Dragonaut Review

I could easily say that Dragonaut: The Resonance was overhyped and flopped. Conversely, I could also say that not enough people gave the show a chance and it was tossed aside before being given a chance for redemption. I don’t think the show was outright terrible, but it did have a much longer way to fall since the expectations placed on it were so high.

Synopsis:
Twenty years prior to the anime’s current time, the alien asteroid Thanatos destroyed Pluto and is bound to eventually collide with Earth when it breaks free from Pluto’s orbit. Unbeknownst to the public, Thanatos also harbors alien life forms known as dragons. The International Solarsystem Development Agency (ISDA) is formed, and they create their own dragons to deal with this impending threat.

Fast forward to two years before the current timeline. Three original dragons (Album, Raum, and Atrum) are sent from Thanatos to scout the progress of Earth’s dragon project. Jin Kamishina boards shuttle ISDA029, piloted by his father, along with the rest of his family because of his mother’s work. Album collides with shuttle ISDA029 as it takes off, killing Jin’s family and the entire crew. Album performs a resonance with Jin, taking human form for the first time, and manages to save him. The other two original dragons crash elsewhere and perform resonances to take human form.

The shuttle incident brings infamy to Jin as he is the mysterious sole survivor of the horrific crash. In addition, the ISDA used Jin’s father as the scapegoat, claiming a grievous piloting error on his part to cover up the existence of dragons. Jin moves in with a relative but becomes a social outcast due to the stigma surrounding him. Moving on the the present timeline, Jin unwillingly becomes involved in the story as he is attacked by a rogue ISDA dragon and subsequently saved by Album, who is now a girl going by the name Toa.

The main cast of Dragonaut

If I even remotely attempted to do a full synopsis of the entire 25 episodes, this review could easily turn into a 10,000 word essay. You can check out my summaries up until episode 15, and I also recommend reading Random Curiosity’s summaries.

Many things happen through the course of the story as the bond between Jin and Toa is tested. Things get more complicated as earth dragon Gio enters the picture, creating a love triangle between himself, Jin, and Toa. Jin eventually discovers that Toa was responsible for the shuttle incident, but grows to accept what happened and doesn’t blame her for what happened.

Furthermore, Jin also grows out of his shell as he quarrels with his former friend Kazuki Tachibana, and becomes involved with the Dragonauts’ struggle with Thanatos and the rival Gillard Military force. Through the course of the show, it is slowly revealed that Thanatos is a sentient alien being that cannot be harmed by conventional weapons. Jin and Toa ultimately convince Thanatos to comply with their request to leave Earth in peace, as the sentient asteroid realizes the error of its ways. The two finally get their wish to live a peaceful life on Earth together at the conclusion of the series.

Toa is Jin’s knight in shining armor

Thoughts:
Dragonaut was seriously overhyped with its stellar voicecast consisting of the entire SOS-dan, Junichi Suwabe, Nana Mizuki, and Saeko Chiba among others. Dragonaut really felt like it would be Gonzo’s sci-fi answer to Sunrise studio’s recent successes. Unfortunately several things kept this from happening.

The script was sporadic with many characters making sudden 180 degree personality shifts throughout the show. It’s easy to pick on Kazuki, since he is easily the show’s worst character. Take Suzaku from Code Geass and make him 10 times more unlikeable. A wild Kazuki has appeared! The show tried to give him the proper buildup for his change from childhood friend into a villain, but his motives were still extremely shallow.

Kazuki continually pursues Jin for much of the show simply because Gio willingly chose to travel with Jin. In other words Kazuki isn’t even fighting for a cause bigger than himself. He really makes Suzaku look charming and valorous in comparison. Kazuki isn’t the only one that makes shifts in allegiance and personality but his is certainly the most drastic and unwarranted.

The girls flaunt their goods

The story initially lacked flow. With all the “Rescue Jin” and “Rescue Toa” scenarios, it’s hard to get things rolling smoothly when the focus of the show is these two principal characters. The number of times these two get captured by opposing forces is downright ridiculous. For all the story’s flaws, I’ll admit that the scriptwriters were gutsy to kill off the show’s more interesting characters midway through; The deaths in episodes 16 and 17 really surprised me. The script’s pace finally got on track around this point and didn’t jump all over the place too much anymore. On the other side of the argument, a good 1/3 of the show felt like wasted time.

Like the script, the animation was up and down. I suspect that the animation budget was reserved for the battle sequences. CG rendering was used extensively to animate the dragons in their true form and this admittedly felt out of place. The soundtrack was actually good with some catchy tunes here and there.

Character designs are a love or hate affair. The average female bust size of this show is probably 95cm or so. Giant jiggling breasts aside, I liked the designs. Even though there were a ton of secondary characters, everyone had their own unique look that distinguished them.

Despite all the glaring flaws, Dragonaut could have also done much worse. For all the things it did wrong (horrid pacing, lots of bad scripting, out of place fanservice, and a couple glaring plot holes), it also got some things right like characterization. The show was very much about Jin’s growth as a person and that point was executed pretty well. Many of the show’s other secondary characters were fleshed out pretty well with their own personalities and motives for fighting. When a show gets you attached to some of the characters, it has to be doing something right.

If you could get past the first eight episodes which were admittedly bad, you’ll find that Dragonaut manages to salvage its plot and actually becomes a decent show. It was simply an average show that didn’t live up to extremely high expectations, so it got unduly chastised by the fan community. Give Dragonaut a second chance and you may just find a diamond in the rough.

I give Dragonaut a very fair 5/10.