FIF#127-Drifting Dragons

High above the skies, Dragons roam free, unchecked and unchallenged.  To combat their increasing numbers, aerial crews are sent across the land to battle the Dragons.  The mission is simple: Kill them, then get ready to sell them for profit to a hungry populace.  The Quinn Zaza is one of the few remaining ships left in this business and her crew is second to none.  Among them is Mika, a man fascinated with defeating Dragons so he can cook them and eat to his hearts content.  In a business where failure means death, that kind of crazy might be the key to survival.

Drifting Dragons is…an interesting one.  I wasn’t sure what to gleam of it from the preview images beyond it being 3DCG characters on blimps battling Dragons in the sky, which sounds pretty cool (except for the 3DCG stuff, seriously Netflix stop trying to help make this a thing in Anime).  I didn’t expect the show to turn into How to Eat Your Dragon…cause that’s essentially what the premiere episode boiled down to.

There’s just so much bizzarness to Drifting Dragons right out of the gate.  You’ve got the Blimp/Steampunk aesthetic of Last Exile coupled with the epic Dragon clashes that feel lifted from Attack On Titan.  And then suddenly the main character, a creepy dude named Mika, is brimming with joy at the prospect of kicking the crap out of a Dragon so he can eat it.  You know I joke that Eren Jaeger from Attack On Titan is only keeping his “friends” around incase he needs them for food in his quest for revenge on Titans.  Mika looks so ready to kill and eat it’s a little unsettling, even more so that main female lead Takita seems so infatuated with Mika and his Dragon munchies mindset.  But dammit…somehow Mika makes sizzling Dragon meat look like the most delicious entrée ever conceived in what’s easily the most baffling and yet best scene of the premiere.

So we have a kingdom where Dragons…if you want to call them that, fly the skies and are hunted down for various food related reasons: mostly selling and cooking.  The Dragons look less like Dragons and more like some random space creature taken from Mass Effect or Destiny, certainly not the traditional Record of Lodoss War Medieval style creatures we’re used to.  They’re not the only abnormal creatures around.  Like I said, this is another 3DCG Anime that Netflix really wants to push on the world.  I will say that every characters facial expressions do look handdrawn and are the best part of their designs.  Their actual bodies continue the 3DCG Anime trope of being stiff when moving and looking just plain unfinished.  I get needing some digital magic for a Dragon.  But for human characters…there’s a reason this style of Anime has very few fans. 

Dragon meat may look delicious but I’m probs not going to carry on with Drifting Dragons.  Mika is too creepy and his fellow Dragon Slayers don’t feel the least bit engaging or original.  Simply, this is a far more lighthearted version of Attack On Titan where Eren Jaeger gets to smile a bit more and eat his prey…at least someones happy?  Kid’s a solid cook though…too bad he’s too psycho for my tastes.