Seikoku no Dragonar in anime form, so far at least, feels a lot more like Zero no Tsukaima than I would have expected going in. And I mean that as a compliment. I can only speak for myself, but within the first 30 seconds I was immersed in this anime. Everything from the surprisingly good art and character design to the atmosphere and music really helps to pull the viewer in.
Suffice to say, this show has a shot at being the rarest of ecchi series- one that is actually a good anime. It’s early and many bad anime have been known to start strong, but if the series is this much fun throughout it’s the kind of show I’d recommend to friends, even my non-ecchi fan friends. I’d recommend checking out the first episode at least and decide for yourself if it’s your cup of tea. If like me you love shows like Slayers and Zero no Tsukaima then this should be up your alley.
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The seiyuu cast is mostly full of newcomers, but there are some noteworthy veterans among the supporting group.
Later on the impossible to not like Kana Hanazawa will voice Jessica Valentine, which hopefully won’t be as minor of a role as it was in the manga. Hanazawa and Inoue of course both starred in FREEZING as Rana and Chiffon respectively.
Ayane Sakura plays Silvia Lautreamont, the huffy tsundere princess type blonde who is the main focus of this first episode. Sakura has been in nude ecchi a few times before, playing Akane (the main character) in Vividred Operation and Miyabi Kannagi in Nakaimo. Funny enough, she also played trap character Gaspar in High School DxD.
To my slight surprise, Rie Kugimiya was not tabbed for Louise super-look-alike Eco, instead they got Mariya Ise, who is relatively new to ecchi (she voiced the criminally under-utilized Syria from the Maken-Ki series). We only hear one word from Eco in this episode and it’s in the ending song. To my ear it sounds like she’s doing a dere-mode Louise impersonation.
Okay then, now the important stuff.
There’s not one bit of obvious “steam” type censorship in this episode, and I expect that’s how this series will go. If we do get nudity, it will likely be by redraw or by the “paste on nipples” route taken by animes like OniAi and Nakaimo.
The first episode will likely be nude-free on BD, unless you count the next episode trailer. It does, however, have a lot of quality soft-service and a few sneaky opportunities for changes on BD.
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| You have to look close to see it, but there appears to be some panty shot darkening here, a popular tactic among ecchi series recently. Whether we get nipple sightings in later episodes or not is a different story, but it’s nice to know that BD changes of some sort are likely to be had. |
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| AWWWWWWWWW |
ED sequence
Next episode trailer
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| This is quite nice. But I wonder, where did her nipples go? |
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| Yup, blank boobs confirmed. I would have felt more at ease with white lines but there is always a chance for redraws later. |
Gifs
Now, a few things to keep in mind about this anime.
First, it’s produced by C-Station, their very first solo production effort ever. As a company they specialize in assistant production, and they actually co-produced Okami-san and Her Seven Companions alongside JC Staff a few years ago. But seeing as they have such a blank slate, it’s really hard to get any kind of read on what their philosophy is on nudity. Usually newer companies are not as averse to it as they have less to worry about losing in terms of reputation or brand.
Second, the manga is full of nudity, especially for the main character Eco who is constantly naked. That said, nipples don’t appear in the manga until the tail end of the first volume, and none of the other characters show the goods until the end of volume two.
Basically, that means you shouldn’t worry too much if the early episodes are non-nude. The manga is a little inconsistent with Eco too, drawing her chest blank early on before drawing the nipples in during the later chapters. It’s possible the first BD could be non-nude, while the remaining volumes have nudity, and it would be 100% true to the manga in doing so.
Of course, it’s also possible that this anime just remains non-nude. This series is actually looking like a good anime so far, and in recent times quality mainstream anime have been hesitant to go nude on BD for the most part.
Either way, I really enjoyed the first episode and look forward to the rest of the series, whether it proves to be pure tease or not.
Off topic: Yuushibu volume four and Strike the Blood volume two finally hit the interwebs today (arearaw.com). I hope to have a review up for the contents of those BDs some time later this week.
