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Dragonar Academy Episode 2
What They Say:
As Ash and his parr get to know each other better, he discovers he’s not the only one with a keen interest in learning what makes her tick.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The opening installment of Dragonar Academy didn’t exactly knock my socks off, but I’ll admit an interest in any show that deals with dragons because, well, dragons. I cut my teeth on Dungeons & Dragons a few years after it first came out and even had the little baggie edition. So when an anime or manga series deals with dragons in some way, I’m curious. With this adaptation of the manga, we got introduced to Ash in the first episode and his problem-child side that has kept him from really going anyway, especially since he didn’t have a dragon partner yet. That’s now changed a bit as at the end of the last episode, events lead him to being on foot and coming across his parr, the dragon partner. Unfortunately for him, said child-like naked girl who is really a dragon claims that he’s not her master but rather she’s his master. Cue up the cuteness.
Naturally, things just go from bad to worse for Ash as he deals with Eco as she’s moved into his dorm and is making him sleep on the floor like the dog he is, in her words. The situation does manage to settle down a bit as Rebecca ends up visiting and she makes it clear that things are basically acceptable with this situation and that Ash will get a little bit of help with it as well. But largely, it just puts him in a more subservient position to Eco, which is cute, since she gets all of her needs taken care of with clothes and some minor pampering. But she’s also just curious about the world now that she’s in it and experiencing a human city. That means a lot of familiar material from the whole shopping exercise to her discovery of crepes, which she insists should be the staple of her diet from here on out, much to Ash’s chagrin. Eco also easily wins over the casual public while out since she’s so utterly adorable.
Of course, there has to be a little drama as well, which has one of the adults on campus kidnapping Eco so that she can perform some experiments on her. It’s incredibly rare for a dragon to take on human form and she wants to really understand what’s going on here. That puts Eco in a tough (and naked) spot while Ash and the couple of friends that he has doing their best to rescue her. It’s light on hte action itself and more fanservice oriented than it should be in some ways, but it helps to provide some of the tensions and problems that can come about because of Eco’s existence. What makes it weird as it goes on though is that the abductor is revealed to be part of the Academy as the premiere doctor in regards to dragons and that she’s just following school policy, albeit in a stronger way than might be considered right or prudent.
In Summary:
With the second episode of Dragonar Academy, things pick up a little bit since we now have Ash partnered up with Eco and she’s a part of the series. That changes the dynamic a good deal since before it was just Ash and his school issues and Eco definitely brings her own quirks and personality out in a big way as she takes control of Ash’s life, making things very difficult for him. But we also see that while this is the case, Ash is glad to have his parr even with these troubles and will go the distance for her, which helps to smooth out some of the relationship issues that will exist between the two. It’s simple and nicely done in a predictable way, right down to the abductor being someone in a position of power that ends up becoming their instructor, so it has a humorous but creepy twist to it as well depending on how much you want to read into it.
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.