Panzer Dragoon

What it must have been like to be in the Production IG offices that fateful day in 1996, when Panzer Dragoon was greenlit. The incredible high must have been euphoric...

WAIT WAIT WAIT, stop the presses. Ladies and Gentlemen, I kid you not, this odious dumpster juice smoothie of an anime was made by a company you might have heard of... I don't know... PRODUCTION IG?
Yeah, that's right, the same ones responsible for, you know, the insignificant Ghost in the Shell series or maybe the slightly obscure Attack on Titan? I can't believe my eyes.

There is no story anywhere nearby to be rated. -∞/10

I ... do have to give them a score of "decent" (and that's generous) for the art. It looks 90s, and it's every bit as abhorrent as a no budget drivel anime should be.

The sound in this turd is the utter definition of phoned in. I think they literally called the first 5 english speakers the animation studio could think up off the top of their head and had them do their lines on the spot. You can hear crap in the background and the "voice actors" scratching their heads at how preposterously moronic the script was. If it wasn't directly pulled from a fantasy themed mad-libs book, I'll be shocked. -10^∞/10

If I had to rate this on a scale of "I'd rather tear out my brainstem, carry it to the middle of the nearest 4 way intersection and skip rope with it" to "Mars of Destruction", I think I'd choose having a pound of boiling hot meth injected into each of my eyeballs, being run over by a dump truck, chopped up into pieces, fed to myself, then have my head put in a vise, and be shot into space and suffer explosive decompression than have to experience this again.

I don't know if this was a cheap cash grab or what, but it's definitely part of the reason SEGA keeps digging Sonic of out of his shallow grave to parade his corpse around for some more money.

This one didn't get the Sega Seal of Quality. (Look that one up, kids.)

"Kyle, for this tale to be told, one of us must survive"

Well, unfortunately, I am the only one that survived. What's worse than a piece of crap? One whole shit, which is what this is. 1/10.

tl;dr

+ Don't
+ Waste
+ Your
+ Time

Panzer Dragoon is four video game series developed by Team Andromeda and released by Sega. While the latter three installments were very good games in their own right, it was their aesthetics that made them transcendent. The visual and sound design did more than the plot and dialogue to paint a world littered with the remnants of a fallen civilization (similar to El Hazard: The Magnificent World), giving everything a poignant, almost-gloomy atmosphere.

Don't expect any of that here.

This OVA is a cheap rush job of a tie-in to the (mediocre) first game, a trite, directionless adaptation of something that really didn't have much of a ... plot to begin with. It becomes clear very quickly that they are only paying the slightest lip service to the empire and their huge role in the series, with their scenes serving only as useless padding that could be cut altogether. The story they actually care about is just yet another "young guy's love interest is kidnapped and a magical creature helps him rescue her... and also save the world or something".

Events happen with little development and everything about it seems designed to hit every infuriating fantasy cliche possible. The characters (all eight of them, only half of which really matter) are all transplants from a million other heroic fantasy stories. They think and speak only in the bluntest exposition, little of which adds up to any cohesive explanation of the world or the motivations of anybody but the simplistic hero. Not a minute goes by without something infuriatingly stupid happening, with plot points that go nowhere and sudden, unexplained powers cropping up out of nowhere. It's really clear this is a completely-missing-the-point adaptation of something with considerably more depth than they cared to put into this production.

Attention must be given to the groan-worthy translation. This was only released dubbed and the original Japanese version (subtitled or otherwise) doesn't seem to exist on the internet. The script is at best unbearably corny, at worst tone-deaf and unintentionally creepy in the way the hero keeps referring to his kidnapped love interest as "his lady" as if she were a stolen trinket. Nothing anybody says sounds like anything a real human being would say.

The actors deliver their lines in the classic bad dub style of hammy indifference, everybody sounding like they're thinking about their grocery shopping instead of conveying any convincing emotion. No attempt is made to line up the speech with the lip flaps and there are many moments where I'm convinced they gave characters lines that weren't in the original.

The animation is a discordant mix of traditional 2D cells and CGI. It's pretty clear they took the 3D models straight from the game and did zilch to give them any real weight or presence, with awful integration of the two styles. The human character designs are stock mid-90s anime fantasy designs with nothing to really distinguish them and their body language doesn't really match their supposed emotions. The dragons are taken directly from the game, so they at least look passable while sitting still, but move in a weightless, inconsistent manner. The fights are laughably bad in their cinematography and pacing while also lacking any real impact.

