Anime: Mezzo DSA

The action to make it appealing for a large audience, the comedy to make it lighthearted. But somehow it still doesn't make a really enjoyable series.

The animation is pretty okay. The characters move pretty fluid, so the actionscenes are pretty good. Because the actionscenes are clearly too much action for the job they should be doing, it might look kind of funny, but that's the entire idea behind this series; excessive action is fun! Note that, although there is excessive action, they never become excessive violent.
The characters are done pretty well, so they look good as well, although the (character)animation is done a lot better than in the OVA. This time the characters are lively and genki and they don't really disappoint in anything.

The OP/ED is quite different and you have to like it immediately or have to get used to it. Sometimes you just can't (like I couldn't), but overall both songs are some sort of semi-rap, or just fastpaced lyrics (which hardly make sense anyway), which might sound good if you can stand it. They're not bad, just odd.
The music throughout the series was pretty unnoticeable to me, except for a few music themes when they were fighting - and those few are fitting.
The voiceacting was done pretty well, with an outstanding effort for 'Pops', the leader of the pack. Somehow he always manages to come up with the most weird speeches ever, which leaves me wondering how his voiceactor was ever able to pull them off without bursting into laughter, since most of the time his speeches don't make sense.

The first episode already starts off with a nice bang, in which there are a few nice fights, which should give you an indicaton of the series in general - but, unfortunately, the rest of the series is more story-driven and not action-driven with only a few actionscenes which are already done before you started enjoying them. This might give you a feeling of being cheated by the actionscenes in the first episode. But, while being story-driven, the story isn't much at all. Every episode starts and concludes a storyline, which leaves not much room for bigger stories over several episodes. The result is that most episodes/stories are pretty flat: Kickoff, start mission, bunch of action in a minute of 2-3, end mission in a mere 20 minutes.

Mikura is pretty much of an airhead, who does it completely her way. Somehow she is the 'dangergirl', always looking for the action and danger, but since she's like that, she doesn't progress much throughout the series. Pretty flat character, which isn't necessarily bad for the series.
Asami is probably the most annoying one of the characters, since she is a very timid girl who never dares to do anything. She doesn't get much character development either, leaving her mostly as a 'dead weight' in the series like something they added and didn't know what to do with it. Of course they do something with her, but that's so insignificant (just like her entire role in the series) that even her character development doesn't seem to be so surprising in the end.
Kurokawa, aka Pops, is the most random person in the series. Although he is supposedly the leader of the pack, he doesn't seem to be capable enough to do anything. Plus, his speeches never make sense at all since he always makes a pun of the first part of his own sentence.

Although some of the stories are pretty entertaining, there are also stories which are pretty dull, dumb or just not entertaining. The result is that the series never gets any depth or deeper plot at all. It does make the series more rewatchable because it's such a lighthearted actionseries without too much thinking and too much plot. But to say that it's a good series - not really.

If you don't know the Mezzo Forte OVA let me give you a very brief introduction on the series: The "Danger Service Angency" (DSA) is a small group comprised of a cute little girl and her two grown-up male and friends that take on "dangerous" missions. These normally involve local crimelords and other nasty folk. The series is located somewhere in not too distant future Tokyo. Action and comedy with a little ecchi are what this seems to be all about. We'll have to see if the TV-series has to offer more depth in than the OVA.

Now to the series:

What's it really about?
The action-sequences. They are fast, furious and as over the top as in the OVA, so don't expect realistic stuff here. And the comedy. It's nice to notice that the animation is just as high-quality as you would expect from a brand-new production.

What's the story like?
Content-wise, there's a lot more and better comedy and less ecchi to be found in the TV-show, which IMHO is a good thing as action and the slightly absurd humor are the real strengths of Mezzo DSA. After the second episode it appears that we might also see two rather huge storylines unfold. Whether these turn out to be satisfactory can hardly be concluded by now.

How's the soundtrack?
I listened to music and sound more carefully in episode two and start to like the hard rock-oriented opening and ending themes, but most of you probably won't. Unfortunately the soundtracks within the episodes aren't anything special at all, just the usual stuff. The voice acting is good for some characters and pretty bad for others, so sound won't receive a high grade here. [I don't speak Japanese, but I figure that the character "Pops" makes a pun of almost every sentence, so this might explain his strange-sounding pronounciation]

Who should watch it?
I'd recommend Mezzo DSA if you are able to switch your brain off in order to get some really funny and action-packed entertainment. If you liked "Mezzo Forte" you should definitely take a look.