Review: DRAGONS DOGMA Is Trying Way Too Hard
Whenever a person is trying too hard to impress others, they come off very silly, cringe-worthy, and somewhat immature. Dragon’s Dogma feels like a teenager who snuck into an adult cocktail party that is saying too many curse words, being too vulgar, and trying to talk about deep and profound things while ending up looking quite ridiculous. I found the animation and some parts of the story and connection to the game’s lore to be fairly nice, but all the other components and philosophical parts of it were too excessive to excuse.
I have not played Dragon’s Dogma, but I have done some research on it, watched various lore videos and summaries of the gameplay and story. I see where the anime was coming from, and fans of the game might appreciate the deeper aspects of the anime a bit more. And it seems like the game had a greater reason for the depth in psychological and spiritual endeavors by fully exploring those ideas of sin, pride, and obsession. But the anime rushed and overly simplified too many of these ideas so much that the deeper meanings and allegories were lost.
The best thing about this whole anime is the animation itself. Between great camera angles, smooth character animation, and some creative character models, action scenes were the most entertaining aspect. The worst part of the animation was the facial expressions and lip-synching. Their faces are constantly showing one emotion while their tone and words are conveying other things. Also, the words barely match the lips in general anyway; it often looks like a dub, even though it isn’t. I found the actual Japanese dub to fit the expressions and tone of the story far better than the original English. So if you really want to watch the show, and are fine with reading subtitles, the Japanese dub may be a better choice.
As I mentioned in the introduction, this show, and the video game both deal with a lot of mature themes. They both deal with the seven deadly sins, but it's never explained in the anime (only a tiny bit at the end) and comes off as a cheap trope to try and engage the audience instead of actual substantive plot and philosophy. It’s really obvious and almost laughable how much the anime and writers were trying to be cool with naming each episode after a deadly sin. But after the first and second episodes, it was painfully predictable what would happen, almost to the point of parody.
While I am being hypercritical of the show and its writing, the animation and some story elements are actually quite good. If you are okay with a surface-level story, rough voice acting, and cool violence, then sure, this show will be okay to watch. But I personally found the show to be throwing every “mature” and “cool” thing at me to have me engage, which in turn made the anime silly, immature, and mostly forgettable.