The sound isn't as bad as the animation, but it's still subpar. The dialogue is often murky and drowned out by the ambiance, but generally doesn't sound like it really exists within the world. The sound effects sound like they come from one of those CD compilations and fail to give any weight to the actions they accompany, made worse by the couple-frame delay of many of them. The music of the video game series didn't really find its unique voice until the second game, so this has the cheesy synth-orchestra score from the first game. It doesn't even base it on any of the actual good tracks (the main theme or either version of "Flight"), instead sounding like generic fantasy mush.

I'm not even sure I'd recommend this as so bad, it's good. It's mostly just sad and pathetic, really. It's certainly a study in how not to produce a fantasy story, but only in ways that are self-evident to a well-read twelve year old. It's twenty six minutes of your life you won't be getting back and considering how obscure it is, you won't even get the benefit of at least being able to talk about it with others. Just don't bother.

This is my first, and worst review ever. It's also hopefully the first and last 1 overall rating I give.
The amount of times you'll hear Alesa! Or whatever her name was, (there's no way in hell I'm going back and re watching for minor details like her name).

*This review will contain spoliers* (Not that It matters, after you read that first paragraph you've probably given up all hope you may have had.

In a nut shell, it was a load of shit.

Story: 1
There wasn't a story, in my eyes. Nothing made any sense. There was no character development, except for when in the end he turned ... into Goku and fired a blast at the "Black dragon" thus killing it. I'd like the staff of myanimelist to add horror to the genres of this anime, as I felt horrified when I realised I'd wasted away around 30 minutes of my life watching this excuse of a "OVA". There where parts that made absolutely no sense at all, such as when the guy with green hair (some random dude on a plane that we where told nothing about) decided he'd just turn into a zombie, and grow a few scars/bruises on his face that initially weren't there.

Art: 5
The only thing you could say that was semi-decent about this show was it's art. I guess you could say the artist could draw well, wasted talent on a load of shit really. 5 for that.

Sound: 1

This was very bad. The voice acting was bad for the dub, everyone sounded more or less the same, and the main girl sounded like a sick woman. Nothing really else to add for that.

Character: 1

Don't need to add anything here. They all had no development or backstory so we could at least know some of their names, and decided whenever they wanted to turn into a zombie or turn into a dragon ball Z character.

Enjoyment: 1

The only enjoyment I've had was after I finished watching the anime. I felt relieved that it was finally over.

Overall: 1

This goes without saying. It's bad, it's not worth watching and it's one of those animes that staying away from is the best thing to do.


Thank god i've got this one out of the way, i've never watched something so bad.

This anime which is a joined effort by SEGA and IG Entertainment only succeeds in becoming an animated novelty for any who has been a fan of the game series. As a stand alone Anime however its even less than something you would watch to pass the time other than feeding your curiosity in watching another game adaptation to Japanese animation. The characters are horribly bland, the plot non-existent, and while the effects in battle and music are fair, anything else you would had wished in being adapted from a great shooting series is pretty much thrown out the window. Why does ... the black dragon have to get a girl in order to activate some mysterious tower no one ever talks about? What was the backstory of the dragon riders who seemingly tried to stop it from doing whatever it was that it wanted to do about such tower? No one ever bothers to dig into it so you might as well enjoy watching this for what is worth.

Panzer Dragoon is a classic game. It was released in ’95 for the Saturn and stands alongside titles like Nights and Shining Force III as a worthwhile game from a console that didn’t offer many. In late ’96, Sega partnered with Production IG to create a promotional OVA for the game. Since the sequel had just been released earlier that year and all. Let’s have a look.

Story:

The OVA somewhat follows the game’s story. Keil is part of a hunting party when they run into a battle between a blue and black dragon. The blue dragon’s rider is killed and Keil finds himself entrusted with ... a mission to stop the black dragon from reaching and activating an ancient ruin. The OVA does add some details. Keil has a kidnapped girlfriend in the OVA and I’m pretty sure she wasn’t in the game. I also don’t recall him having a friend who gets unceremoniously Yamcha’d by the black dragon, but it’s also been a long time since I played the game, so maybe they were there and I just forgot all about them.

