We rarely see Medieval Fantasy Anime. I mean, the only prominate one out there is Zero no Tsukaima. I love anything Fantasy related so naturally Dog days would be at the top of my list for the plan to watch anime for the Spring 2011 season and naturally being a fantasy anime it would be compaired to Zero No Tsukaima. But are they really the same? At first, my answer was No but now up to Three Episodes, things are different.
The thing is this anime can't decide what it is. It wants to be an anime with some ripped ideas with a sort of cool athletic/fighting competition (just don't call it a war, more will be explained later). But, on the other hand it wants to be a light-ecchi Rip-off of Zero No Tsukaima, having a bath encounter scene and a grope/tsun scene. But enough of this, On to the Review!
Plot 7/10
The basic plot is here for fantasy anime. The protagonist gets sucked into a different world of fantasy and has to deal with what happens and also becomes some sort of savior or hero of a kingdom and falls in love with a noble. Dog days is no different here. But now it is here that it gets...well...stupid. In the fantasy world of Dog days dog/human hybrids of the kingdom of Biscotti and cat/human hybrids of the king of Gellato..*ahem* Galette are fighting for territory, with the cats on the offense. But here, this war isn't actually a war. It is basically an obsticle course/athletics competition...ok...That is one of the dumbest things ever. Sure, while the cat vs dog thing in a fantasy land is cool the athletics conpetition as a civilized war is just stupid. Basically the anime turns the idea of war and makes it so lighthearted that it is a game that is magically broad casted across kingdoms (yes, this world has some advanced stuff like Binoculars or microphones, probably not electricity based and uses magic but still). I went through the definition of war and the 'war' in this anime is not a war and it shouldn't be called a war. Sure, there are swords and weapons but they do nothing as they seem to make the warriors go *poof* and they turn into their chibi version of their base animal. Oh yeah, there are no horses, the people here ride on chocobos, or some relative of them. Oh yeah, *SPOILERS*...
The Princess gets Kidnapped...surprised?
Characters 7/10
Updated:
Shinku: This is the main protagonist. Unlike Saito from ZnT, Shinku is pretty bad-ass to start out with, he can Jump high, run fast and is damn good with a staff. Sure, he follows the usual male protagonist in harem animes but he is turning out well and has good morals
Millhoire: Still, even though Millhoire is supposed to be the main female in this anime, she doesn't really have that much background. The only thing we actually know about her is that she can sing (which we haven't even heard yet). She acts more like a supporting character in the first two episodes, just watching the "war" (I still use this term lightly) and commenting. The third episode she gets in an embarrassing situation and gets kidnapped. Oh well, so much for character development.
Eclair: Seemly a perfect name for a character that lives in a kingdom named after a cookie (For those who don't know, an Eclair is a type of Pastry, very delicious also). Eclair is our stereotypical Small-Breasted, In-very-humiliating-situations Tsundere of the anime, not as much as any character Kugimiya has done but a Tsundere still. I hate this character and like her at the same time. For one, I hate her for one reason. She calls Shinku an idiot for not knowing that like the princess is an idol and the monetary system and stuff about the world Shinku is in at the moment. I'm pretty sure it is said about ten times in-front of her that he is from a different world, doesn't she have the brains to know that things are different on different worlds? It is very annoying, very annoying. What makes her likable? Well she gets into all the humiliating situations, might as well like the fanservice character.
Art 8/10.
It is a fantasy anime so there is some good art showing a fantasy world. Midieval Kingdoms, Floating rocks, great landscapes. Nothing special but still good art.
Sound 8/10
No problems with the sound. The OP and ED are ok, they can grow with enough listens. What really surprises me is the fact that some pretty high class Seriyuus are on this anime (Nana mizuki for example) so that is a + on my book.
Enjoyment 7/10
While this anime looks fun and is fun, I sort of lost some enjoyment from the stupid idea of trivializing war and making it a simple athletic/ obstacle competition (Sora no otoshimono: Forte's Snow war EP was more like a war than this series). The Fighting animation is very good and the visuals are good.
Overral: 8/10
Overral this anime gets an 8. Actually it should be a 7 but I am being leniant due to the lack of medieval fantasy anime's out there. I didn'tt expect to really, really love this anime but it has gotten better in the later two episodes
(Note: Lots of people seem to rate 7 as average or bad in their rating systems when in fact 7 means it is good. 5-6 is average not 7)
