Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai - Ep01-02 Review
CAPSULE MONSTERS!!
Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Day is one of the first anime shows I ever watched in my life. I was happy when I heard Dai will get a new anime and couple of games in 2020! I wanted to watch the series weekly as soon as it aired, though I only did that this week.
I was a young child when I first watched Dai. Back when I was referring to these TV Shows as Cartoons, I watched the Arabic Dub of this series titled: داي الشجاع (Dai the Brave.) I haven't read the Manga, and I'm going by my memory for the Dub I watched for the original anime in this article.
The Adventure of Dai (2020) started earlier this month. It's a story in the Dragon Quest universe. More serious than the games but is full of 90's silliness. The first two episodes of it are doing a good job for setting the tone!
The Adventure of Dai's story is a typical shonen story. It's just well-excuted. The Manga is not a masterpiece, but is above average as far as shonen goes. This anime Remake has a lot to live up to!
Minor Spoilers Below
Episode 1: Dai, The Tiny Hero
The first episode tells a standalone story of Dai in Dermline's Island, and his first encounter with people from the outside of it. It's a good introduction to the series and features many of the iconic monsters of the Dragon Quest series. (Take note: The monsters of DQ might be the franchise's biggest selling point!)
The episode even explores the concept of storing Monsters (and people) in Capsules! Pokemon ripoff? The Manga predated pokemon by almost a decade~
The episode changes some stuff from the original Manga/anime. There are less stuff going on now, the story happens in a shorter in-universe time. One scene was completely removed. I guess it's because it's not suitable for TV in 2020? It was a comedy scene that doesn't change the plot.
Despite that, the pacing feels just right! Not too fast or slow, and the fight scene at the end of the episode is great. They didn't mess up the animation, at least not to the extent I feared.
As for characters, Dai is exactly how I remembered him to be. Fun and naive, but reckless and not too kind. A perfect Hero material~ My childhood's favorite mascot Gome is back too! The fake Heroes are fun to watch too, and I hope they come back in the future!
By the end of the episode, Dai was acknowledged as a young Hero, and his journey hasn't began yet.
Episode 2: Dai and Princess Leona
The second episode is the introduction of Leona. It expands on the Magic system, (which is the same as Dragon Quest series.) It also introduces the iconic ability of Dai when he becomes stronger in dire situations.
Leona the princess of Papnica, insults Dai upon their first meeting, (calling him Tiny.) So they didn't start as friends, but after he shows her how good he is with monsters, and they talk about Magic they got closer to each other.
The threat in this episode is bigger than the previous one. It's amazing how the animators managed to put all of the charactrization and action in one episode without feeling too fast paced. (It would feel like that compared to the original series though.)
I was happy with the conversation Dai and Leona had about Magic in this episode. The Arabic dub of the original didn't go into detail about the Magic system. Something this small might not effect the story but it means something to me. (I still consider داي الشجاع one of the best Arabic dubs of all time despite changing a lot of things.)
A Good Start
The starting scene of the first episode in this 2020 anime shows how Dai got to the island. This was shown much later in the anime in the original, and I think it's a great way to start the series with a mystery. (Even though it might not be adressed anytime soon.)
Two episodes in, and I'm excited about where the story will go from now. Avan is coming in the next episode and I think this Season of Dai 2020.
The design and animation is generally good, though there are some shots I didn't like. Something that disappointed me a little is the use of 3D-CG in the anime. Half of the fight in the second episode for example is animated via 3D models. It's not a bad use of 3D and it's very close to the 2D animation, it's not as jarring as some CG I saw in other anime, (DQ style lends itself to 3D seamlessly,) but it's still a fact that the animators resorted to this cheap method of animation!!
What do you think?
There are currently two episodes that I haven't watched yet. After that I'll need to wait a week for each episode again... I hope this Review was helpful.
please tell me what do you think?
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