Dragon's Heaven

If you love that style of gritty, garage, 80's mecha anime, this lost, unpolished gem might be right up your alley.
It's clear that they only had the production budget for a short one-shot, so the story seems to be very condensed. Still, I love this kind of stuff.

The live-action opening breaks the animation fourth wall, but years later it still sticks in my mind.

Dragon's Heaven is a junkyard, sci-fi mecha with some interesting art. It's from the the late 80's, but it honestly looks much older than it truly is. As it's junkyard sci-fi, a lot of the design-work revolves around designs that are much like the "Space Hulk" in "Warhammer". It's a style of sci-fi setting that generally isn't used too often, but it works fine here. Although it's quite different, the art as a whole has some pleasant charm that one might slowly get accustomed to. It doesn't last for long though, as the animation section of Dragon's Heaven is actually less than the entire 30-minute ... length.

The OVA starts off with a live-action opening of some, at least attempted, creative filming using models of the actual leading mechs that are seen in the OVA. The after-credits shows the process of them creating the model-replicas that seem to actually be almost the size of a person. It was interesting, but it was clear that this was still an anime studio as the filming equipment was pretty low quality and the camera movement felt a tad amateur. That might add to the experience for some people though, so that'll end up being a subjective call.

I would actually say that the junkyard aspect of this OVA does come with the expected result of having designs that wouldn't work in reality, even though the models seem to be able to stand. The villain mech would clearly never have been able to stand if translated to real-life as it was shown in the animation. It can be noticed in the animation counterpart that the torso is basically a twig, while the model-version has a much thicker torso which allows it to barely stand while almost tipping forward (which you can notice from the model's head not being able to lift properly). My claim doesn't direct only at the main mechs though, but everything as a whole. The design-work is impractical, but that doesn't need to be a negative as it should basically be expected when going into junkyard sci-fi.

The art is, again, pleasant with an old looking style that's a tad colorful with a good amount of detail lines. The detail lines added are in large numbers and give everything a rough feeling, making the clear-cut characters feel very contrasted to the world around them. There is also some fair animation and some consistent proportions to basically everything. There wasn't much cool moments of fighting, but there was action to a somewhat small extent.

The story is pretty bare-bones with there being an evil, imperialistic nation that wants to take over the world, while a girl finds a machine and simultaneously protects her city. It never was clear to me whether her goal was to protect her city or to simply fight with what she discovered, however. The other character is actually the mech she finds which has built-in A.I. There wasn't exactly engaging dialogue between the two characters, but the characters fit the setting in its pleasant atmosphere making it easy to enjoy the company of the characters. There's also a lacking amount of human faces shown here, mainly only the girl being shown. The human girl brings some relief in that aspect to serving as the contrast to the metal and war-torn world around her. The ending to this story isn't really an ending to everything, but to a single issue that was occurring in the character's pasts. The conclusion to that element is pretty anti-climactic and also makes the final words that were spoken quite comical and cheesy. Even so, the story wasn't really the driver and wasn't really required to do much in such a small run-time.

Dragon's Heaven is a junkyard, sci-fi short that is based around mecha. There isn't much cool fighting moments to be had though, while there certainly are a few times where shots are fired and explosions are made. The story is a bit basic and dry, but the setting makes up for it with being a tad refreshing in its simple goals. It also adds to the enjoyment knowing that so much work and passion went into this little OVA down to the creation of the models. Even if one isn't too impressed with the designs present here, it's hard to not feel a little joyed to see how the people behind this OVA felt very highly of it. The soundtrack is also orchestrated and done wonderfully. It all totaled into an atmosphere similar to something like "Dragon Heart" while being an anime in a junkyard sci-fi setting. Dragon's Heaven is so short that it shouldn't require too much risk to give it a shot, but the visual style might look "dated" to some who can't handle older titles. If that isn't a problem, try this one out.

Here we have an anime that only saw a vhs release in Japan. And that's really unfortunate. Released in 1988, Dragon's Heaven is but a brief 40 minute OVA based on Makoto Kobayashi’s manga of the same name. With such a short running time, it's unsurprisingly light on plot, but gives you just the right amount of character for you to care, and more than anything, has a aesthetic style unlike what's ever seen in anime.

Developed by design studio ARTMIC (who also produced such OVAs as Genocyber, Bubblegum Crisis, and the anime the kicked off the OVA boom, Megazone 23), the art style very ... accurately mimics that of mangaka Kobayashi’s, which has a gritty and rough style that's reminiscent of French artist Moebius. Something of which gives it a visual flare more akin to the 1981 animated film Heavy Metal than in an anime, giving it a look that's truly unique in the medium, and much like California Crisis two years prior, has a visual style that hasn't been seen in anime before or since.

In the very far future, a young woman and a sentient combat mech battle robots in the desert of Brazil. Like I said, there isn't much plot, but the characters aren't poorly handled either. Make no mistakes though, this is almost purely about the artistic style. And despite being made during the mecha boom of the '80s and creator Kobayashi having worked on two Gundam series, the mechs don't look quite like what one would expect from the time. Like the art style itself, they too look unique. Speaking of unique, the OVA very surprisingly begins with a live action segment featuring the hero and villain robots in the form of remote controlled models. It's an interesting way to start an anime for sure.

Dragon's Heaven was easily one of my favorite "obscure" anime I'd seen some years back, and I truly wish it was given a blu-ray release. I've heard anime fans talk about how expensive new series on blu-ray can be, but it's even worse with some of the older stuff. As mentioned in the beginning, it was only released on vhs in Japan, so getting a physical copy will cost you some dough if you find one. Last time I saw one for sale, it was going for over $80, and art books of the anime (also only released in Japan) run from $49 - $94. Luckily there are funsubs, and it can be easily viewed on youtube, but an anime with such a unique artistic aesthetic really needs to see an official release on blu-ray, and simply doesn't deserve to be forgotten.