Dragonaut: The Resonance

I started first to watch Dragonaut only because Suwabe Junichi had a role in it, after awhile i found it quite good, though it has a bit ecchi moments from time to time,

some of the female dragons have the biggest cup size ever, which was for me a bit disturbing sometimes, giving me the thought is this a ecchi anime or more sci-fi.

but the story in common is good, the last few episodes almost made cry, of the things that were happening in it, (trying my best not to spoil the story)

though for the people who love sci-fi, should watch it

Also it has a good ... character relationship in it, you can see how Jin and Kazuki become from best friends to enemies and back again, just how it can happen in the real world, it gave the anime a great story, just to see those two evolve

apart from the ecchi moments the anime is good, not bad but not splendid as well, in between

When I sat down to watch this anime, I was aware of the reputation it had gotten. Lots of people had said it was terrible, lots of people said it was completely unwatchable. So I decided to sit down and try and see if they were right. I think some people may have over-reacted. Granted, I will say that Dragonaut is not the greatest show in the world. In fact it suffers from poor pacing, I think I fell asleep watching this show around seven times, now partly that may be because I watch my anime at night and I'm lying in bed but really ... a story should not be paced that poorly. Then there was the part about, I had trouble bringing myself to actually watch the show, because at times it Bored me. It's really hard to say when this anime finds it rhythm but needless to say it's not good when it takes almost 18 episodes to find it's voice. Episodes 18 and after happen a year later from episode 17. These episodes from 18 and on are really well done, the story significantly picks up in plot and it actually starts to catch the viewer's interest. It was when I reached this part that I could not put this show down. However, the damage had already been done.

I know people like to get angry at whiny characters in anime like Jin. But you know what, there are times where people feel like they are alone in the world and in some ways yes I can relate to him, now I didn't have the misfortune of having something happen like he did, but nonetheless his pain could be understood. Most of the main characters are really well written but there are maybe two weaknesses. One of them is the abnormally large breasts on characters like Machina, Garnet and yes even Toa to a certain extent. What were the creators thinking? This is a serious show and for the most part there isn't too much comedy in it, to throw in a breast size like that kind of kills the mood. It's hard to take the plot seriously when I see Garnet have two Bowling Balls on her chest, not to mention I wonder if she's suffering from Backpain. Secondly, Kazuki has got to be one of the most annoying characters ever in a show, he eventually comes around but I stress eventually. For most of the show he seems to be a Grade A Prick and just a general a$$hole, his sudden conversion near the end of the show is just really unbelievable.

So I have to give it a compromise grade. The first 17 episodes were nothing special. The last 8 were really well done though.

So First 17 Episodes earn an D
The Next 8 earn an B+ giving it around a C, and that's what this show is. Another average anime.

This anime is about what I've come to expect from Gonzo studio, below average. Dragonaut is below average in every way.

When they try to build dramatic tension, it feels manufactured and fake. The dismal character development doesn't help any either. The action sequences lack excitement. The story is decent enough, but the storytelling itself is just standard cookie-cutter storytelling. The anime just doesn't have much to draw you in. The only reason to watch this show, is if you have nothing better to watch.

I wanted to to love this show, but then the absolutely awful story (Oh you're being chased by an army of the enemy on their home planet? Don't worry you've got time for a two episode break at the hot springs, damn it the caught up to you and killed your friend), anoying as hell characters (Seriously WTF is up with Toa, "You won't be alone ever again Jin, you have me" *runs away next episode* rinse and repeat about 12 times in the series) add to that the horrible CGI dragon fights and confusing character alignments (everybody changes from friend to enemy [or vice ... versa] at least two or three times) that make it impossible to remember who we're supposed to be rooting for in the first place. Add to this the "fuck you" ending (wrap up the story with a BS " the power of love" ending, during the final credits roll nonetheless) and you get a show with no forgivable qualities. The character designs were almost as bland as the story with the normal assortment of large breasted women(all of whom regrettably stay clothed for the duration of the show) and emotionally inconsistent men. Like I said at the start, I wanted to love this show, and it could have been so much better, but this show is just bad, stay away, stay FAR away.

