Story: Chaos Dragon, as I will be calling this series in this review, follows the story of a boy named Ibuki in the land of Nil Kamui. As explained by the tedious introduction, the country he lives in is a small island country where the place is not only under control of other countries, but also under threat of the country's own guardian. As the last remaining noble of Nil Kamui's royal line, he is thrown into a situation that forces him to rise out of his hiding and take back the country that has been oppressed by various sources for so long. There, he gains the power of the country's guardian, granting him the ability to take life in exchange for that of another, a curse that he must try and get rid of by the help of a combined expedition from all three countries to find the country's rampant guardian.
Now, what is clear about Chaos Dragon from the first two passages of this review alone is the fact that this series is very lengthy in its setup. The story of Chaos Dragon, in simple terms, follows Ibuki's story as he tries to find the Red Dragon with a host of other characters. The reason why I note specifically in simple terms is because Chaos Dragon is a series that harbors a serious case of trying to cram in so much content in so little time. With each episode that passes by more and more characters get involved in the series through various means. Sometimes they're enemies, sometimes they're allies, others are completely irrelevant, so on and so forth. Not only are characters an issue for this show, but the plot follows more of a random weave than a straight line, as it gets pulled in all directions from backstories, to what's happening now, dreamworld stuff, etc. As a result, the entire story is an utter mess because it doesn't do much but confuse the audience sometimes because the overall plot just simply jumps from one thing to another without properly explaining what exactly is going on.
The lack of explanation comes from a duality of sources: the show's concepts, and the motivations of each character.
Chaos Dragon harbors a number of basic concepts within the world of its fantasy. Like all fantasy stories, the concepts (such as how their magic works and stuff like that) have to be properly explained in order for the audience to fully immerse themselves in the story and understand what precisely is happening. Chaos Dragon doesn't do that. Instead, it half-asses everything by at most, mentioning what exactly a thing is. (For example, the female protagonist of this series is known as a "Bounded One", they don't explain what a bounded one is at all beyond maybe three sentences of information.) And because this show utilizes so many different concepts, the entire show falls flat because nothing is ever properly explained and you sort of have to guess what each new thing is or does. (I mean, seriously. Holy Spirits, Dragon Contract, Bounded ones, Returned ones, Cursed sword, Mixed One, whatever the hell Ka Grava is. I don't want to have to google everything to get some semblance of an explanation.)
As for character motivations, Chaos Dragon has a lot of varied characters each with a different goal in mind. Now, normally this would be a good thing as every character would be varied and there could always be a good twist here or there, but this show doesn't really pull it off well. Because there are a lot of characters, there is a new motivation for every character that enters the show, leading to a lot of rather generic or incomplete reasons for really doing what they're doing. Some of them bounce back and forth with their current motive to the extent that I could care less what they did with themselves. It's to the point that a lot of them feel very stupid because we don't know the character well and the idea of even caring about whether a character dies or not is something that requires at the very least knowing who is dying.
All in all, Chaos Dragon is a complete and utter mess with its plot. At first I had high hopes for the show because it involved sacrifice and a somewhat intriguing plotline, but it tangled itself even further the more it progressed in the series. The ending itself is also rather average as there's nothing that I really felt was satisfactory at the end. It just sort of winded itself down to a stop. It wasn't a bad ending per say, but it didn't really make all that much of an impact for an ending. Especially since there were actually some questions that had yet to be answered.
Overview:
+ Half-Decent story idea. (I admit though, it was intriguing enough for me to look into this series.)
+/- Average ending
- Horrible Pacing
- Far to many story concepts and unexplained ideas
- Character motivations were all over the place and never really concise.
Characters: As mentioned before, Chaos Dragon has an absurdly large cast for a 12 episode anime. As a result, all but maybe two or three characters actually get any sort of half-decent motivation that adds to their characters. (It's Angel Beats Syndrome!)
Let's start with the main character of this series, Ibuki. As the last royal of Nil Kamui's line, Ibuki is a boy that has decided to stay away from the ongoing conflict and not become the king of Nil Kamui because he wishes not to see the people he knows perish around him since his parents died in a fire. Later though, he is cursed with the Red Dragon's power and is given the ability to kill one person in exchange for someone precious to him. Because he has to kill his friends in order to kill his enemies, he shuns himself for using this power and agrees to go on a combined expedition with several other members of the cast in order to get rid of his curse. (Once again, very lengthy. My god.) Ibuki as a character is similar to a story of growing up, as he has to learn about loss and sacrifices seeing as that is what he has to deal with now that he has this cursed power. He treasures his friends and the people he knows very much and wishes not to put anyone in danger because he is afraid of their loss. The issue with this is the fact that the series doesn't solely focus or really develop this. Even as the main struggle of the series, the show in addition, focuses on other character issues to the point of even putting Ibuki's own character to shame. As time goes on, he sort of fades into the background amidst the other characters, and that's rather poor design.
