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The Story

In the future, mankind will have the ability to travel freely to and from the moon. Pluto has been replaced by a mysterious asteroid that may or may not be planning to attack Earth but other than that, things are good. Two years before the series begins, Jin was about to fly into space with his family in a ship piloted by his father. Right after it took off, mysterious objects fell from the sky and destroyed the ship leaving Jin as the only survivor.

Now living alone, Jin has pulled away from everyone. On his way home from school one night, Jin witnesses a girl being eaten by a monster (and I’m not being figurative here). Before he can be attacked as well, he is saved by an odd girl named Toa who will change the direction of his life. Soon afterwards, he is introduced to the world of the International Solarsystem Development Agency (ISDA) and dragons. Born on Earth, these dragons (communicators) are controlled by their masters (dragonauts) and are set to be the lone line of defense if the Earth is attacked from space… and they want Jin to join as a pilot and Toa to join as a test subject. Escaping their grasp, Jin will be joined by the escaped dragon Gio as they try to keep Toa safe from the ISDA while learning more about the impending threat to the planet and Toa’s role in all of it.

Good and the Bad

Sometimes you know by the end of a set that the series you’re watching is not one that you’d like to continue with. In this case it was a few episodes. In this sci-fi adventure, the world is advanced enough to have a base on the moon and Pluto has been replaced by what the general populace doesn’t realize is a living asteroid. Working on this problem is the ISDA with a secret project involving dragons to save the world. Forget about the fire breathing examples from history that you’re familiar with, these dragons take on humanoid form before changing to their mechanical dragon forms. Sometimes they even have built in cockpits for their masters to ride in.

From almost the very beginning, Dragonaut heads into a downward spiral dragged by terrible looking animation, confusing writing and flat characters before it even has a chance to try and get started. Providing you don’t mind the liberal use of the big breast trope, a lot of the animation maintains a decent aesthetic feel to it. The place where Gonzo drops the ball is with the CG animation used throughout the series. Every time someone takes on their dragon form, the animation switches to almost entirely CG and looks terrible every single time. The designs are dull and every battle is littered with awkward movements. Of course this is all after the transformation sequences that filled me with sharp flashbacks to Voltron.

What the hell happened to you?

Even if the all of the animation had been completely polished and shined, it’s hard to imagine it would have done much for the writing anyway. Sci-fi series are always granted a certain amount of liberty right away for their choice of language. Every series is going to have its own jargon, slang and technical jibberish that no one understands and Dragonaut is no exception. Sadly this creates a whole new issue as Dragonaut makes zero effort to explain any of theirs to the audience. For at least half the set, audiences will be left almost entirely on their own to figure out not only who everyone is (thanks to an almost complete absence of introductions along the way) but what the hell they are referring to at any given moment. This is fine when Dragonaut is only a couple of episodes old and audiences only have to figure out the ISDA but start adding in the research division and a rival army and things start to become less clear.

Early in the series, there was hope that the characters could be the saving grace. As Jin becomes clingier, Gio becomes sulkier and Akira and Machina make you question just how close they are; the last shred of hope will be overwhelmed in the mental hurricane that is Kazuki. Starting as the best friend character, Kazuki’s slow degeneration throughout the half provides a momentarily dark twist into the series. Unfortunately it stays momentary as what begins as a slow mental spasm erupts into one of the most hilarious mental meltdowns of the year.

Music

This is not the first time Kousuke Yamashita (Glass Fleet, Xenosaga) has been around a space or sci-fi series. So it should come as no surprise that the soundtrack is mostly based around a string score filled with loud crescendos. For the most part, the music composed by Yamashita isn’t bad but it rarely felt essential to the mood of the series. In episode nine, an alley scene is accompanied by a dark cello solo but it’s hard to think of other moments that stand out for its musical accompaniment.

Dub vs. Sub

Listening to the dub cast on this series was a chore in itself. Wooden and stilted, listening to the boring pairing of Gio and Jin in the dub cast probably went a long way towards creating the dreadful series pacing. Always lacking inflection, Gio’s exchanges with Jin made all of their scenes drag down to a crawl.

Extras

Disc 2 has clean animations and a commentary on episode 10 featuring Brina Palencia (Akira) and Kate Oxley (Nanami).

Overall

I openly admit it when I say that Dragonaut was one that I forced my way through. Needlessly confusing and ugly, I knew by the halfway point that there was nothing that could happen to spark my interest to see it through to the end and I was right. Fans of space action may find something to like somewhere in this you look hard enough. Move along and save your cash on anything else.