Chaos Dragon: Sekirjú sen'eki

Sometimes Chaos Dragon: Sekiryuu Sen'eki is quite horrendous, although, at other times, there are some pleasant surprises. I did not like the animation too much, and I thought the CGI dragon was just awful. It has a pretty average narrative, although it has some interesting ideas, and I believe that with much better fleshing out and development, it could have been very good indeed. Unfortunately, I think the anime's creators made a mistake in their decision about how the narrative is presented. The shocking moments are not as shocking as they are supposed to be, the supposedly epic fights seem to have no real spark, the would-be complex ideas seem to lack depth, and I could not keep track of how many moments made me wonder "what the hell is that supposed to mean?". However, I think it had some potential, and I could imagine that a different director could have made a very good fantasy adventure with this same material and ideas. I think they could have benefitted from another point of view, and that is why it comes across to me as completely underdeveloped, which I think is a huge shame. I like the concept of "I am going to give you power, although I want something equally valuable in return," although I do not think that it is a positive thing when individual characters drop like flies. A couple of characters caught my attention (Eiha, Swallow, Meril, and Lou); however, I was not impressed with the main male protagonist. Furthermore, as with the show's narrative, I feel that the characters are also underdeveloped. While some of the characters are quite interesting, I do not think their potential is really exploited. I also found the soundtrack was rather mediocre, in my opinion, even though it did suit the show's atmosphere quite well. To sum it up, this show is an assortment of things where the story is badly told. It feels quite rushed, plus the plot is absolutely poorly developed; there are some insane twists, some interesting characters, and an ending that, while not outright bad, could not save my overall impression but rather only strengthen it. In other words, this anime series is not that good even though, at the same time, it is not completely terrible either. What saddens me the most is that it wasted its potential of being a very good anime series. 4/10. (09.07.2015)