Then we have Eiha, a bounded one that looks like a little girl that resembles a fox. (For the record, bounded ones are children that are attached to a creature from a very young age, and stay attached to that creature through some means. They apparently have very short lifespans too.) As Ibuki's closest companion in the expedition, Eiha is a very faithful character, willing to give up her own life for Ibuki and treats herself as a tool or his sword. While she is my personal favorite among the entire cast of the series, her character doesn't really develop past those thoughts of hers. As a result, her entire character doesn't really change all that much and she, like Ibuki sort of starts to lose importance in the series as time goes on, which is a shame too, because they are pretty much the only native people of Nil Kamui that we are really shown in this series.
Behind these two is an expansive cast of characters from the expedition members Sweallow, Lou, a robot...thing named Ka Grava, and Sweallow's maid Meryl, to members of Kouran's army, members of D'natia's army, the Dragon guardians, the rebel army, Ka Grava's servants, etc. The thing that really makes this show so poor in quality is the fact that at least 90% of them is a character in this series that the show forces you to try and know and or care about. They try to put enough detail for you to care about why they're there to the point that you really don't care why they're there. As a result, any character that dies within this series really has no impact of the show as a whole because they're so obsolete sometimes that it's like stabbing a cardboard cutout. No one cares if you stab a cardboard cutout. While some like Sweallow and Lou have motivation and development that sort of makes sense, pretty much no one else does, and the show focuses on those two specifically for a time, for some reason.
Overview:
+ Some character development
- Highly underdeveloped characters
- Too large of a side cast
- Unsuccessful attempt at putting importance on the entire side cast
- Main characters fell into the background (That is not what a main character should do.)
- Unmeaningful deaths.
Art: The art for Chaos Dragon is a rather bright style of animation. It's bold in the sense that every character is distinguished in their perspective color palettes, but the color scheme itself really isn't all that much to look at. Character designs on the other hand I admit were rather nice. Some character had some pretty nice designs and I appreciated the different, distinct look for every character in the series. (One of the few good reasons for the large cast.)
But, there is still one thing about the art that irks me. While is was sub par at best, the air truly "shined" whenever it showcased any of the dragon guardians in the series. The dragons themselves are a hideous conglomerate of CGI and the everything looks so out of place in any given scene they're in. They're extremely glaring and they leave a bad taste in my mouth due to the inconsistency and just how awful they look.
Overview:
+ Original and Distinct character designs
- Horrifying CGI Dragons. (Not the CGI dragons! I thought we were done with those!)
Sound: As for the soundtrack, Chaos Dragon oddly enough has an opening that I personally like as a song. Reflecting on the show's marketed themes of loss and flaws in one's life, the OP gives off a melancholic and somewhat thrilling battle opening that resonates a lot with what the show was trying to do. I was honestly quite happy with the song, and it's a track that I find memorable oddly enough and one that I would listen to over and over again.
The ED on the other hand focuses sort of on Eiha with a similarly melancholic sound, but with a much mellower tone. Personally, I didn't find this ED as memorable if not slightly generic. It wasn't bad enough for me to discredit it completely, but it isn't a song that I would find memorable.
Overview:
+ IMO, a good and memorable OP
- Somewhat generic ED
Personal Enjoyment: What really caught my attention about Chaos Dragon was the fact that not only did it feature a sort of old-style war plot that I personally have grown fond of as of late, but it was also a little fiction game made by Gen Urobuchi and several other members of the Stripe Pattern Doujin Circle. So I thought, hey, since the guy who made the ever popular fate series is part of this, why not give it a shot? (Whether or not he was part of the anime's development, I don't really know.) So, what are my thoughts?
Did I enjoy this anime?
Not particularly. The biggest thing I hate about any anime is when they don't explain everything. Leaving so many plot holes in the series to the point it's like swiss cheese is one of my biggest pet peeves. In my opinion, it leads to a lot problems down the road for a series and really doesn't create a quality story. Chaos Dragon delivered my cartload of swiss cheese by creating too many things without giving enough attention to each of them. As a result, the story and the characters suffered greatly, which led to a whole host of confusion and created a lot of resentment I have towards the series.
What didn't I like about this anime?
Apart from the massive plot holes, I didn't particularly enjoy any of the deaths in the series. Not because my favorite characters died, but because the deaths really don't matter in the series. They exist because they attempted to pull off these themes of loss within the show, but failed because the lack of attention for any given character created a meaningless death. I could hardly care whether that girl died, or when that guy died, or what have you. They don't really do much because there's no emotional backing from the audience for the character that died.
Would I recommend this anime?
Personally, I wouldn't recommend it. The show is a complete mess many aspects of itself to the extent that it was, to me, frustrating to watch. Because it went all over the place, there wasn't really many threads to connect from one scene to another and everything felt very poorly planned. It really was a disappointment, cause I did look forward to it at the start of the season. I guess that's what you get when you have a Gen Urobuchi work that isn't part of the Nasuverse.
