuse and demean him, instead of outright killing him.
 * Yandere: You bet your halo Dokuro's one of these. She interestingly exhibits qualities of a Tsundere as well. Dokuro's generally a "nice", "well-intentioned" girl, however she won't hesitate to become enraged and kill Sakura in two seconds. And then she's back to being dere-dere again.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Interesting example, as Dokuro-chan's hair color is light purple in season one, but changes over to a sea-blue in season two.
 * Younger Than They Look: Zakuro, who despite being the tallest regular character in the show and having the "largest tracts of land" is only nine years old.
 * Zettai Ryouiki: Dokuro has got to be at least a grade A, maybe even S. Just look. High socks? Check. Twintails? Check. Tsundere? Do we even have to say it?