Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai

Dragon Quest: Dai no Daibouken will remain in my heart as one of the best stories I've ever had the chance to experience. The adventure of Dai was a story of a young boy starting from nothing in order to become the hero who saves the world along with a cast of really memorable characters. With training and character development we see these characters grow over the course of the show, forming a sense of responsibility and overcoming their personal fears and desires. Their goal is to stop the commander of demon army Hadlar along with his lieutenants. We're introduced to this conflict really early onin the story and we come to see it expanding and reaching its climax in an EPIC final arc. All the villains are memorable with their own personalities and developments and a few well-placed plot twists, that you won't see coming, keep the action going and viewer investment to the maximum. The world is vastly expanded and helps the viewer immerse themselves in this fantasy setting. It also helps that the power system is really well balanced, completely devoid of plot-holes, as all characters feel just as strong as they need to be and all of the power-ups make sense and are mostly achieved through training. It never throws the power scaling off the window for the sake of a fight being more spectacular than it needs to. The Dragon Quest manga was one of the first shonen manga, establishing and solidifying the tropes we all know and love to see in today's modern shonen. It is an underrated classic gem that everyone needs to experience once in their life in anime.

This anime is crazy! everyone should see it. I assure you that it deserves a higher rating than the score you see above. 7.74 score? dude I can't believe it's so low. If you are looking for an anime that mixes battle, adventure, fantasy, friendship and love, Dragon Quest is perfect.Nowadays, and I had confirmation of this by reading the comments, you are almost looked down upon if you love simple anime like this. Nowadays people mainly like complicated anime, with particular plots... and yes, they are beautiful, but personally many of these haven't won me over as much as Dragon Quest. This animehas my heart. Here there are pure feelings such as friendship, atonement for sins, love, redemption, fun, never giving up, but above all adventure! For once, let yourself be carried away by these things, let yourself be carried away by this light but very beautiful anime! I'm happy that Dragon Quest finally had a worthy adaptation, unfortunately the historical anime was much inferior and above all incomplete...so I'm happy that this remake was done, otherwise I would never have seen this beautiful anime. In the 100 episodes, I've never been bored, and I admit it, I've cried, and I don't cry often for anime. Every time I finished one episode, I couldn't stop starting the next one. One thing I like about this anime is that all the characters, protagonists or not, enemies or not, have their own development and above all their own usefulness, no one is useless, not even the women, who are strong and courageous in this anime , another plus point considering that Dragon Quest is old. The strongest point of this anime, in addition to the adventurous spirit that pervades you, are definitely the characters. During the series they grow physically, mentally, emotionally. My favorite character is the character who progresses the most, becoming unrecognizable (it's literally like the main character). The series also has many plot twists, another point in favor. One thing that many might criticize is the perhaps excessive positivism of the series. I won't go into details, but those who have seen the last part of the series know what I'm referring to, some scenes happen in "illogical" ways but subjectively it didn't bother me, especially if we consider that Dragon Quest is an anime from the 80s, sometimes positivism is good. This anime moved me from start to finish, a wonderful adventure, when I saw the last episode I felt a void. My rate is 8.5 but, since there is no half-vote option, I give it 9. Absolutely see it!

Started this anime back in 2020 just because I wanted to see a show doing its fights well implementing both magic and sword-fighting THE RIGHT WAY (will not elaborate on this) and 2 years later I'm invested in it for entirely new and different reasons while the main motive was being kept at a super high quality throughout - Great premise, great story, great characters, great villains, great power progression, great power system, a fair bit of comedy, lighthearted and wholesome moments, a good share of amazing and inspirational moments, moments that really made you think, super high stakes, incredible struggles, the importance of friendships, relationships and bondsin general and how (with a little bit of actual magic) those can actually help you push through the toughest situations. - Overall this series is just fucking fantastic Only things that could have been better would be the OP and ED but whatever; those don't matter as much as the anime itself. It's like the cherry on top if they're bangers too. However my rating shouldn't be influenced by something like that. Also the visuals and lyrics do be doing a bit of foreshadowing and shit and the deeper in you are the more you'll understand what's happening which is awesome. - Dragon Quest: Dai no Daibouken (2020) or Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai is a wonderful example of a "modern" shounen done absolutely fucking right. It's exactly as its title says. It tells the story of Dai's adventure. A story with a beginning and an ending and a development throughout. Simple stuff really but the way it's executed is what makes it SO damn good. - So my score is definitely 10/10. For sure. - The sheer length and time investment (watching it weekly since the start) definitely helped me raise the rating. If it was a typical 12-episode or even 25-episode anime I don't think I'd be this invested in it or "obsessed" with it as much as I am right now.

