In a world where magic reigns supreme and demons walk the land (read: standard fantasy world), there is a small island kingdom. Besieged by an evil sorcerer and his hell-spawned minions, the king is dead, and the prince flees the ruins of the castle under the protection of a loyal swordsman. Ten years later, the Queen is still missing, the land is overrun by demons, and the happy-go-lucky prince is having a ball cutting up monsters and getting ready to reclaim the throne. As he fights with the resistance, he is joined by a spunky sorceress in training, a mysterious sorcerer, and three brave swordsmen in his battle to save the world from the forces of darkness.

Review :

I sat down to this one thinking "Yup, yet another low budget cheesy fantasy hack and slash epic." And that's exactly what Dragon Slayer was... except for the fact that leapt into the role with so much spunk that by ten minutes into it I was having a really good time, and it never let up. Basically if you took a standard, lengthy, serious fantasy epic (Record of Lodoss Wars comes to mind), cut out all but the most vital plot points, and then fast forwarded through everything that was left (which is about half swordfighting), you've got Dragon Slayer. It's like a fantasy epic that overdosed on caffeine. Seriously, it's hard to get across just how over the top the pacing in this one was. The action sequences were absolutely frantic--high speed hacking and limbs that flew by so fast you didn't even have time to realize that they were severed. But it didn't stop there; even the plot was run through so quickly you had to work at catching your breath. All the elements were present, and each one was dealt with neatly in about 30 seconds. It's like the writer handed the director a checklist: Introduce bad guy. Check. Dragon attacks village. Check. Free slaves. Check. Have dramatic argument. Check. Visit magical temple. Check. and so on...

Of course, this rapid fire method of storytelling really didn't to much for the seriousness of the plot, but then again, I thought that was an advantage. Had it taken the time to properly develop the plot elements, it would have just been cheesy--there wasn't much that hasn't been done before. But when you breeze through everything that quickly, you don't have time to do much more than say "Yup." and jump onward. Even better, what plot there was wasn't really taken very seriously anyway. I have great respect for any series in which a quiet moment (meaning about two seconds in this case) watching the sunrise abruptly turns into the characters mocking that kind of sappy sentimentality. Even the death of one of the main characters was summarily dealt with (and very nearly turned into a possibly unintentional joke) when, moments later, his twin brother shows up to fill his shoes. I can see it now: "Well, I guess we need to kill him for the plot, but he's just too cool to get rid of!" Problem solved. Anyway, the plot was functional and little more, but it was way more fun than it probably should have been, and I give the writers credit for repeatedly taking a standard serious scene and turning it on its head. The characters were pretty much stock light fantasy as well, but they were fun nonetheless, and there were enough odd quirks and bickering to satisfy me.

The art in Dragon Slayer was more along the lines of what you'd expect for an older, low budget flick: not terribly detailed, and a bit rough in spots. The backgrounds were a little sketchy, too, but they were relatively bland anyway. Likewise, the character designs were basically average. The animation, however, was a different story. In terms of character animation and style, it was mostly similar to other movies of this sort, but the battle sequences weren't quite like anything I've seen before. The action scenes had a very high frame rate, but instead of taking a normal motion and making it more fluid by adding additional frames, they just crammed as much action as they possibly could into each shot. Had they slowed the battles down to a reasonable speed, the show probably would have been twice as long, and you probably wouldn't notice anything amiss. Anyway, whether this all ends up being annoying or fun depends on your taste, but it went quite well with the rest of the pacing, and basically set the tone of the whole thing for me.

I've only seen the dub of Dragon Slayer, which was mostly unremarkable either way. There was no great acting triumphs (not that there could have been, anyway), but the actors kept up with the pacing and spirit well enough. The music, like the rest of the production, was stock fantasy, and really wasn't very noticeable at all.

In all, Dragon Slayer was standard cheesy action fantasy fare, but due to some seriously over the top battle scenes, rapid fire plot, amusing characters, and generally caffinated demeanor, it was just plain fun to watch. Not deep, not cool, not even close to good, but fun. If you enjoy barely serious fantasy, frantic action, or just have seen enough epic tales that take themselves too seriously, you might well have discovered a diamond in the rough with this one.

None

Rates :

-3- Just plain fun.

Genre :

Semi-serious Fantasy Action (Action)

In It :

Frantic Swordfights
Almost Mass Combat
Dragons
Magic
Fantasy
Parody (well, of sorts)

Break Down :

Fairly violent, but it all goes by really quickly. Would probably be a PG, maybe a PG-13.

Violence:
3--A fair amount of gore, but it's practically in fast forward.

Nudity:
0--Zip.

Sex:
0--Nada.

Language:
0--Really nothing.

Availability :

Translated by Media Blasters. Two OAVs cut together into a singe video, available either subtitled or dubbed. About 50min.

AnimeNation and RightStuf probably both have this video if you want to buy it.

Cast :

No Info. Provided