Anime: Dragon`s Dogma

Netflix just can’t have a rest can they? They air or license good (Little Witch Academia, Great Pretender) or at least popular (Nanatsu no Taizai, Naruto) anime from time to time but when it comes to their originals, it looks like they are cursed to make crude CGI snorefests that almost nobody bothers to watch, and when they do, they usually don’t like them because of very good reasons.

One of them being that their products are based on popular and cherished IPs and leave a bad mark on them, it happened before with Saint Seiya, which almost nobody liked, it also happened with Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex 2045 which had a better reception because apparently the GitS’ fandom is not as critical as I thought, and it happens again with Dragon’s Dogma.

Based on an action rpg game by Capcom which I never played, I normally wouldn’t watch it because videogames anime adaptations are never a good sing, yet this time I did for the next three reasons:

1-Is so rare to get a dark fantasy anime set in a classical medieval setting instead of an edgy magical girls show these days and that alone is a reason to check it out for me.

2-It’s very short meaning that even if it’s crap it can be finished in just one day.

3-THE OPENING THEME IS AWESOME, it was probably taken from the videogame for all I know but it was enough to get my attention, especially after the pleasant surprise I got from Magatsu Wahrheit: Zuerst, another rpg based anime with an amazing opening.

The series suffers from the exact same issue as almost all the other videogame anime adaptations that I watched suffer from, the transition from one medium to another is not well done. Although videogames can have a good story, they ultimately rely mostly on gameplay thus their writing is rarely that good and when it comes to rpgs it’s almost a necessity for them to have lots of sidequests (good sidequests that is) to justify their duration and prices.

When you translate that to a series or a movie, where the focus is in the plot, it doesn’t work either because:

-The story was never good such as the case with every 90s fighting game which had anime adaptations and they were mediocre at best;

-Reading exposition at your own pace when playing a videogame is not the same than having to sit and watch people talk on a series and it gets tiresome and boring very fast as it happened many times before but lets use the currently airing King’s Raid as an example, the first three episodes were abysmal because of all the talking and for how generic it is to the point of making people drop the show after rating in low.

-A single cour series or a single movie is just not enough time to adapt properly the whole plot of a videogame which lasts for at least thrice the duration and thus contains a lot more lore, twists and characterization, that was the case with Xenosaga, which was also badly animated and thus it didn’t do justice to its supossed epic space war premise;

-Is just boring when you have to follow a series where the makers clearly took an avatar protagonist and slapped him in the adaptation without giving him a proper characterization, as was the case with Granblue Fantasy or Princess Connect: Re Dive! and we can use King’s Raid as an example in here as well.

-Or finally, throwing too much content from the sidequests in the adaptation drags the pacing and makes it a chore to watch, while at the same time forces the makers to rush the ending in order to finish the series.

In the case of Dragon’s Dogma, almost all of these points are present, the story is very simple, is just a guy trying to get revenge on a single dragon, which hardly excuses the duration of a full series.

Yet it plays out in an almost completely episodic manner exactly because it includes side monsters placed randomly in order to have epic battles and makes the protagonist look dumb for jumping to help any random person he encounters instead of focusing on his own objective. And calling these fights epic is a stretch as the CGI does not do them justice. Honestly, is not that bad because the models look alright, but the backgrounds and the special effects are simple, and the motions are just sloppy, whether on times of relaxing or in the middle of a battle.

To be fair, Dragon’s Dogma tries, as there is a little plot continuity and there is potential for good dark fantasy material in these stories, not for the sex, drugs and violence which are hardly impactful thanks to the poor CG, is the rushed pacing of every episode what prevents the dark themes to be explored properly.

Every episode is named after a deadly sin (that is the reason why they are seven) but the representation of them is questionable. The first is “Wrath” because it shows the protagonist losing everything he loves and setting on a journey to get a personal vendetta on the dragon…because the latter told him to. How is it sinful when you didn’t do anything wrong, someone takes everything from you and you set on getting revenge on him because he baits you into doing so?

Also, I don’t know about you but for me, a villain who keeps alive someone who wants to kill him and encourages him to do so is just a bad antagonist, even more if he’s absent for most of the story and lets the hero become stronger, which is exactly what happens here.

Now that I mentioned that, how is this protagonist supposed to kill the dragon? He is not even a soldier and he got owned completely by the dragon, yet he expects to kill him without even training? What?

Anyways, the second episode is “Gluttony” and is thematically the most interesting of the bunch, as it shows a village where the food is taken from the people by their governors, sacrifices are made to a ciclop, which for some reason is controlled with a single whip and at the end of the story, once all the villains are defeated, the whole starving village goes out of control and everyone becomes an enemy of each other. It was a great dark turn of events because the protagonist ended up doing more harm than good helping these people but sadly it comes off as rushed because it happens at the very end of the episode.

