Dragon's Dogma

If you are a fan of the game, you will NOT enjoy this. If you remember certain side quests from the games where some iconic enemies appear, they will appear in different areas with original stories tied to them-- in a bad way. Maybe the last few minutes of the first episode and some of the last episode are the only things from the games plot that somewhat made it in. That's it. Not a single supporting character from the game made it in. The rest of the show is nothing but liberties taken from the studio without adapting the games actual story. They conclude ... the story in 7 episodes. This is just another example of a video game being poorly adapted into an anime where they don't focus on what the fans want.

I find myself mesmerized by CG anime. I know that's not a common sentiment, but I seriously enjoy it. The models have a certain look , style, and level of detail that often makes them visually appealing.

That is Dragon's Dogma's best strength in essence, it's animation quality is some of the best in terms of CG anime, though you can probably find a similar quality from studio Sublimations other series, like the upcoming Shikizakura, which is looking pretty nice.

Seriously any other decent to great looking CGI series, because Dragon's Dogma is lacking in strengths, and it's only great strength is the CGI. The series has ... good music, but the sound effects are just kind of okay. There's an overuse of the impact sound effect that Fate series tend to use. it's find, but sometimes it feels overused.

I like the two main leads, Hannah and Ethan. They have clear arcs that are done pretty well, I feel like it could've been done better, but it works well enough. The only thing as that the two leads are a bit too straight faced. There really isn't much of a dynamic, and there isn't much time to set it up.

okay, this leads me to the structure of the series. naturally, it's an episodic series, every episode has an individual plot that ends in each episode. This can be done to great effect in series like Lupin the 3rd, or Little Witch Academia.

The problem with DG is that each episode wants to make a point, and while some episodes kind of do this, the problem ends up being that you see how the resolution was made, but it feels like a few beats are mission.

If some of these one offs were made into 2 parters, it might work out better, because as it stands the main pair don't have a dynamic and the plots are missing something to make it feel truly impactful.

Some episodes also don't work because they need a rewrite. Without spoiling, episode 3 was awful. It was honestly distasteful, and the story just doesn't work because the foundation was poorly built. Which can be said for most of the series, as it wants to make a point, but because those episodic stories tantamount to making said point, it falls flat.

Episode 3 is the one that kills it the most, along with 6, which only sort of wanted to make a point, but didn't because there wasn't much time. 5 felt rushed and 1 really didn't have much of point, which made sense, but in the end the series is now missing a point.

Overall, the series just isn't worth it in the end, I recommend that you skip it, and search everywhere else for better CG offerings

I guessed the ending in the first episode based on some dragon-centered book series I've read, so that part was ruined for me even though I went in blind.

The gratuitous use of boob shots was just unbelievable - if there was the slightest hint of an opportunity for a woman to be shirtless or naked, they took it. I don't see how anyone could even get turned on by it (and I think the boobs were all the same exact model) so it was just like....why.

The 5th episode literally had me and my friend watching it screaming "no!". I absolutely hated Ethan from that point ... forward and was rooting for monsters to kill him. He wasn't likable or compelling at all.

I definitely wouldn't watch this again and I wouldn't recommend anyone else watch it. Only thing that redeemed it above a score of 5 was the production value and decent 3D animation.

If you intend to watch this show you really need to have a high resistance against bad cgi.
The cgi is in fact so bad that is on par with Berserk 2016 and Overlord season III.
The issue is that in this show everything is done via cgi and at the same time soooo badly done it's hard to endure.

The facial motion of the characters, the animations while fighting/talking or just walking/running, - everything is at a niveau ~15 years ago.

The Dragon/Cyclops animation reminds me in fact of ps2 prerendered cutscenes with 5-10 fps.
The only good cgi part are the skeletons, dunno why but ... the animations for those are really good even when moving in a mob.

If you can endure the cgi the actual show is at least interresting but if you havn't played the games it will be confusing because the whole show is rushed to a point that most things just make no sense at all and are never explained.


The story intends to show you how the once "pure" and good hearted main character gets colder overtime while watching the cruelty of mankind
and at some point just is completly indifferent to anything.

There is just an huge issue and that is the 7 episode count. It just doesn't work at all because of a lack of focus(monster of the week episodes)
and most of the development just happens offscreen and the viewers need to connect it by themselves.

If you played the game you can enjoy it to some point, especially episode 7 has a few moments in it but reducing a 20-40 min multistage boss fight
with lot of dialogue pre dlcs(with dlc gear you just skip trough stages and kill him in ~5minutes) into 10 minutes in the anime was maybe the wrong choice.

It was not a bad anime at all but the cgi and lack of episodes or focus on the characters made it worse than it could've been.

Maybe that was the intention so that ppl will play the game instead? Dunno but anyways if you didn't play Dragons Dogma
and are interrest after watching the anime I can only recommend playing the game. It's a different story but well done and even the cgi is way better. =P

That was from mediocre to horrible. First the animation is awful its like 2D animation done in 3D and it looks more like cutscenes from an JRPG and not an anime. And the 3D animation is just horrible, it made the entire thing almost un-watchable. In my opinion they should have stuck with 2D animation. Now for the story and its pretty bad. They threw some random monsters from all over the place with no rhyme or reason. its like fight that because why not.Episode 1 and 7 are the only good episodes for the story. Episodes 2 to 6 feel like filler.He has one ... goal in mind but no he has slay random monsters. Now slaying random monsters from mythologies makes sense in the end, but its all bland and feels like it needed a lot more work to make it good. Now unto the voice acting. Its horrible. I was watching it in english and to say the least it was horrible. It was good for like 1 or 2 second and then terrible for the next 10 to 15 minutes. I mean they could have done a such better job at voice acting but no they did not. Overall this is just bland with your typical monster slaying that is very bland in the end. I mean i get it how it ended but cmon the delivery should have been better then what i was at the end, not so bland and just whatever. I would say stay away from this heaping garbage and dont watch it. Save yourself time. And capcom really need to make a good anime based on their games.