Back to BitterFloof's Profile BitterFloof's Profile

To start off, this isn’t a bad movie and it’s also not a good movie either. It’s just sort of what you expect from Fairy Tail – magic, fighting, fanservice and Natsu taking the limelight. So, that ultimately just puts it into the okay to ‘meh’ pile for me. Which is almost kind of a shame because Fairy Tail, as a world, does have so much to offer but it mostly played it safe with its story and characters. In the end, it’s a pretty standard plot and nothing special to be honest. Which brings me back to it being a competent film – it’s ... competent in its writing, animation, acting and editing. I for sure wouldn’t go around recommending it however. Mostly because, at the end of the day, it’s still just another Fairy Tail film.

So what is good about it then? Well, for one the animation is almost insultingly good. A-1 pictures makes some damn good looking anime (just take Black Butler, AnoHana, Tsuritama, Your lie in April and ERASED for example) so beef up that already good animation to a movie budget and Fairy Tail looks amazing – it’s fight scenes are smooth, the colours are dynamic and the lighting is perfect. It makes for one enjoyable visual experience. So, at least out of everything, you still get a film that is nice looking.

The second, and perhaps most important thing about Dragon Cry, is that it remembered canon! Which is a huge deal when you consider other anime films that tie into a continuing series – most take place in a sort of blob of ambiguity with a little tie here and there to remind you when it takes part in the story without referencing specific events. Dragon Cry doesn’t do that; it makes sure you know when exactly the story takes place by making specific references to events which is awesome actually! Dragon Cry takes place post-Tartaros arc but pre-Alverez (thank god) and because of this makes use of Lucy’s stardress transformations, Gray’s Demon Slaying abilities and Carla’s transformations. It’s refreshing to have that in there because I went into that film hoping to see something like that – so I wasn’t disappointed.

However, that’s about it for the good parts of the film. Because, sadly, it gets bogged down by Fairy Tail’s ongoing problems but I won’t go into much detail here about some. Though, I certainly will address the fanservice – because god how obnoxious it is – and if it’s unnecessary in the series, it sure was unnecessary in the film. Could have been perfectly done without it. But I’m getting off track here. What else let Dragon Cry down? Well, for one the villains – they were just generic and disposable, for the most part. They didn’t add much other to push the plot along and the ‘big bads’ of the film were only threatening until they didn’t need to be and were quickly disposed of – as per usual. Also, the inclusion of Gajeel and Juvia (yeah, they were in this film) felt very unnecessary – they really didn’t add anything to the film at all and could have very easily been left out and not much would have changed. Juvia was really only there for ‘comedy’ regarding her looking for Gray – which is funny for about five minutes before it becomes tedious.

Dragon Cry is a messy film with some flimsy ties to canon – but even then, I can’t really say not to see it. I wouldn’t recommend it (unless you’re a die hard Fairy Tail fan) but it’s also not awful. So, if you like well animated films with some comedy and, honestly not bad fight scenes and can get past Fairy Tails’ many glaring flaws. I’d say check it out, otherwise give it a miss. It’s nothing special.

There is a reason why this is hailed as one of the anime greats. Because it is. I, perhaps, took much longer to watch this series than I should have done (honestly it took me three attempts to watch the whole thing through) and I can't say that I regret watching it. In fact, I regret not watching it earlier. Even though I will never say that I am a Mecha fan, I can safely say that Gurren Lagann is something special.

Even though it's nearly 10 years old (at the time of writing it's 10 year anniversary is only 4 days away) it stands the ... test of time. With a unique story and strong characters it is rocketed above many new anime and buries itself inside the hearts of many and I can totally understand why. As one of those series that people tend to recommend - it has to be something special and Gurren Lagann is something special. It's an experience from start to finish and definitely not one to pass up.

If you're looking for some good anime nostalgia, a good mecha series or just something different to watch - I could not highly enough recommend Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann!