So this anime starts of with some promise. The premise of humans riding dragons into battle to save the world seemed interesting. It gave me a little bit of Darling in the Franxx vibe at first as I had just finished watching it before starting Dragonaut. I make it a point to try and find "bad" anime. I find great enjoyment in a lot of these anime that are rated low on streaming sites like Funimation and Crunchyroll. Even if some of them are not really that enjoyable I am always able to find redeeming qualities in the characters that help me get through the ... show. Dragonaut doesn't have that in the slightest. I downright despise the main characters. Let's get into why this anime pisses me off.

Story: First I have no idea what the hell is going on half the time and neither do the characters. So they set the premise pretty early on that Pluto was swallowed by a giant asteroid, Thanatos, that's also apparently the mother of all the dragons. They begin to see symbols that are glowing on Thanatos begin to disappear and assume that's when it's going to destroy Earth and the only way to save the world is to use the dragons that they have at their disposal and riders call Dragonauts. So far so good right, well it would have been if this had been a focus at all. In 18 episodes Thanatos is only referenced and not seen at all. So far the writers have spent more time jerking it on the moon and mars trying to hammer-fist a love story that makes no sense. I genuinely thought I missed something and went back to check when Jin told Toa he loved her. Nothing leading up to that point indicated this as they had known each other for less than two days. This love story pissed me off with how it was handled. It pretty much went like this. "I'm the asteroid that killed your entire family." "I still love you." I'm seriously confused at how the actions leading up to this were enough for Jin to fall in love with her. I was willing to let that slide, but still this show just couldn't stop. The entire length of the first 17 episodes they make it abundantly clear that the only beings strong enough to stop Thanatos are the dragons. After Mars is destroyed by one of the dragons exploding the governments are all like "Oh shit these things are dangerous we have to capture them!" Then using the same artificial dragons that we just saw get destroyed by the thousands by a single dragon are suddenly strong enough to defeat and capture the real dragons. It was at this point that I quit.

Characters: Jin/Toa/Gio/Kazuki- I know what you're thinking why all four. Well it's simple Jin and Kazuki are childhood best friends, who both trained to be astronauts until Toa killed Jin's family causing Jin to drop out. Years later Jin and Toa meet and are separated continuously in a 2 day period. Kazuki "resonates" with Gio causing him to be born as a grown man. Gio leaves Kazuki for Jin causing two three-ways at the same time. Jin-Toa-Gio and Jin-Gio-Kazuki. Jin becomes Gio's rider all the while Gio has feeling for Toa, which causes Jin to become jealous for some reason. This only gets resolved when Toa says Gio is like a kid brother or son can't really remember. Kazuki gets mad at Jin for Gio not wanting to be with him tries to steal Toa away. His obsession is honestly just pathetic. All it does is make him look like a winy rapist. I know that sounds weird, but I get the feeling he was trying to rape Toa as revenge against Jin for Gio choosing him. I know I'm probably skipping some details, but it's been years and I'm still pissed off at this anime.

Art/Sound: Grouping them together because they are both fine. Nothing really stands out, but nothing is really that bad.

Overall: It has been almost 5 years since I've seen Dragonaut: The Resonance and any time my friends and I talk about bad anime this is the first one that comes to my mind. To this day it still pisses me off and leaves me asking myself why I wasted 7 hours of my life watching this when I could have bashed my head in the wall for five minutes and got more enjoyment.

[This review contains minor spoilers] I've already done a full review of Dragonaut: the Resonance in the past, so giving this anime a fair grade wasn't necessarily racking my brain. What was racking my brain, however, was how much of a waste this anime was.

First off, the story. I actually really liked the idea of creating dragons and having them bond with masters to combat an unknown enemy that threatens to destroy mankind. It can allow for interesting ideas to be played with. What was unfortunate however, was how often it went off track (which can be fine, except that the detours this anime took ... were not all that interesting). The idea was great, it just floundered a bit in execution.