The next ones are not as interesting, I don’t know why “Envy” is called as such when it features rapist goblins, a clear attempt to cash in Goblin Slayer’s infamy and a woman who married a guy just because of his money and tries to seduce the protagonist. The only relevant thing in this episode are the two soldiers that appear on “Greed” and gives the series a continuity.

Only to have them with their personalities changed completely from one moment to another due to the spell of a lich, again, how is someone a greedy sinner when is not acting like himself because he’s under the control of another being? He’s not doing horrible things on his own and suffering the consequences of his own actions, he’s being used.

In the middle of these stories there is sloth, an episode dedicated to an abandoned village full of drug addicts who cheat on their wives in front of their very own eyes in order to escape from the gritty reality they live on. Thus they don’t work and do nothing when a freaking hydra comes in and destroys their village and kills some women. Another episode full of interesting ideas that are not treated properly because the guys of the village have zero characterization besides cheating on ther wives, before they snap and are able to help kill a hydra when they could barely stand on their feet 5 minutes before because they were under the effects of a strong drug.

Lust was easily the best episode for me, as it deals with the internal struggle of the main protagonist, tempted by a succubus that adopts the form of his dead wife, and he does not let her fool him, the finale of the episode was the highlight of the series for me.

Up until this point, the protagonist was boring, he had a simple personality and a simple past, not very different than a kindhearted shounen or a harem protagonist who helps everyone he encounters just because, but in these last episodes he becomes obsessed with revenge and becomes colder and ultimately, what he sought to destroy. Always an interesting idea, but there was no build up to it because he changed completely out of screen.

The most interesting character in the series is Hannah, his sidekick and, if you notice, the only character whose name I remember, simply because is the most memorable of the bunch. She begins as a “pawn” as they call her in the show, which I assume are artificial beings created to assist the Arisen, people who have their hearts taken by the dragon, this is all stuff that I assume as someone who had not played the game, as the series does not bother to explain all of this stuff and barely implies it.

As a pawn, Hannah is basically heartless and soulless, she doesn’t have emotions, only thinks about how to do things in the most logical course of action, does not know how to speak without hurting others with her direct approach, and at times throws some lines of dialogue about how foolish and emotional creatures are we, the humans. She’s also the real powerful character in the main duo, while the protagonist can only fight thanks to a some sort of dark power gave to him by the dragon, his enemy.

By the end of the series she becomes a lot more human than any other character to the point of being unable of helping the protagonist and put an end to a tragic cicle at the very end, but unfortunately this also happens without build up and out of screen.

And finally there’s the last episode, “Pride”, which is the heaviest on themes, monologues, plot twists and character regressions, but it all feels rushed, preachy, and it devoids all the characters of any free will while also leaves you thinking that almost all of the episodes thus far were unfocused, which they were.

So, you are not watching this series for the setting which is vaguely explored, nor the themes which are bombarded to you in the last episode, nor the plot which is very simple, episodic and unfocused, nor the characters which are as bland as they get, nor the action because, although the fights have some choreography, the weak cg makes them look junky and they always come down to the protagonist becoming enraged and letting his dark powers control him to kill a threat he could barely do anything against up until that moment.

Good ideas here and there, a mostly serious tone (although saying this is kind of a stretch), and a good sound department thanks to the epic score and the acceptable sound effects and voice acting, in particular the dragon who may not sound frightening nor imposing but he sounds old and wise, partially thanks to the way he speaks, incorporating old japanese words which are in turned subtitled with early modern english, but other than that, there isn’t much to see here, especially when there’s so much better options out there such as:

-1997 Berserk, easily the best dark fantasy anime of all times and I’m also one of those who thinks that the cgi movies are decent as well. I would like to say the same about the manga but I didn’t read it yet.

-Vinland Saga, which has a similar character arc for its main protagonist, done a hundred times better, along with a lot more interesting themes and characters, at least in its anime and first arc of the manga.

-The Hobbit movie trilogy which has some similarities with this title, especially the third one (and I guess this also applies to the book).

-Shadow of the Collosus has some similarities in its protagonist as well as an amazing atmosphere and innovating gameplay for its time, and I hope it never gets an adaptation because the result would come off like this.

-There is also the Castlevania 2d cartoon series, also a Netflix original, also a dark fantasy, with an almost anime art style, japanese voices, and Belmont and Sylpha even have somewhat similar designs to this main duo. A lot cooler.

-Blue Gender is completely different but has similar character arcs for its main duo, only a lot better.

-As for the few anime based on videogames that I watched which cracked the code for making a proper product there are Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, because it tells its own what if story and focuses on the spectacle while still providing enough context to understand the plot of the game on a basic level thanks to its first scene. Now I know that fans of the game usually hate the movie for the way the main characters are portrayed, but they fit well with their roles in the movie, but that’s not something to talk about here.

-The other one is Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis, which uses its source material only in concept and tells an otherwise completely different story. Now, its writing is garbage and is barely worth watching only because of its characters, production values, and focus on the cool and fun aspect. So, as you see even these ones are nothing special.

