Dragon's Dogma

I'll preface by saying I'm a huge fan of the game, and I cannot help but approach the show in a manner that reflects that bias.

Dragon's Dogma, the game that is, is classical kind of fantasy. Adventurer's home is besieged by a dragon, he goes on a mission to slay it and many more monsters along the way, save his love, etc. Kind of boiler plate plot wise but lifted up by some interesting characters, fantastic dialogue, cool lore, and second to none gameplay.

When I heard of the show I was... skeptical, but hopeful that they could capture the mostly upbeat action romp adventure the game was. I was disappointed in that way. Besides the titular Dragon, there were absolutely 0 characters which made it to the show from the game. The Netflix adaptation of Dragon's Dogma takes itself far too seriously. Where there were once silly asides of being paraded around in a jester's cap, there's now a protagonist fueled by rage and brooding. In all honesty Ethan seems like the sort of character a 15 year old would role play in his D&D game. I know because I did the same thing. With such little resemblance it's a wonder why it bares the same name at all, it may as well just be called "Dragon Slayer."

For a show with several seasons planned apparently it also has a serious problem of telling, not showing, it's plot to you. Ethan's tragic backstory eluded to in a couple of glimpses but is ultimately told to the audience by some unnamed kids. The show attempts to provide an ending to the first season with some kind of philosophical malarkey about 'human nature' and the various sins for which the episodes are named after, but it comes across as extraordinarily forced and just plain nonsensical.

More minor complaints include the fact than several monster's models, including the dragon itself, are not textured very well at all. In fact they may have looked better just being copied and pasted from the game itself. Lighting is lacking, and many animations are stiff and floaty, very much unlike other cg animations like Beastars.

Unfortunately it turned out to be a show based on a great story, but not capturing the spirit of it at all, and I can't imagine people seeing it as anything more than your average power-fantasy.

Between the style changes (between 2D and 3D animation) throughout the series and the bad monster 3D models, it's hard to believe Capcom green light this for even the seven episodes it had.

This is a fan fiction at its worst.

Just play the game, it has a plot.

I thought this anime was brilliant. It was very entertaining and each episode had a moral philosophical meaning embedded within it. I found the story very profound and the overall message that if we as human beings do not operate out of love we will succumb to our desires. If we stop using our hearts and allow our worldly desires to consume us, we become the very same monsters that we detest.

Overall, it is a short entertaining anime series with a fair amount of wisdom contained within it. I definitely recommend watching it and hope there is a second series. I almost did not watch it because when I checked the reviews they were fairly low. It was good enough to warrant me making an IMDB account in order to provide it with a more respectable rating.

Rushing and story boring as fk. i love the game and the first story but another episode very short and rush. some good character die too early lol

I've only watched 2 episodes so far but I will say I'm liking this quite a bit, the main issues I have with the show is the CGI/2D mix art style, and the voices sound really bad in English so I had to change it to Japanese With subs and that issue was fixed for me, other than that I'm loving it so far.