Have you ever seen an anime that has style and art but lacked substance? Surely you have but... but have you ever seen an anime where art and the style triumphs despite the lack of a very solid story? I am sure there are some out there but this time around, let me tell you an experience I didn't think I would even document.

Dragon's Heaven OVA starts off where our main protagonist, a sentient robot that is in the middle of the war. His partner, or rather the pilot that works in tandem with him has just been killed a with such, the protagonist decided to stay behind and hibernate since his fellows started to retreat as the war is nearing it's end. A thousand years after the war, he woke up from his slumber after detecting life in the form of a female human.

Right away, they got to know one another; albeit weirdly to my standards. And he asks about the existence of his nemesis since he knew that he should be alive at this moment. The female companion didn't know if she knew that said robot but she did heard that the name of the general of a very strong force bears similarities to him and such, our protagonist hypothesizes that he must be the enemy he is looking for.

The next day, our protagonist robot asked the female companion if she has learned everything about him and as much, she replied that she does since she came from a family that does handle machine work. Later that night, they were greeted by the enemy force who were about to destroy the nation where they reside and our MC and the female companion decided to intercept them which resulted to them winning the battle without much any resistance. Our MC however got damaged during that engagement.

The next day, his arch-nemesis arrived but was intercepted by the female companion which resulted in a large scale damage of the enemy fleet. She was now equipped with a power armor to suite with the fighting style of our robot protagonist. Surprisingly, the enemy survives and tries to negotiate with the female companion to give him the weapon that destroyed their fleet but she refuses as she blows them all up to pieces.

The robot MC arrives as he received the distress signal from his female companion and then, they had a one-on-one showdown with his long-time enemy and in the end, he won the fight while sustaining moderate damage (or light since there wasn't much any dent from him anyways).

In the end, both the robot and his female companion goes back to the city.
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Dragon's heaven certainly has suffer from a terrible fate of being badly written. The robot MC was made to be piloted by a human and such it's potential can be reached if he had a partner to work with but likewise, in the end; he defeated his nemesis by just shooting at him making his statement unnecessary in the end.

Likewise, The concept and the designs of the robots themselves are quite amazing and spectacular. The animation quality is totally something that modern studios cannot replicate at this day and age given how consistent the art is (asides from the changing hair color of the female companion).

This show, which has been elevated itself to the realms of anime that looks good but does lack in the story department. but likewise, imagine if they got a competent writer who can make it work? this would be a rather exquisite work of art.

Likewise, while I am the type of reviewer who heavily weighs my score more on story rather than the art, This one says otherwise as the premise itself is not too bad, the execution is just a bit bad at worst. You can say that this show is a product of someone's overly passionate love for building robots.

You can watch the OVA in Youtube.

You can also blame Kenny Lauderdale for making me watch this, but I am thankful for this nice recommendation.

Score: 8/10

Dragon’s Heaven (1988)

Two things about the Dragon’s Heaven OVA stand out most, I think – first being the live-action, scale-model opening, and the second being the Moebius-influenced style of manga artist Makoto Kobayashi, upon whose work this OVA is based.

As usual, I can’t discuss the quality of this anime as an adaptation, but the story is a straight-forward war story told very quickly, with a lot of action and attention paid to the robots.

What caught my eye most was definitely visual style, with the anime’s designs right after. That isn’t to say that the characters don’t work, but with only 20-odd minutes of animation, the time is mostly spent on scene-setting and battles. There are a few passages devoted to dialogue, ones that function beyond exposition, but for the most part I think Dragon’s Heaven excels at the visuals. (As many OVAs can).

Above, I do mention “battles” but they’re usually a little short – you could say that some are pretty much explosions because the ‘dragon’s fire’ that main characters Shaian and Ikuuru use is really mammoth stuff.

Speaking of Ikuuru, she reminded me of a more snarky Nausicaa in some ways, but like her partner, she doesn’t have a character arc or a whole lot of impact beyond the confines of the plot.

While the detail and care that has gone into the models at the beginning of the OVA is very clear, I don’t know if Dragon’s Heaven would have suffered without it. On the other hand, that’s part of what’s so fun about the era – creators seemed more able to just try stuff out.

And finally, it’s interesting to have a largely non-human cast, and both hero Shaian and villain Elmedain have designs that seem unlike a lot of other robot-focused anime, but I think you might be disappointed if you seek this OVA out hoping for a multi-faceted story.

Instead, I think it’s worth seeing at least once anyway – just for the art design and animation alone, and I definitely add this to my list of anime where I wish there had been more.

4 Stars

So, apparently this review was too short until I added the useless paragraph that you're reading right now!