Here’s the problem with the OVA, it just doesn’t tell the story well. It’s just this rushed, trite narrative. And I’m not really sure how this serves as an effective promotion for the games when any enjoyment you may get from watching it is going to come from memories of playing the game. It’s not a bad work, it’s just not very compelling.

Characters:

There are hardly characters worth talking about in this. Alita is a damsel in distress. Keil comes across as a bit whiny. He’s not one of the worst in that regard, but he is a little annoying. His hunting party friend and the blue dragon’s former rider both exist solely to get killed off. The dragons could definitely have been interesting with their psychic communications and such, but they don’t really have personalities or motivations in this. So, missed opportunity there.

Art:

The art isn’t very good. The designs are fine. The problem is that a lot of the backgrounds, especially when characters are riding, are made up of really bad CGI that loops and hurts your eyes. And the whole thing just comes across as low effort, rushed out the door if I’m being honest.

Sound:

Onasaka Masaya, Shiratori Yuri, Ohtsuka Akio and the rest of the cast are fine. The performances aren’t anything special, but they’re decent enough. The music is forgettable but basically acceptable.

Ho-yay:

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Areas of Improvement:

1. If you’re trying to promote your game, don’t just speed through the basic narrative with no regards for pacing. Show a very small part of the story that is paced well and where you extrapolate on things. That will actually get people interested.

2. Put some care into your backgrounds. Your viewers should never feel their eyes hurting because of what you’ve done with them.

3. If you’re going to have dragons that can communicate psychically, take advantage of that for some compelling characterisation. Don’t use it in a couple scenes and not bother the rest of the time.

Final Thoughts:

Is this a good OVA? No. Is it a strong advertising tool? No. Is it worth watching for fans of the game? No. Is it among the worst OVAs I’ve ever seen? Not even close. I’d honestly just recommend playing the game. I know it got a remake recently. As for this. It’s a sub-par piece and I’m giving it a 4/10.

Why Sega approved this garbage!?

I know that Panzer Dragoon series is not best known for having a mind-blowing story, but it fells pathetic and cliché!

The art is poor and needs improvement in the traces. The characters fells so stiff and the backgrounds are so lazy drawn!

The Japanese dub isn't terrible, but also not great. The English, however, is so terrible.

The way that the anime presented the characters was very lame and shallow!

... The bad animation and terrible passing makes almost impossible to have any enjoyment of this!

Overall, if you are a Sega fan avoid it at all costs!

First off, I haven’t played the original game on the Saturn and my knowledge of it is fairly limited. I do know that it’s a fairly brief rail shooter and was one of the killer apps in the early days of the console. This OVA, produced with the assistance of SEGA, was released a year and a half later by Production I.G. Yes, THAT Production I.G.

The plot is a convoluted 'Hero rescues girl from monster' story, and all parts of it are generic from beginning to end. People not familiar with the source material (like myself) will just be left confused about what’s going on ... as there is no explanation for anything that occurs. This is not hyperbole; nothing about the lore, context, characters etc. is ever explained or expanded upon. Things just ‘happen’ and we’re along for the confusing ride. It felt like I stumbled across episode 15 of a long running series and I’m left trying to work out what’s going on. The pacing is so fast it gives Usain Bolt a run for his money. The animation, music and (Japanese) voice acting are all barely on the cusp of being acceptable.

I'm honestly confused about who the target audience for this was. I don't feel like playing the game after watching this, in fact if this was my first introduction to Panzer Dragoon I'd want to avoid it at all costs. I’ll guarantee fans of the original game who were expecting something to supplement it will find nothing to be happy about either. I’ve seen shows with a far worse presentation, but there’s literally nothing to enjoy here. The only thing you’ll get from watching this is a depressed feeling from the knowledge that you’ve just lost 20 minutes of your life, and you’ll never get it back.

Just kinda bad, innit?

It was fun seeing the old saturn-esque CGI

I'm glad the girl got rid of her blindness

Kyle's a bit of a dick lol

Alot of the bad OVAs tend to have a similar problem of speed-running their stories, this one has that issue especially. Unlike Garzey's Wing though, this didn't have any particularly cool ideas I ended up liking that much. And the dub doesn't have Garzey's Wing's "Curse/Blessing?" of having every line read being incredibly awkward, mostly being mid for 90s dubs, with an occasional awkward line read.

Only really watch if you like old-dated CGI enviroments like myself.