If the full DMMD anime had just taken this route and just went 'screw the majority' and pandered to the original fans of DMMD instead of trying to market to a wider audience - it would have likely would not have garnered as much hate as it does.

However, that's not what happened and the majority will always rule, that's how demographics work. So to have this little OVA giving a short nod to each of the bad endings of the game is a nice attempt to gain a little favour from the fans of the game. Sure, it's not quite a violent, dark or explicit ... (because let's face it, they'd never get away with that). It's still an obvious attempt to try and fix what was broken. At least a little bit.

Is it any good: kind of.

It's better than the anime. Simply because it's closer to the original tone of the game. However, it's still not great since the anime it's coming from the back of, doesn't really tie into how each of the bad endings occur and pan out since it is a multi-route game and you cannot fit a multi-route game into a 12 episode anime. It just doesn't work like that.

It's not fair to hate this OVA simply because it's parent anime was bad. It tried - it really did. So take it for what it is, a small nod to some of the darkest aspect of DRAMAtical Murder which the anime would never touch in the watered down product that we got.

Overall: 6/10

I'm probably going to be one of the few people who finds this anime to be mediocre at best - particularly as it seems to have been welcomed with open arms into the anime community and hailed as something unique and groundbreaking. Which I feel it isn't. Now don't get me wrong, I do like the anime - it just didn't strike the same cord with me that shows such as Free! or Haikyuu!! did for example.

First thing's first - I'll go over what I enjoy about the show first:

- It is an insanely pretty show but that's to be expected from the gloss kings ... themselves: Brain's Base. The animation is very nice, I will give it that. It's colourful, it's eye-catching and energetic which really fits the tone of the show and is used to its advantaged. Brain's Base know how to make shows look nice and Cheer Danshi looks amazing

- Secondly the voice cast is really good - I'll give particularly props to Okamoto Nobuhiko who does an excellent job as Kazuma (honestly what is it with this guy and playing excited sports fanatics). The rest of the cast do an excellent job in giving their respective characters the voices that look as though they would fit but it doesn't quite save the characters - but I'll come back to that later.

- Finally the story is not that half bad, it's nothing ground breaking other than it's about an all male cheerleading squad. The whole 'characters must come together to create a team and overcome obstacles which may come their way' has been done loads of times before. But I can forgive it because it's hard to do any other way and to be perfectly honest, it is done well. You can get wrapped up in the concept and that's perfectly passable.

Now onto the less enjoyable bit - where does the series fall flat?

- I said before that I liked the voice actors but it didn't save the characters and what I mean by this is that I feel like the characters are not defined enough. This is going to be a show with a large cast, you can see it in the opening, but I have a hard time remembering the characters names besides Haru, Kazuma and Ton. That's not good for a show with lots of characters - you need your characters to stand out but for some reason the characters in Cheer Danshi all seem to fold together with the exception of - like I said before - Haru, Kazuma and Ton. But that's just who I remember. I understand that it's still the beginning and there's time for the characters to progress and gain their own identities - as such I will wait and see.

- The pacing of the show feels a little rushed which is leading me to believe that it will be a 1 cours series with only 12/13 episodes - and that's not good. Unless it gets a second season, I feel like the show will end up being horribly rushed and not enough expanded on. Sometimes a fast pace can be good but when you have to introduce characters gradually, then it can be a downfall. Again I do understand that it is still the beginning of the series and it's yet to be announced how many episodes the series will have but it's just a guess. Perhaps the pacing issues will be resolved later but right now events all seem to collide and it pushes the pacing along at too fast a rate. Hopefully it will be a 2 cours show with 25/26 episodes or multiple seasons because fast pacing can be excused.

Over all, I do like the show. It might seem like I don't but I feel like there are flaws with it. I don't think it's really anything new or groundbreaking but it's a nice change from other sports series that don't rely on off the wall plot twists (Kuroko, I'm looking at you). I won't say it's got quite the heart that Haikyuu has or the character likeability that Free has - but there is still time and perhaps my opinion will change.

And to that I say - we have to wait and see!