Dragon Raja is a Chinese Donghua based off of a mobile/PC MMORPG in which the average newbie MC turns out to secretly be an S-Rank and goes to a magic school for--and already everyone reading this review has given up on this show. But please. Trust me. This show is good. Way better than it should be given what it is.
Within the first 2 minutes of episode 0 I already knew this show was hitting different. A rare level of polish, detail and undeniable quality already reveals that this is not just The Eminence in Shadow No. 5: Made In China. The camera slowly blinks open, cradled by seawater and bubbles, and then zoom we're suddenly in the Infinity Castle from Demon Slayer, watching two elegantly clad brothers eating grapes and talking about death. Oh wait, they're immortal? And cannibalistic? When did we get inside this beautiful little house by the countryside? Damn that's some good background art. Watch how smoothly their sleeves and fingers move, how the light interacts with them, how the water in the cup ripples. Now we fly into a dragon's mouth and reappear in hell, surrounded by frozen corpses, ruined buildings and caged by a blood-red sky. We slowly stroll through the hellscape, and stop in front of a giant pyramid. Hey look, there's our younger brother, crucified at the top of the temple as the screams of the choir mimic those of the eternally damned. Camera slowly pans away, and the main character wakes up sweating from his nightmare. That's how you open a show.
This level of detail, visual story telling and just straight-up beautiful animation is maintained throughout the entire season. The exposition in Episode 1 is animated to look like an oil painting. Episode 2's fight scene boasts glorious sakuga to match some of the biggest modern shonens today. 2D, 3D, and special effects are blended perfectly throughout. And don't get me started on the lighting. At the very least, this show looks clean as hell.
Another major plus in this show's favor is that it knows exactly what it is, and doesn't try to be anything else. The number one reason why I can't stand most modern isekais/fantasies is because they all try so desperately to prove that they're different and unique, and in doing so only prove just how identical they all are. I'm gonna become a parody, because that means I can get away with all my unoriginality because it's a commentary on the current anime landscape! My MC is gonna be wayyyy overpowered, but like, it's funny because he pretends he isn't! I'm gonna make super meta jokes and make references to genre tropes because I forgot how to be actually funny 10 years ago! Inserting tropes is fine, as long as it's satire!
Dragon Raja doesn't rely on any of that; it just lets its own quality speak for itself. When it wants to be serious, it gets serious and we watch emotionally invested. When it wants to be funny, it tells its funny jokes and slaps its slapstick and we laugh. When it wants to show us something cool, it busts out the sakuga and we grin like idiots. There's a perfect balance between all its aspects, and none of them infringe heavily on the others. All the characters are easy to watch and root for and have fun with. Even when the MC becomes overpowered, the show kinda just plays it straight. They build up to the climax, let the sakuga roll, and leave a hint of the consequences while keeping it open-ended for next season instead of trying to make a massive deal out of it or becoming a parody of itself.
Above all, Dragon Raja is just incredibly inoffensive. The main character is pretty generic, but he's not aggressively boring or edgy or fantastical. He's kinda naturally amusing and charming. He has emotions, he has flaws, and he works on them and grows. He's just a guy. It's always balanced and never tries too hard to be funny, dark, or cool and risk falling over into dumb, edgy and obnoxious. There are no harems and almost zero sexual fanservice. No over-the-top screaming, no power leveling garbage, no plot contrivances, and just an impressive lack of bullshit (until the last 2 episodes but it's kinda funny so I let it slide). There are certainly reasons why you wouldn't like this show, but there aren't a lot for why you would actively dislike it.
The biggest flaw of this show isn't really a flaw of the show; it's how completely inaccessible and impossible to watch it is. You cannot watch this show anywhere. You will not be able to watch this show. It's not on any mainstream Western streaming services, and chances are you don't have a Tencent or BiliBili account and are unwilling to create one. Even The Usual Supects one usually resorts to at this point will leave you disappointed, with horrendous video quality that does not make the show look "clean as hell" like I promised. I will now shut the fuck up out of respect for Rule 1 of the Anilist Community Guidelines and pray the mods don't ban me for even alluding to the concept of piracy (I was even actively condemning it by telling everyone how poor quality it was c'mon) (There's gotta be a really funny joke somewhere in here about Anilist Mods, China, censorship and--
(Removed for Violating Community Guidelines)
Dragon Raja is a really solid, fundementally good show that definitely deserves more attention than it's gotten. It looks great, has a strong cast, some really fantastic moments and it's really just a blast. It's not quite a "hidden gem" per se, that seems a bit too generous. It's more like a super cool looking shiny rock that you found by the side of the beach and really want everyone else to check out. And sometimes I don't want a diamond or a ruby or an amethyst geode worth more than my town: sometimes I just wanna watch that super cool looking shiny rock.
