
a review by arvin30p

a review by arvin30p
Have you ever seen an anime that has style and art but lacked substance? Surely you have but... but have you ever seen an anime where art and the style triumphs despite the lack of a very solid story? I am sure there are some out there but this time around, let me tell you an experience I didn't think I would even document.
Dragon's Heaven OVA starts off where our main protagonist, a sentient robot that is in the middle of the war. His partner, or rather the pilot that works in tandem with him has just been killed a with such, the protagonist decided to stay behind and hibernate since his fellows started to retreat as the war is nearing it's end. A thousand years after the war, he woke up from his slumber after detecting life in the form of a female human.
Right away, they got to know one another; albeit weirdly to my standards. And he asks about the existence of his nemesis since he knew that he should be alive at this moment. The female companion didn't know if she knew that said robot but she did heard that the name of the general of a very strong force bears similarities to him and such, our protagonist hypothesizes that he must be the enemy he is looking for.
The next day, our protagonist robot asked the female companion if she has learned everything about him and as much, she replied that she does since she came from a family that does handle machine work. Later that night, they were greeted by the enemy force who were about to destroy the nation where they reside and our MC and the female companion decided to intercept them which resulted to them winning the battle without much any resistance. Our MC however got damaged during that engagement.
The next day, his arch-nemesis arrived but was intercepted by the female companion which resulted in a large scale damage of the enemy fleet. She was now equipped with a power armor to suite with the fighting style of our robot protagonist. Surprisingly, the enemy survives and tries to negotiate with the female companion to give him the weapon that destroyed their fleet but she refuses as she blows them all up to pieces.
The robot MC arrives as he received the distress signal from his female companion and then, they had a one-on-one showdown with his long-time enemy and in the end, he won the fight while sustaining moderate damage (or light since there wasn't much any dent from him anyways).
In the end, both the robot and his female companion goes back to the city.
.
Dragon's heaven certainly has suffer from a terrible fate of being badly written. The robot MC was made to be piloted by a human and such it's potential can be reached if he had a partner to work with but likewise, in the end; he defeated his nemesis by just shooting at him making his statement unnecessary in the end.
Likewise, The concept and the designs of the robots themselves are quite amazing and spectacular. The animation quality is totally something that modern studios cannot replicate at this day and age given how consistent the art is (asides from the changing hair color of the female companion).
This show, which has been elevated itself to the realms of anime that looks good but does lack in the story department. but likewise, imagine if they got a competent writer who can make it work? this would be a rather exquisite work of art.
Likewise, while I am the type of reviewer who heavily weighs my score more on story rather than the art, This one says otherwise as the premise itself is not too bad, the execution is just a bit bad at worst. You can say that this show is a product of someone's overly passionate love for building robots.
You can watch the OVA in Youtube.
You can also blame Kenny Lauderdale for making me watch this, but I am thankful for this nice recommendation.
Score: 8/10
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