i forgot how incredibly cute Disgaea is at almost all times. i'm not even talking about the artwork even though i was always terribly in love with Takehito Harada's style (i have an artbook even!!!), but the story and characters are just so adorable. sure they come off as one note a lot of time and Disgaea 4 unlike 1 and 2 do not greatly expand on their personalities, but they're still super likeable. and like even the shitty 2011 anime trope jokes are so light, Fenrich is more worried about not being called a tsundere than to beat the homossexual allegations and the game does use him and the kid character to say something akin to "Heh... women..." but said women are still extremely present and relevant to the story all the way through also they're hella cool. so many Disgaea games (all of them till 4??) are about going against your father or proving yourself to him and carving your own identity and i think it handles it in a cute way even if not with the seriousness a topic like this may require.

i guess the moe artstyle or the characters with exaggerated proportions might throw some people off, but it really is a lighthearted fun game that i keep wondering what i was going through when i dropped it 12 years ago because i couldn't handle Desco anymore even though she's very precious. (i guess the geoblock maps are a bit tiring tho so that may have helped it)