Hello everyone and welcome The Anime Pulse: First Reaction. On tap this time is an anime created by Gen Urobochi of Fate/Zero and Madoka Magica fame as well as Ryohgo Narita of Durarara!! fame. When you put those two together… you get Chaos Dragon: Skeiryuu Seneki.
General Overview
Set in the year 3015, Donatia and Kouran are two countries fighting each other for supreme and total glory! They wish to control everything and in the middle of it all is a nation called Nil Kamui. In Nil Kamui resides Ibuki… a young boy who is to become the king, however, he doesn’t want to because he believes if there is no king, there will be no fighting.
First Episode Reaction
Cute characters?
Check.
Shounen-style beginning that’s made for everyone?
Check.
Gen Urobochi giving not a care in the world and just murdering everything and everyone in the first episode?
Check.
Ah, Gen.. stay classy, sir. So Ibuki is a young, innocent boy, who doesn’t wish to become king and decides to head to the market with his best friend Mashiro. Before embarking on this little innocent errand, an older boy named Fugaku enters the room and butters up to Ibuki, convincing him to take the king’s ceremonial sword with him to the marketplace just to show people that there is still the resemblance of a king in the country. Ibuki, like a fool, agrees.
Even before Fugaki turned his face away and gave the evil sneer, I KNEW that it was a ploy and sweet, innocent Ibuki fell for it hook, line, and sinker. When he gets to the market, members of the Kouran military are transporting the legendary Dragon Eye through the village, claiming it has the power to destroy the Black Dragon. Lady Koukan, General of a 5000 Man Kouran army, spots Ibuki and his sword, saying that it’s forbidden to be carrying a weapon.
Things are about to go down when Fugaku and a band of revolutionaries show up and then the murdering happens.. including a woman carrying a baby in her arms… right in front of Ibuki! During the scuffle, Ibuki locates and finds the Dragon Eye, but Mashiro gets her chest sliced open by Kouretsu, or as I refer to him as, Fat Bastard. Mashiro isn’t dead and Ibuki is able to escape with her to a chapel where the Red Dragon inside the eye wants to make a pact with Ibuki.
What is it with Gen Urobochi and pacts!?
Anyway… Ibuki is told that his wish will be granted. He says he wants to save everyone. The dragon says if that’s his wish then it has been heard, only you need to offer a sacrifice for it. The Red Dragon controls Ibuki’s body and then jams the ceremonial sword right into Mashiro’s back, killing her right in front of Ibuki’s eyes!.
Fat Bastard enters the room and Ibuki hurls magical fire at him and roasts him alive. At the end we meet a cat girl from the resistance named Eiha and she says she wants to be Ibuki’s guardian and, yep, that’s pretty much it for that episode.
Definitely an interesting start, but for some reason, I can see this show falling apart. It started off as a tabletop RPG that turned into a Light Novel series and then an anime adaptation. Ibuki seems like that typical reluctant trope without a spine unless the dragon inside him is doing something. I believe we’re going to get treated to a lot of indecisiveness, ignorance, and a lot of Eiha saving Ibuki’s ass over the remaining 11 episodes.
I don’t know if this will be everyone’s cup of tea, but I like RPGs and it has my attention for now. The art style seems a bit rough, too. The CG is pretty obvious, and that’s something I’m going to touch on in some of my other First Reactions as the season goes on because there were a lot of shows with OBVIOUS CG that just didn’t look right. At least the visuals are pretty… not CoMix Wave or ufotable pretty, but they’re pretty nevertheless.
OP & ED Impressions
Opening
“ISOtone” by Natsumi Kon
There was no official opening or ending to the show, but I believe this was the song played during Ibuki’s battle with Kouretsu at the end of the episode. It sounds like your typical mainstream J-Rock track with a female vocal. I’ve heard Natsumi Kon’s music before and it doesn’t sound anything drastically different than what you expect to hear from her. Still a nice song though that I’ll probably end up getting.
Ending
“Delta Decision” by Eiha (Miyuki Sawashiro), Lou (Maaya Uchida), Meryl (Haruka Terui)
I’m not sure if they played this during the ending credits, but any time you have a theme song, Opening or Ending, sung by the seiyuu of the show, very rarely does it work out. The one big exception to that was LiSA and Girls Dead Monster from Angel Beats. I’ll have to watch Episode 2 to see if the song that was played was the ending or if it’s something completely different, though.
Worth Watching?
MAYBE – Too early to tell here. The first episode seems good, but we’ll see if the series can hold up.
