Dragonaut: The Resonance
Anime DVD Review
You need to watch about eight episodes of this series before you really *get it*. At first, you have no idea what the heck is going on, you're just as confused as Jin, the main protagonist, and frankly, none of this is making the least bit of sense. The over-the-top, top-heavy character designs don't make the job of getting through this any easier, you spend half your time wondering if humans could ever really look like that.
Fortunately, just as you're about to reach for the remote and end the pain, the series becomes inexplicably *good*, and then you're in for the breast.. uh, best ride in recent memory as the action heats up and it seems as if you're in the middle of it.
But to add to the confusion factor, each episode starts off by giving you a snippet of what happened years ago to get our heros into the mess they're in, and then the title sequence starts. It's never enough to give you the whole picture, but just enough to leave you scratching your head.
Despite the zoftig, jiggly nature of the majority of the females of this series, actual fanservice seems to be kept to a minimum, and most of the time it can be explained away as these women are constructs, not actual humans. And Toa, our female protagonist, is reasonably proportioned. But she and Jin are relentlessly pursued by the human-created contructs — dragons (and their "resonance" rider/masters). Confused yet? Wait there's more!
Twenty years ago, an asteroid headed for Earth destroys Pluto, which caused the asteroid to take up Pluto's orbit around the Sun, which was supposed to end the problem. But, Thanatos (the asteroid) turns out to be a living creature, and has sent dragons of its own against Earth. Earth's response was to form the ISDA, which began to genetically create it's own dragons to counter the threat.
And in the middle of this fight are Jin and Toa — but Toa is a dragon as well, which kinda' makes the relationship even more complicated. And the mystery of *exactly* what's going on does take a while to sort itself out — but once we're past that, then things really get going.
The moral ambiguity of the series is perhaps one of the more interesting things about it. There aren't any "good-guy/bad-guy" definitions, and almost everyone appears to have a personal agenda that supersedes duty. At times, it's difficult to know who to root for, in fact, you gotta' wonder if Earth itself is *worth* saving. But it's the instant connection between Jin and Toa that keeps you coming back for more, so drop that remote and keep going.
Reviewed by Brian Cirulnick, December 2009
Below: The main cast of Dragonaut.
Below: The ladies of Dragonaut.
Below: Scenes from Dragonaut.
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