Dragonar Academy Episode 1
What They Say:
Ash Blake, “number-one problem child” at Ansullivan Dragonar Academy, is worried that he’s still without his very own partner dragon, or “parr”. When the time comes, will his parr be everything he expected–or nothing like he’d ever imagined?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Known in Japan as Seikoku no Ryuu Kishi. Dragon Academy began as a series of light novels back in 2010 with a manga adaptation following in 2011. That original series is written by Shiki Mizuchi with illustrations by Kohada Shimesaba and at this time has had thirteen volumes published so far, making it something that if successful, can have a bit of a life to it. The anime adaptation for it has some good credits to its name with Silver Link producing the animation while Shunsuke Tada is directing, who has worked on some fun shows over the years, including two seasons as the director on Kuroko’s Basketball and working on the Tsubasa OVA releases.
The series revolves around a young man named Ash Blake who goes to the Dragonar Academy where he’s not exactly the best kind of student there. Labeled as the number one problem child, he’s the kind of person that you can see having an amusing set of hanger-on friends in real life, but here he’s kind of on the outside of things. But he has a certain appearance and confidence that even though he’s mostly on his own, he’s able to handle it for the most part. But there’s plenty of people that tease and mock him from the sidelines, particularly since he doesn’t have a partner dragon yet, something they call a parr. With it being the new year at the school where he and the few people that he calls friends are now Senios, they’re starting in on a three year course to master their skills and abilities. There’s a bit of an infodump in small ways across the episode, but it basically illustrates how these students operate in regards to their dragons and the kinds of connections that they have.
The opening episode takes us through a bit of the routine here as we see Ash working with other students with practice dragons, which leads to its own complications, and a light touching upon a few other characters that cross paths with him, including his friend Raymond and a few beauties who glide through the show. Naturally, he also comes into some trouble with one of the best students at the academy with Silvia, which leads to the two going into a bit of a challenge during the festival side of it with the tournament that they participate in. That doesn’t lead to quite the battle you’d expect but it does push Ash out into the wilds a bit where he encounters a few other people, an intriguing piece of aircraft of some sort and hints of the larger story without really giving away a lot, unfortunately.
In Summary:
As an opening episode, Dragonar Academy plays better in a lot of ways than I thought it would. I was figuring we’d be getting more of a silly school based piece in a fantasy setting with girls, dragons and fanservice. Instead, we get something that focuses on the young man name Ash and his difficulty in not having gotten his dragon partner yet while also being isolated in the academy by nearly everyone else. There are simmering issues below the surface from the past that are brought up in passing and some interesting big picture pieces that come in towards the end. It’s a slow hook kind of episode in a lot of ways, one that really does want you to simply be drawn in by it, and that may be a bit difficult at first. It’s definitely a show that warrants a few episodes to get a feel for though as you can see there’s some interesting potential here.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: FUNimation
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.