Blue Dragon - Volumes 1 & 2

Now I'm all for video games reflecting current trends in TV and film but confess to feeling slightly queasy when the opposite is true and a popular game is turned into a TV series. Having said that, I was pleasantly surprised a few years back with 'Gungrave' which turned out to be a perfectly decent series with no previous experience of the game required to enjoy it fully.

So it was with arms folded tightly that I sat down to watch 'Blue Dragon', a series that grew out of the popularity of the xbox 360 game (and the Nintendo DS spin off).  The series had been put into perfectly capable hands (Studio Pierrot - Naruto, Bleach etc), but getting a good series out of an adventure game is never an easy task.



Bored but brashly over-confident youth Shu lives in the peaceful Talta Village but dreams of becoming a Knight-Master and having a whole bunch of boredom-busting adventures. (For Shu, imagine if Naruto had a particularly boisterous younger brother and you'll get the picture). In episode one of this 50+ episode series (with a second series already airing in Japan), he learns that a real Knight-Master is in the hood and sets off in search of them with his buddies in tow.

He bumps into some mysterious 'travellers' (Zola and Jiro) who possess the power of the Shadow Spirit. Shortly after this, a band of invaders arrive, led by the evil Lord Nene. Yes - it's a busy day! Shu discovers at this point that he has the power to summon the shadow spirit, Blue Dragon. When Zola and Jiro realise that he has powers too they persuade him (and side-kick Kluke) to join them on their quest to thwart the evil Lord Nene in his efforts to take over the kingdom. And - voila! All set for a high octane adventure anime.



Though most episodes involve moving on to find yet another arch villain to battle with, there is a faint story arc gluing these episodes together (Zola is searching for 'The Book of the Beginning') though individual episodes can be enjoyed perfectly well without perfect chronology. In episode 4 we are treated to a newcomer (busty waitress Bouquet who can turn invisible at will) adding to our team of powerful 'heroes'.

Towards the end of these episodes the  gang arrive in the citadel of Jibral, where they meet Conrad L Lorentz, the most respected Knight Master in all Jibral, while on the side of Grankingdom we meet Doragnov who is the master of his own sea fleet. All the right stuff for an epic story, though little evidence of it in these first episodes which aim to please with small wins rather than more sophisticated story development, which is a shame.

The two discs included here house 4x25 minute episodes a piece. It's aimed squarely at (male) teenagers, probably at the lower end of the teen spectrum, and for anyone who doesn't get turned on by the endless fist-raising and battling, it's as tedious as watching a friend play on a games console.

The animation itself is pretty standard fare, nicely inked (with computers) with solid colours and a good widescreen transfer.



You can watch the U.S dub (as I did) which is perfectly acceptable or if you wish, the original Japanese with subs, with perfectly good DD2.0 soundtracks.

Unless you count trailers as extras, there are no extras.

Overall, with such a glut of fine anime on the market, I don't think I would want to give much shelf-space to 'Blue Dragon'. Whilst there is nothing wrong with it particularly (it's actually fairly entertaining in a mindless way) it's just anime by numbers, falling lazily on its gaming laurels and failing to deliver anything fresh as a result - at least in the first batch of episodes. But who knows, for those that persist maybe it will improve.

Having said all that, if you have a 12 year old son, or you are a 12 year old boy yourself,  then you may have a completely different perspective and this may be just what the doctor ordered.