DVD Review: Lively dragons ruined by confusing story

The first part of "Dragonaut" falls apart with an overload of substories, main characters and lots of explosions.

To be fair, "Dragonaut" has a very simple plot which can be summarized in a single paragraph. Pluto's moon is sending dragons to destroy our planet. Our only hope is the Dragonauts, who pilot dragons born on the Earth.

Within this story is a whole slew of subplots. The main story focuses on Jin, a teenage boy who survived a horrible shuttle crash with an asteroid object. Two years later, he runs away from home and almost dies. He gets saved by Toa, a pink-haired girl who can transform into a dragon.

Many groups, including the ISDA and the Guillard New Emirates, want to capture Toa. Thus, Toa tries to keep Jin away from her, so he doesn't know about her destructive past. Of course, Jin can't let that happen, because he's in love with her.

Thus, the story should have played out in a basic fashion. However, the massive number of characters and subplots pile up to make one of the most complicated stories ever heard in an anime.

For starters, the ISDA owns a bunch of dragons. However, these dragons can transform into an anthropomorphic human form, with a special character name. Oh, and there's some special dragons known as the originals, who crash-landed on the Earth to do something with dragon eggs.

By the time a new species of neo-original dragons arrive on Earth, you won't even want to bother trying to understand it all. Nearly every character finds a way to double-cross their friend, forcing the anime to enter a mega apocalyptic sequence with explosions, evil factions, vengeful dragons and a whole slew of arch-rivals who want to ruin the world.


The series had immense potential. It started with a bunch of flashy, aerial fist-fights, transforming dragons and a love story. The girls looked unbelievably sexy, with ridiculously big breasts and curvaceous bodies. The main characters even had a clean look, wearing surfer-style clothes.

However, this is ultimately all that the series has. Part one of "Dragonaut" starts off as a fresh, exciting action series, but it winds down into an extremely convoluted plot that only truly dedicated fans would figure out. "Dragonauts" disappoints everyone with a lame script and a storyline with too many snags.

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