Dragonaut: The Resonance, Complete Series Part 1

I know, I know you should never judge a book by its cover but even still I have to admit that Dragonaut -The Resonance'scover had me interested. And what's not to love about a cover that depicts a massive biomechanical dragon and a from-below view of a near-naked girl? Needless to say, I was a fan before the first episode. The show continues to dazzle with the material promised by the cover art but before we get into that, let's take a moment to look at the cold hard facts of this FUNimation release.

Spanning a pair of discs Dragonaut The Resonance Part 1 comes packaged in two thin packs within an outer cardboard slipcase and consists of episodes 1-13. The show comes in at a total runtime of 323 minutes and wears an appropriate TV 14 rating due to animated violence, a lot of clothed promiscuous adventure qualities, some near nudity and a whole lot of jiggling.

Language options are standard sub & dub with both an English dub (Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround) and original Japanese soundtrack (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo) & the choice of English subtitled if so inclined to turn them on.

Extras include textless opening and closing songs, and a host of fresh Funimation trailers.

The story itself goes something like this: Twenty years in the past, an asteroid enters our small solar system and completely destroys the small planetoid that we know as Pluto (well at least that's what we called it then). Due to Pluto's destruction, the asteroid, (Thanatos) has become lodged within Pluto's long orbit around our sun.

It turns out that Thanatos is not just some erratically flying chunk of rock as was initially believed and is in fact a living organism that's got earth in its targets for complete destruction next. Thanatos is actually home to a bunch of ultra powerful dragon-like beings that can conquer the void of space to invade planets with alarming destructive efficiency.

In order to give Earth a fighting chance against the inevitable threat, the International Solarsystem Development Agency (ISDA) develops a top-secret program labeled the D-Project, which hatches a dragon egg recovered from the ocean and uses the organism within as a powerful weapon for humanity. Long story short- we'll try to fight fire with fire (or dragon with dragon as the case may be).

The viewer follows the exploits of a teenage schoolboy named Jin Kamishina and the tale opens literally with a massive tragedy that is sure to grab the attention of even the most easily distracted observer.

If linear time lines happen to be your thing, you'll probably want to steer clear as we jump around the time continuum in this plot like a frog on a hot plate. The core of the tale actually takes place two years after the initial tragedy where a now 18-year-old Jin finds himself buried in conspiracy theory involved with the ISDA and their efforts to hatch/ prepare dragons for battle from the impending attack.

Helping him both to make sense of the madness (and saving his life nearly constantly) is Toa, a mysterious pink haired, well-endowed girl with a penchant for very short shorts.

If this all sounds good to you so far, let me burst your bubble slightly by saying that the tale works far better as a few written paragraphs than it does an epic anime saga as it attempts to be. Sadly in its delivery, Dragonaut is a very sundry blend of story elements that never fully finds itself (at least not in the first 13 episodes anyway). On the one hand you have the typical anime clichés such as the innocent but depressed kid who holds the key to humanity's salvation, the cast of adult women who jiggle from scene to scene with no apparent knowledge of the need for a bra, the mysterious yet bubbly (voluptuous) alien girl, and enough CGI dragons to give Peter Jackson a case of envy.

Aside from the superficial there are attempts at covert operations, conspiracy theories, alien invasions, space exploration, extraterrestrial technologies, human/ animal bonds, moon colonization, feuding agencies, teen angst, campy romance attempts, and even some "boy meets girl" teen melodrama. If this sounds like a full plate, believe me it is. Every once in a while a thread develops that delivers on the potential within but more often than not the prose feels pretty muddled.

The visuals are quite stunning as is par for the course with anime masters Gonzo (who collaborated with Nihon Ad Systems (NAS) on this one) with beautiful skies, a colorful pallet, nice animation and many CGI heavy intense battle sequences.

The dragons themselves remind me a bit of the models used in Heroic Age but the human/dragon bonding element harkens to something you might expect from a giant robot themed program.

The score is nice and crisp with some catchy J-Pop themes and upbeat tempos to compliment the action sequences.

In all Dragonaut The Resonance Part 1 is quite an ambitious property, maybe even too ambitious for its own good. There are hints of Vandread and Gundam buried within the dozens of clashing elements that never fully cement themselves into a continuous classification. The show certainly has its moments but unfortunately they are too few and far between to place it firmly into "must buy" status.