Arad Senki: Slap Up Party is a Japanese anime that premiered in the Spring 2009 anime season. It is a loose adaptation of a Korean webcomic of the same name, Slap Up Party, which in and of itself is a loose adaptation of the insanely popular Korean MMORPG/Beat 'em Up Dungeon and Fighter, better known to the West as Dungeon Fighter Online.
Once upon a time, in the land of Arad, a disease known as "Kazan's curse" spread across the land, infecting innocent souls with a Demonic Possession that takes control of their left arm. A band of heroes, led by the Dark Elf Roxy, who has herself become infected by Kazan's curse, travel to the source of the curse to defeat Sirocco, an evil spirit who is spreading the curse. Although they put up great resistance, Sirocco ultimately defeats them. With no other choice left at their disposal, Roxy unleashes Kazan's curse, transforming her into a violent demon. With her newfound power, Roxy kills Sirocco at the cost of her own life. Unfortunately, this only causes Sirocco's essence to spread across the land, corrupting Arad in an event known as the Devolution.
Fast forward several years, and a young man named Baron Abe is traversing the land with his pal, the spirit of Roxy, who now inhabits the greatsword Baron wields. He is a Slayer, one of the "cursed children" whose arm became infected by Kazan's curse, and he travels Arad to find a cure for his curse. Unbeknownst to him, a series of events has been set in motion that could threaten the existence of Arad as he knows it...
"Party Call!"
- Adapted Out: Emperyan never appears, although Capenesis mentions that it's his home quite a few times. The group does try to get there, but get ejected out of Sky Tower by Castellan and are subsequently flown to Behemoth, where the finale takes place.
- Anachronic Order: Unusually for this trope, the locations come off as this for anyone who's played the game pre-Metastasis. For example, in the game, Hendon Myre is the second area, followed by Sky Tower, then Behemoth. In the anime, Behemoth is The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, while Hendon Myre is the third visited area.
- And the Adventure Continues: The show ends with Baron giving up his chance to cure his curse in favor of curing Stella, then leaving for further adventures with Roxy and the Slap-Up Party to one day find another cure.
- Anime Theme Song: Nogawa Sakura's Party Play for Season One.
- The Anime of the Game: Slap Up Party -Arad Senki- aired in spring of 2009.
- Bag of Holding: In Episode 5, Ixia magically enchants a gun to be able to contain both Capenesis and his assailant within it, causing them to pop out when the trigger is pulled.
- Bare-Handed Blade Block: Not only does Ryunmei do this, she then proceeds to karate chop the blade in half!
- Battle Cry: Starting from Episode 3, Baron's "Party call!" is this, followed by a group chant specifically tailored to the situation, and ending with a group gathering accompanied by Title Dropping the name of the game.
- Beware the Silly Ones: Despite being the Butt-Monkey, Capenesis is highly competent in combat when he has to fight.
- Big Damn Heroes: When Baron is suddenly confronted by a horde of Taus and Goblins, Capensis jumps out of nowhere and rains lead on the lot of them, killing them all except for their local boss, Tau King Shauta.
- Broad Strokes: The only story content that the anime borrows directly from the game is the prologue, which is roughly the same. However, the prologue's adaptation is somewhat loose, as it replaces the other three Masters that weren't Roxy or Aganzo with two Canon Foreigners that have later plot relevance.
- Butt-Monkey: Capenesis, to a T.
- Canon Foreigner: The anime introduces a lot of new characters that were non-existent in the game, such as Hilia and Stella. A few of them even become the driving force behind the plot.
- Chekhov's Gun: One of the later episodes involves helping a young Dark Elf retrieve the stolen half of a blueprint for a flying airship so that he can complete it. This initially seems like a one-off episode, until the finale, when the completed airship arrives at the nick of time to save the Slap-Up Party from falling out of Sky Tower to their doom and ultimately take them to Behemoth.
- Composite Character: All five main characters display attributes of their respective class's Subclasses, but are never explicitly defined as being one of their Subclasses. For example, Capensis gains a Robot Buddy like a Mechanic, but uses skills based on other Gunner classes.
- Cerebus Syndrome: The tone of the anime shifts around episode 18 from drama-seasoned slapstick to slapstick-seasoned drama.
- Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Unleashing Kazan's curse. This immensely increases the infected's power, but also transforms them into a demon, and may possibly kill them. Roxy does this in the prologue after their party runs out of options.
- Demoted to Extra: Seria is a one-shot character in the series, as opposed to the game, where she kickstarts every character's story and remains relevant in future episodes. Also, Seria in Arad Senki is a child, oddly enough, although she still wears Game!Seria's clothes.
