Ranked #2465

Blue Dragon

First off, I enjoyed this as much as I did probably because I'm a huge Toriyama fan, and I'd already beaten the Blue Dragon 360 game.

Despite the fact that I love this anime, I am aware that it's not OMG the best thing ever! So I'll try to be unbiased here.

This anime is like an extended version of the game, full of little Easter eggs for those who played it. The story is completely different, the characters' backgrounds, and sometimes personalities, are different, and the ending is vastly different. But what the Blue Dragon anime essentially does, is expand on concepts only lighty touched upon in the game. You don't need to play the game first, but I think you'll get more out of it if you do.

Blue Dragon isn't the best anime ever. It doesn't have an overly-complicated plot or infinitely confusing and contradicting events. It's fairly simple and straight-forward, but immensely enjoyable.

Story: Basic starting point: young boy finds out he has a great power and starts his journey to save the world. We've all seen this a million times before. In fact, almost all fantasy-type stories have the same basic concept when stripped down. There aren't too many twists along the way that experienced Shounen fans won't see coming, but the plot progression, character interaction and humor, make those easy-to-guess moments interesting despite the fact. But who knows, you might find yourself surprised at a few developments. I was.

As an aside, the story takes place in a fantasy old-world-ish type setting. With castles, airships and endless stretches of road through monster-infested forests. It's all very Dragon Quest, which is to be expected since this series is basically a JRPG in anime form. Except the enemies don't line up and politely wait their turn. XD

Art: Toriyama's art is something you either love, or hate. Personally I love it. Regardless of art-style preferences, the quality of the animation and effects here is mostly top-notch. I don't feel like I need to elaborate too much here as everyone is familiar with Toriyama's style pretty much.

Sound: Blue Dragon makes use of some very awesome music. Some from the game soundtrack by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu, and some unique to the anime. There's a good variety, sad piano tunes, rocked-out battle tunes, etc. The voice acting, in the Japanese version is superb. Jiro (Namikawa Daisuke) and Zola (Paku Romi) being my favorites. The English version isn't really all that bad, except for Shu, the main character. Normally Yuri Lowenthal is a good voice actor, but in Blue Dragon he's trying too hard to sound like a 10-year-old boy, and just ends up sounding strained and annoying. I don't know why Viz decided to say Shu is 10, when in fact he is supposed to be 16.

Character: This is my favorite part of Blue Dragon. I love the characters. Now, like the plot, there are no phenomenal, mold-breaking characters in Blue Dragon. Most of them can be tied down to a stereotype. Loud-mouth flake (Shu), girl with anger-issues (Kluke), butthole (Jiro), pervert (Marumaro), ditzy flirt (Bouquet) and badarse chick (Zola). The classic rag-tag group, with just enough backstory revealed along the way. In my opinion, Zola is the most interesting character. The writers did a very nice job keeping the air of mystery about her character all throughout the story. I'll cut it off here, for fear of spoilers.

Enjoyment: As a Toriyama fan, a Shounen fan, and a fan of the game, I enjoyed Blue Dragon a lot. It was really great to see Toriyama's characters on TV again, and I guess I'll always be a sucker for this kind of Shounen. I went into Blue Dragon with zero expectations. I expected to enjoy Toriyama's art and humor style and not get too much more out of it. I ended up loving it, for whatever reason.

Overall: Blue Dragon doesn't really bring anything new or revolutionary to the table. It's pretty standard Shounen fare, with DBZ-look-a-like characters. But I feel it has a lot of heart and charm. Now if only it had a fandom. XD

Phew, so much for my first review. Hopefully I'll get better at it over time. :) read more

Que historia tan mamona. Hubiese querido escribir esto en inglés para que lo leyera más gente pero no vale el esfuerzo. Primero la historia; que cosa tan cansona, un monton de niños que practicamente pelean cruzados de brazos mientras sus sombras hacen todo por ellos. La busqueda de un mitico libro que les dira como vencer al malvado de turno. Parece sacado de un RPG barato. Segundo, el sonido, por lo general en las batallas manejan una ambientacion buena, acorde con las imagenes pero he de decir que el primer opening es HORRIBLE! mas feo que un pellizco en los genitales!. Tercero, el arte; por lo general la calidad de la animación y las imagenes es buena pero de vez en cuando uno puede encontrarse con imagenes muy mal dibujadas (hechas con afan y sin ganas). Cuarto Y MAS IMPORTANTE DE TODO! los personajes. Es aqui done recibo la bofetada más grande porque Toriyama al parecer se esta quedando sin ideas desde que dibujo Dragon Ball. Tenemos personajes planos, el tipico bueno debil y torpe que tiene un poder increible escondido, un co-protagonista que no se la lleva con él en absoluto pero en secreto son grandes amigos. Dos chicas que se pelean por el amor del torpe, una de ellas abierta, la otra discretamente y una "mascota" por así llamarlo, hablamos de Maro-maro. Eso respecto al diseño de caracteres, pero si miramos el diseño de sus ropas es realmente malo. El personaje principal practicamente carece de indumentaria, el co-oprotagonista es una copia de trunks mezclado con Link y ni hablar de la niña que se transforma porque es desproporcionada. Lo realmente molesto es que la mayoria de los personajes no son creibles y remiten de manera inmediata a Dragon ball. Por tanto es una serie realmente mediocre cuyo relativo triunfo solo se debe al nombre de Toriyama quien por cierto pierde creidibilidad con trabajos como este. read more