-I would like to include Magatsu Wahrheit: Zuerts as well because is doing the same as Bahamut in the sense that it only uses the concept of its source material to tell its own story, with better writing and characterization than that series but it is still airing and thus it can still mess everything up.

Review
Dragon's Dogma was not a great game. I mean, it was fun to play, it had some amazing combat, and playing around with pawns was very entertaining. That's where the fun ended though. The game was rough, had some dubious old-school design decisions that made the journey more of a chore than a pleasing trip. At some random point in existence, however, it became a cult-classic and now it even got an anime adaptation. Yeah, I was not expecting this legacy to exist when I first played the game.
Anyway, the anime adaptation comes, in a way, to prove how utterly pathetic Dragon's Dogma was in every sense except gameplay. It is a story about a random guy whose brave soul grants him a chance to fight an evil dragon that steals his heart. Simple, right? You would expect some kingdoms thrown in between, perhaps kings fighting the dragon menace, or maybe god-like entities joining the fray. Don't. It is just about a guy traveling to fight a dragon and fighting it.

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1. The anime tries though
   The derplander in the game is a customizable silent character which is insanely boring. The anime version of him/her, however, manages to be even worse. Ethan, the name of our derplander, is a generic-looking tough guy whose background we know is being a hunter-gatherer traumatized by losing his father at the sea. The show tries to give him some meaning, killing his wife and unborn child, along with a young kid he cares for, making the vengeful quest against the dragon be more palatable. It's a good start, if only the show could keep it going for a bit longer than the first episode.
   
   It's just a waste of time
   Ethan loses his wife, child, and friend to the dragon and after that he is approached by Hannah, who is a Pawn and whose purpose is to help him, as now he is an Arisen. Expect some explanations? Keep waiting. These are just terms used by the game and thrown in randomly for the sake of making us remember that this was about a game with actually fun gameplay.
   
   Ethan and Hannah will travel towards the dragon to kill it. He is angry, yes, his loved ones were killed like insects by the frightening dragon! Of course he will hurry towards his destination and... die? How could this one guy defeat that dragon? He has no powers, he is just a regular peasant whose heart was taken away because he was braver than the guy next to him. Well, he just can, deal with it. No explanations given.
   
   As they travel, Ethan and Hannah will stop at every opportunity to face one different foe per episode and see some quick short tales about random NPCs. It's bland, uninspiring, and completely random. "Okay, now it's time for the hydra!! Let's put her in this cave and force Ethan and Hannah to travel to it!", "Alright, now we need to put this badass colossal cyclops! Oh, let's make some weak thugs tame it with a whip and use it in this village", "Oh, I have this amazing flying griffon! Ethan will fight it at this random spot".
   
   Boring tales
   Not only the monster placement feels artificial, the additional tales surrounding these fights are approached in such a superficial way they feel completely wasted here. Ethan is fucking boring. Hannah too. He is just a sword-guy who randomly becomes stronger than veteran knights, she is a "pawn" whose purpose is never really explained and is all "logic not emotion". It lacks any sort of depth.
   
   It gets even worse because the path they take makes no sense, parting ways with soldiers because they march toward somewhere else just to find them again along the road. The sense of urgency to face the dragon disappears and it seems the show tries too hard to prove it has a "setting" by simply throwing some lame quick tales about greedy knights, lustful women, and drug addicts. The episodes are named after the seven deadly sins, but damn. Why?
   
   And the presentation
   Gods, it is damn awful. If the anime played with the ingame graphics of 2012 it would fare way better. Not only it looks like your standard creepy CGI anime of recent days, but it is sluggish and combats are horrible. Static scenes would do a better job at presenting speed and movement here. The best moments of the show are exactly when random characters have the spotlight, because they are fully drawn and not creepy CGI models. The CGI presentation also helps to completely break the attempt at a "dark fantasy setting" with all the cheap nudity and blood losing credibility when depicted by playmobil-like dolls.
   

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Comments
Dragon's Dogma, the anime, comes to prove that the game had nothing in terms of story or setting. In fact, it manages to do a disservice to the game because the sidequests back in the Playstation 3 actually had more to tell us than these random meetings with knights and whores. The fights, which were the big selling point of the game, are terrible in terms of choreography and mostly have cheap outcomes. It is a boring hell of an adventure.

In a way, this should have never got to see the light of day. The only saving grace is the fact that it is only seven episodes long, so you can endure its uninspiring adventure until the end, watching a pathetic fight against the almighty dragon and seeing the interesting Diablo-like finale that was in the game.
Somewhere I want to see something else done in the world of Dragon's Dogma, truly exploring its gritty atmosphere and shady characters. However, after watching this crapfest CGI anime, I think it is safe to just let it die. Capcom is doing an amazing job at creating video games, they don't need crappy anime to go along with it.

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