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.
Alternative Titles
Japanese: ドラゴンズヘブン
More titlesInformation
Type:
OVA
Episodes:
1
Status:
Finished Airing
Aired:
Feb 25, 1988
Producers:
Toshiba EMI
Licensors:
None found, add some
Source:
Manga
Theme:
Mecha
Duration:
24 min.
Rating:
PG-13 - Teens 13 or older
Statistics
Ranked:
#83692
2
based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.
Popularity:
#5676
Members:
13,142
Favorites:
40
Resources | Reviews
Filtered Results: 9 / 9
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Your Feelings Categories May 5, 2020
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 ... Dec 15, 2014
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
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Dec 29, 2018
There's really only one reason you would want to watch this one-shot OVA: The artwork. It's like nothing else you are going to see anywhere else in anime or manga (with, maybe the exception of some of the ancient tech of Hayao Miyazaki in the Nausicaa manga). The art style is much more reminiscent of eighties European comics. More in the tradition of Heavy Metal or Epic Illustrated, heavily leaning on Jean Giraud or Pepe Moreno.
All of the artwork, that is, except for the main female character. Which is designed in a much more standard stereotypical ... Dec 14, 2020
The beauty of the "Dragon's Heaven" passion project is unfolded within the span of a thirty-minute runtime: scenic deserts, strange Giger-inspired towers of machinery, sand-covered robots, and a young woman — standing in the zeitgeist of it all. Dragon's Heaven is short OVA, that makes me miss the beauty of experimentation in Japanese animation. Most productions seem so formulaic, nowadays! This style seems similar to GAINAX's unconventional "Daicon Film" — made during the group's university tenor. Something strange, powerful, and rare radiates from projects like that and "Dragon's Heaven"!
⚠️ This review will have spoilers ⚠️ —Story/Characters This OVA has a very short run-time, but is dense with ... Aug 16, 2018
Dragons Heaven is a movie that I would recommend only if you are looking for an anime purely for it's art style. The style is amazing and should be your reason to see it, with its gritty texture and feel. The story starts off very interesting but when it gets going, the story becomes very bare. The character interactions fell real but the villain fells a little over the top and not enough explanation for his motivation besides just wanting to take over the world and being evil. I fell that if it had another thirty minutes, it would benefit a lot with being able
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Apr 10, 2018
Somewhere out there has to be an artbook that is far more interesting to read than this is to watch. Given that the first few minutes of the show are shots of their human-sized, model robot articulating, the priority of the OVA is almost exclusively on the mechs to the detriment of everything else.
Honestly, the biggest criticism of Dragon's Heaven I have is that there just isn't anything to it. It's a post-apocalyptic setting, but it boils down to a desert that is a featureless Tatooine (and that isn't the only thing that looks ripped off from Star Wars). Our protagonist is a ... Jun 2, 2022
I loved it.Made me feel warm and fuzzy at the end and I would recommend it to old-school-style fans.
I watched the English sub version on Youtube.I don't know if there is an English dubbing to this anime. But there are 2 things I need to address: 1)According to MAL this is a 24 minutes piece.It is about 30 or 42 if you would include the credit scene.I hope someone would see and fix this. 2)I felt like I'm watching a pilot for a show.An unfinished work so to speak.The story felt rushed and could have been much more.The final fight didn't make much sense. Jan 16, 2023
I gave 5 starts not because the show is average, I would say it is worse than that. However I didn't give 4 stars because calling it bad isn't exactly true. There's the need to take into consideration this animation was done around 1988. I love the old school animations, I really do. The art style could be a bit better but it satisfied me enough. There are basically 2 things that I absolutely didn't like: 1 - The plot is very poor and even somewhat cliche. 2 - The main character (the girl) has a "way over the top" sort of personality which makes
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