Review: DOTA: DRAGON'S BLOOD Gives a Sweet, Small Taste of the Game's World
Between this series and the popularity and success of the Castlevania anime, I’m starting to believe that the best way to expand a video game franchise is through animated television. DOTA: Dragon’s Blood is a great show and starts this fantasy universe but falls a bit short in making it feel exclusively DOTA 2.
There are a lot of strong things here: the animation, the characters, and the presentation. Studio Mir, who also worked on The Legend of Korra, the Netlfix Voltron series, and The Boondocks, has done a fine job of mixing 3-D monster models and its characters. The action scenes and animations are all fluid, brutal, and thrilling to watch. I do wish that there was a little bit more uniqueness in the characters’ designs and costumes, but overall everything is aesthetically pleasing. The characters throughout the show are nice introductions to the heroes from the game, but there isn’t much actual character development. Also, a number of the supporting characters feel shallow and unexplored. The dynamics between characters and their initial personalities are awesome, however, real development and change could’ve gone a long way. The eight episodes present an interesting story and a quick-moving plot. But I think a more focused and fully realized beginning and ending would have helped the season be more complete.
As good as all these things are, a major problem with this season is the general shallowness of the lore, characters, and relationships. The DOTA 2 lore has an incredible breadth. There is such a wide variety of creatures, heroes, villains, entities, and factions that it’s surprising that this show focuses basically on two groups of people, one type of monster, and only a few heroes from the game. I can understand not wanting to make things too complicated for viewers and the show as a whole, but the season didn’t seem to do justice to the game’s expansive and deep amount of lore. Hopefully, in later seasons we would see lots of other heroes, more complex relationships, and bigger battles. Another issue is that as straightforward as the plot points were, none of them felt quite compelling or big enough to carry season; they all felt like side plots that were fighting for the limelight.
As a standalone season of TV, it’ll be easy for people to stay engaged in this slice of fantasy anime. But in the context of the greater DOTA universe, I could see fans feeling underwhelmed by the small amount of actual content here. Hopefully, a lot more of the actual game will come out in later seasons, but as for now, we can be happy with this sweet taste of the DOTA world in an animated territory.
