Nothing new with the art and animation. Everything is as it should be....for the most part. Everything is drawn nicely, lot's of CG used for the dragons and the fight scenes. I dunno. I know we are in a new era with animation but I just would rather be WOW'ed with regular 2D animation which I know the Japanese are VERY good at this anyway. CG is like the “auto-tune” of the animation world. They care so much more about the CG fight scenes than they cared about the human combat scenes...and it certainly showed. The human figures looked rushed, they were all kinds of stretched and distorted looking when they were fighting.
I loved the music of this series, especially the two ending songs and I think it fits the series just fine. I watched the series in English dub. They did a fine job....no complaints there.
Let's talk about the romantic elements of the story first since that's what this series is primarily about. I find it very irritating [not to mention unbelievable] this relationship between Toa and Jin. Within like, the first 2 episodes Toa goes out of her way to find this guy, Jin. She's rescues him a couple of times and in the next instant they're holding hands and sucking face. And all this while, no reason has been given as to WHY she's pursuing him.......OK fine, the viewer is just kinda forced to go along with this for a couple of episodes but then she suddenly flips the script and she hauls ass. WTF? Suddenly they “just can't be together” even though just a while ago they were holding hands, sucking face and swearing not to part with each other? That whole relationship is a sham! It's absolutely ludicrous to think two people are just going to fall so deeply for each other without knowing absolutely ZILCH about each other. But not only do they know nothing about each other....the viewer is in the dark as well, except to know that Jin is in some kind of depression over his family's death and she's a dragon. Yet we are to believe these two love each other? On what basis? Where is the commonality? Where is the explanation?
But the romance between Jin and Toa isn't the only spontaneous element in this series, most everything seems simply brought about by the seemingly arbitrary emotions from one character or another. Some seem to love for no reason while others want to hate and destroy for no [or for some very flimsy] reason. Why was Asim so devious as he was or why Baumgarde is so bitchy as she was except to perhaps keep the story going? Same for poor Kazuki, whom everyone basically ignores, even his supposed best friend....but how does that turn you into a homicidal maniac? You don't need a psychology degree to know personalities can't just do a 180 like that, you either had those feelings lying dormant in your psyche or you've experienced some SERIOUS TRAUMA to make you flip a switch like that, I'm talking stuff like rape, child abuse, watching a friend or loved one get killed in front of you. Not just cuz your supposed best-friend left your hi-5 hanging in the air like a dork or cuz he took your very hot-looking boyfriend [um….I meant “dragon”] that you keep obsessing over.
To me it's quite apparent the story is heavily reliant on emotions: obviously the emotions from the characters but also the [expected] emotions from the viewer. Another such example of how this series relied heavily on an emotional response from viewers is how they constantly held off on the explanations with the hopes of a big payoff with all these great big revelations near the ending. Which in my opinion backfired, I think more people would have enjoyed this series if they had weeded out some of these transparent plot devices, emotional tactics and surprise revelations and actually worked on developing the characters a bit more, they might have appeared more credible and then we would have genuinely been more emotionally attached to them.
Yes, the characters are attractive! All of them have nice fit bodies....even the old people which made me wonder if the artist was even capable of drawing any other body-type, like fat people. Not that I'm complaining too much, they made sure they catered to everyone. Whether you're into males or females, fair-skinned or deep tanned, flat-chested to A-Cup to M-[as in mutant freak]-Cup breasts, from the subservient to the bitchy loli-types, and of course my favorite...the bishies. Yes, they made sure to cover a wide range of fetishes very likely to appeal to a wide range of people and get a large fanbase. But mixing all of these character types together doesn't gaurantee you'll draw a lot of viewers or that the show will be successful. Actually it's likely to have the opposite effect because certain characters correspond to certain specific genres of anime and if you take them out of that context or try to mix sub-genres of anime you'll wind up with a clusterfuck....as is the case here.
You have characters that take themselves and the situation they're in quite seriously but yet we have large breasts bouncing everywhere so it's sexy moment and not so serious anymore but then we've also got light-hearted slapstick people in the mix...so now it's a comedic moment and maybe sexy too but not serious anymore? None of which I took seriously anyway because I dunno too many people that handle crises by going to a hot spa and I eventhough it's an anime I still expect soldiers to look the part....especially military officials, that one chic who's supposed to be a “MAJOR” looked more like a pornstar and pole-dancer in my opinion. Hard for me to take you as a serious military killing machine with your ass in a g-string and thigh-high hooker boots.
So my verdict is: lots of eye-candy, nice looking characters but the story itself is unoriginal and irregularly paced. Way too many random and haphazard emotions running amok....and the finale was tremendously anticlimactic.....but again, the character are very hot!