Okay, that's not enough either - here's some more:

An OVA can be:

• An animated film or series made for release on video, rather than for broadcast/theatrical screening

• Generally, high budgets that can mean visual qualities are better than a typical television series

• No fixed length, nor broadcast time-constraints when it comes to storytelling

• To some extent, created outside regulation – and so they have a reputation for ‘anything goes’ when it comes to restricted content

• Often (but certainly not always) based on original scripts, rather than being adaptations

• Long wait times between episodes/installments for some OVAs

• First OVA to be described as such was 1983’s Dallos from Mamoru Oshii

• The ONA (Original Net Animation) is an obvious more modern equivalent

If there's one thing that I've learnt over the course of the past few years, it's that OVAs, whether they wind up being terrible or great, are usually the result of pure, undistilled, unadulterated passion. The kind of devotion to art, fun, props, that creates new concepts, immense machinery, entire worlds, and a true love letter to any and all kinds of narrative media.

The Dragon's Heaven OVA is an 1988 adaptation of the 1986 manga by Makoto Kobayashi. If you've looked up some of the images, you'll probably immediately notice that the artstyle feels very familiar, and that's natural: Dragon's Heaven is a hommage to early Hayao Miyazaki works, as well as the works of fairly obscure yet very appreciated (in the right circles) French cartoonist Jean "Mœbius" Giraud, author of several works of sci-fi who became a big influence among some famous Japanese mangaka (including Jiro Taniguchi and Go Nagai) and who would even take part in certain very popular works of fiction, like Alien or Masters of the Universe.

These are some big influences if I may say so, and while I have yet to take a look at the original media, this OVA left absolutely not doubt in my mind: as soon as the corny, goofily theatrical display of the real life animatronic props that are meant to represent the fight between Shaian and El Medine comes to an end, we're treated to some downright gorgeous, detailed artstyle with this very organic, almost Western feeling that reminds you of Nausicäa or Heavy Metal while never feeling like a cheap knockoff. In fact, the sakuga never falters in this short work, and those very outlandish environments illustrated with pure shading awesomeness, as well as some very appreciated grain during the flashbacks/historical perspectives, certainly are a boon for any person sensitive to aesthetics and beauty.
One thing to note in particular is the robots' designs. While Shaian is closer to your average mecha/robot from the 80s, El Medine's appearance is very much unusual, with its abnormally large head, its tendrils and small claws, feels more "bug-like", or at least crustacean in essence. The contrast is certainly striking and could have been used to denote the technological differences between two empires. Alas, there was no time for that.

If the visuals are certainly a reason to watch this OVA, the same cannot be said of basically any narrative part of this work, unfortunately. I should just be honest: no matter how much I enjoyed this OVA (and I did), it is simply too lacking in the story and characters departments for me to give a very good mark in good conscience. In fact, it's ESPECIALLY because the base of this work is so appealing and the overall product could have been so much more that it is even more of a shame that they stopped so fast. When it comes to characters, we really have only 3 of them: our robotic protagonist and star of the show, Shaian, who seems to have a gentlemanly, noble personality with a strong sarcastic side. Our human protagonist is Ikuuru, a young, brash, sexy girl who's a bit of a Daredevil. It's hard to say whether or not they have a good chemistry but it did look like they could have been a nice cop duo, with a bit of "romance" on the side. The third main character is El Medine, Shaian's worst enemy and nemesis. Having been active for the past millennium, it's become a strong robot working for the "Brazilian empire", and is a conniving individual but proud enough to underestimate its foes. Again, there hasn't been much in terms of events for me to talk about, that's just how it is.

Dragon's Heaven is the perfect example of the average passion project, with a lot of amateurism, probably not a lot of budget, and yet so much love poured into it and there's no more obvious sign of that than the aforementioned introduction sequence. This one was very much inspired by other Japanese live-action and American movies' use of practical effects. And even if you don't buy it not even a second, you can't help but find it charming. Seemingly, this intro was made entirely on director Kobayashi's decision, vision and personal dime (as we can see in the making of) in order to bring his own paper creation to life. Such corny, otaku-style, almost chuunibyou-like presentation were not unusual back during that time, as evidenced by other creators such as none other than Anno Hideaki himself and his old, amateur Return of Ultraman movie. These people truly loved the craft, the tech, the feelings, no matter how silly they were, or perhaps BECAUSE it all looked so silly. Times have changed, the technology has changed, filmmaking has changed, our standards have changed, but I believe it'd be disrespectful to not acknowledge their passion as they made the thing they truly wanted to make, and were happy about it.

All in all, it'd be stupid to ignore Dragon's Heaven just because it didn't leave a mark on the OVA landscape or isn't fleshed out. Who knows, maybe watching this will spur you to go back to that one amateur project you'd been working on but put aside for XYZ reason(s). Sometimes, a good concept and enough heart are just what you need to proceed to the next level.