The characters, for the most part, were quite boring and bland, or just average. The main two of Jin and Toa were both fine enough for their parts, they weren't terrible, but there wasn't much to them to draw me towards them. Their romance was also pretty weak, and it was focused on a lot. It made some of the motivations just seem unimportant. Then the other main character, Gio was just painful. I've never seen a character I didn't care about as much as him, and so much of the plot revolves around him. He didn't have any definable traits or interesting moments that fleshed him out, he was just there, and I didn't care. And it was a waste of a great voice actor with Christopher Sabat (yes, I watch dubbed anime, hate all you want, it's what I prefer). Kazuki, for a large portion of the anime, was an annoying little twat that continued to chase the trio to get back Gio (who was supposed to be HIS dragon). He was obnoxious and I really wanted him to die. The only other character worth discussing was Sakaki, who was probably the most compelling out of all of them. He had some great moments and was actually a pretty good character. Most of the other characters were very forgettable, so it's barely even worth discussing them, since I cared so little.

The animation wasn't very great for the most part. Sometimes the fighting could be interesting and fluid, like in the first episode, but that was only when it used traditional animation. All the dragons are animated with CGI once they're in dragon form, and boy does it fail and look pretty bad. The designs are actually pretty good, but the models move awkwardly and are very untextured, and they are used a LOT. So, a lot of the animation looks awkward and clumsy, which really bogs it all down and makes it suffer a lot.

Dragonaut: The Resonance started out alright, but it slowly went downhill, barely kept afloat by some pretty good elements, as the other ones, like poor characters, not very good animation, and a forgettable sound track tried drowning it, and pretty much succeeded, depending on how you look at it. I'd say you should probably skip this one.

8. Continuing from my Death Note, Bleach and One Piece reviews, I am still documenting my anime journey.
There are much worse shows than Dragonaut yet I truly hate this show with all my heart.

To be honest, this show is not that bad, at most it is MEDIOCRE.
But that is the issue here.

I have encountered great anime and I have encountered trash anime, but never have I been so disappointed with mediocre anime.
Since then I consider 5/10 to be the worst possible score.

Shows can be bad, you can hate-watch them and make fun of them with your friends while drunk. Similar examples are infamous movies like ... Tommy Wiseau's "The Room".

I still remember how bad Tokyo Ghoul, Sword Art Online and Promised Neverland Season 2 were. I learned from the mistakes and only further developed my taste.
But Dragonaut was just mediocre and thus forgettable.
So forgettable that I want my time back that I wasted on this show.

I watched it back in 2007, what is the story about? Who are the main characters? What was even going on in the show?
I remember nothing.

I can name every character of Naruto and One Piece. I know every episode of Death Note by heart. I will never forget the amazing Ghibli movies like Princess Mononoke.
But Dragonaut, I absolutely erased everything from my memory...
...and it had 25 episodes! That's 10+ hours of my life!

If something is just bad, I can drop it at any moment, I am not that completionist about it.
But a mediocre show tricks you into watching it, giving you just a little bit of hope that it might get better.
Back when I was a teenager in 2007, I was foolish enough to eat up that lie.

In order to never again fall into such a trap, I needed to develop my taste like a wine sommelier to never again ingest such cheap garbage.

Hence why I have no tolerance for trash like Captain Marvel, Ghostbusters, Japanese live-action anime movies or anything overrated like "Your Name".

This show taught me an important lesson and since then I never again settled for mediocre shows no matter how much rabid apologist fanbases defended them.

I don't remember anything about this mediocre show, yet whenever I remember it, my hate grows only stronger.

interesting story premise executed mid af. starring a paper-thin characters you can't bother to care about other than how annoying they are and all the tiddies constantly flopping in your face cant fix these issues. im guessing this was an excuse to ship dragons and humans for the triumph of love or something like that. a heaping amount of pointless ugly 3d scenes as well, can't enhance the uninteresting combat sequences. tho i will say the first end theme is a banger and the soundtrack isn't bad. you might like it if you need a sleep aid, for which it works wonders, otherwise avoid it.