- Denser and Wackier: The anime verges on wacky comedy sometimes, with among other things,
GSD becoming a Dirty Old Man, Linus becoming allergic to weapons somehow, and Canna having her own fan club. - Driven to Suicide: After being ousted from his own village for possessing a demonic arm, Baron was ready to kill himself, until he met Roxy.
- Dual Wielding:
- Roxy's primary weapon is twin short swords, like a Thief.
- Capenesis, being a Gunner, dual-wields Pistols.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Due to being based on a much earlier version of the game, the few plot elements the anime actually shares with DFO are strangely inconsistent with the current version of the plot. This includes the fact that Sirocco and Kazan are completely separate entities and have nothing to do with each other in any capacity, and the fact that Roxy continues to persist after the Screaming Cavern Incident despite Sirocco inflicting Laser-Guided Amnesia about Roxy's existence after Roxy killed Sirocco.
- Exposition Fairy: Roxy, the spirit of the female Slayernote of the same name who possesses Baron Abe's Sword and talks to him.
- Fight Clubbing: The anime's depiction of the Arena is this.
- Guest-Star Party Member: Jeda is never officially part of Baron's party, but he will team up with them if they're nearby.
- Human Pincushion: In the prologue, Aganzo is run through multiple times by Combat Tentacles.
- Hope Spot: In Episode 1, a nameless village girl offhandedly mentions that her father has figured out a way to cure Kazan's curse, something Baron has been searching for much of his life. The girl's father and his wife are subsequently killed by Tau King Shauta when Taus and Goblins attack the village one scene cut later.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: Ixia, after an incident with a party caused her to lose her faith in other people.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Even though Capensis is the show's resident Butt-Monkey, he's actually pretty decent in a battle when this trope kicks in.
- MacGuffin: Baron Abe's quest is to find the cure for his demonic arm. Near the end, this turns out to be the tears of Behemoth, who is said to cry once every 100,000 years.
- Market-Based Title: A strange case; since the Market-Based Title for Dungeon & Fighter in Japan is Arad Senki, the title of the show is a homegrown title based on a Market-Based Title. However, the title is changed back into Dungeon & Fighter: Slap-Up Party in Korea because that's the original name of the game.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- Roxy's destruction of the demon spirit in the prologue winds up starting the Devolution, and also spread Kazan's curse around the world.
- Before Ryunmei confronts Hilia in Episode 5, she specifically instructs Baron not to follow her. Moments after Ryunmei and Hilia meet, Baron follows suit, which distracts Ryunmei long enough for Hilia to put a sword to Ryunmei's throat.
- When Ixia goes looking for her friends later in the same episode, she attempts to light up the cave, but puts too much force into her magic and winds up getting herself caught. She had a backup plan in Capenesis's gun, though.
- No Name Given: A lot of the bosses early on are not mentioned by name. Players of the game would recognize them, however.
- Nonchalant Dodge: After his sword gets destroyed, Kaspo, an Arena champion, tries tossing some random items at Ryunmei, who sidesteps them with minimal effort.
- Not the Fall That Kills You…: Capensis quite literally falls out of Emperyan and crash lands into the ground as a flaming comet, with an impact crater no less. He's completely unharmed.
- One-Hit Kill: A lot of monsters die like this. Even Flame Princess Stella gets this treatment!
- Plot Allergy: The anime version of Linus has an allergy to weapons for some unexplained reason. He can be near them, but the moment he touches one, he breaks out into full-body rashes. However, even an allergy isn't enough to stop him from saving Seria.
- The Power of Friendship: It allows Ixia's familiars to materialize once she discovers how to respect other people.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Baron's eyes glow red when he unleashes his inner strength in Episode 1.
- Retraux: The ending theme for Season 1, as well as the video accompanying it, is this.
- Revenge: Ryunmei's primary motivation.
- Spanner in the Works: Hillia's plan in Episode 5 would probably have gone off without a hitch... if the pistol she confiscated from Ixia wasn't enchanted to magically contain two bickering men in place of a bullet that would have killed Baron.
- Talking Weapon:
- Played with regarding Aganzo's sword; it doesn't talk, but the spirit possessing it, Roxy, does. Only Baron can hear her, though.
- Ixia's magic staff starts speaking once she unlocks her own full potential, though in Pokémon Speak which only Ixia seems to understand.
- Title Drop: Whenever Baron does his "Party call!" Battle Cry, the group always finishes it off with a hearty "Dungeon and Fighter!". This is in spite of the fact that the show is called Arad Senki due to being Japanese-produced.