Well, it’s finally over. 2 years and 19 days. It all went in a blink of an eye. The 2020 reboot of Dragon Quest: Dai no Daibouken was an anime that I can say now holds a special place in my heart. Hopefully, this review invokes my feelings of the show into you. I remember now at the end of the summer season in 2020 when I found out a Dragon Quest anime was coming in the autumn of that year and I was very excited. Not because I was aware of the original Dai no Daibouken (I was not) but because I amjust a big Dragon Quest fan in general, having grown up with DQ 7, 8 and 9, anything related to Dragon Quest got the dopamine receptors going. I was under the impression that they would adapt one of the stories from the mainline games but I was surprised that this was Dragon Quest with an original story. I’m going to go back and really push on this point of 2 years. It will help explain Dragon Quest’s positives in a second. Two years seems like a long time in this world, yet it goes by so quickly with so many things happening. I, as a person, have gone through quite a few shifts in life. In October 2020, I was just a first-year university student starting his computer science degree and while I wish I could say I was graduating in 2023, I’m still stuck while Dai’s Adventure is finished. So much other things have happened I’d rather not be explaining, it was a spiral of ups and downs, feelings of despair and happiness, reminiscent of Dragon Quest. Dragon Quest: Dai no Daibouken (I shall abbreviate as DQ from here on out) often found the heroes be completely beaten down by their enemies, big events happen and the heroes take massive hits. They could be minor setbacks or completely major setbacks but no matter what, the theme of hope and never giving up is the spirit of this series, something I required in life to keep moving forward and continue living life. The quest is never easy and no one should ever expect it to be but we must continue moving forward. Regardless of my quick message to never give up in life and keep going, I will not sit here and say that DQ changed my life. Realistically, it did not, but experiencing those certain themes of optimism, hope and perseverance, those are things everyone needs. Not only myself, but you, the reader needs as well. The characters use these themes to the positive development of their characters. Popp is the biggest example I can use here and he’s easily the best character in the series, despite the fact he starts out near the bottom. Popp at the beginning is simply a coward. He has the ideals but lacks the heart to fight. So badly, he abandoned his friends on more than one occasion. But see with Popp, he is a good person at heart and his good-nature caused him to realise that he can’t run forever and leaving his friends is essentially, a dick move from him. Popp never really reverts back to his former cowardly nature but he does have his moments of letting his emotions get to him, to the detriment of the heroes’ party. By the end of the series, he is the bastion of courage; easily one of the most useful members and someone who goes from being weak-minded and lacking in strength to having high mental fortitude and being top 5 in the series strength-wise. Hyunckel is in the same situation. Now I'm past my edgy emo phase so I’m not instantly attracted to lone-wolf, stoic, quiet characters like Hyunckel but what I do appreciate is his entire arc of trying to redeem himself from the dark side and fight for the light. If anyone has played Kingdom Hearts, Hyunckel is basically Riku in a nutshell. Unlike Riku, Hyunckel has a reckless, almost self-destructive mindset to get the job done and he views it as he’ll fight no matter what even if it kills him. “Why haven’t you spoke about the titular character Dai?” I was getting there. While Dai isn’t my favourite character, that still has to go to Popp, his character is still something to enjoy in this series and honestly, Dai is fun as hell. What works to Dai’s advantage is his age. He’s notably younger than most popular shounen protagonists so he’s overall much more kind-hearted and innocent. He also grew up without human contact for all of his life prior to the start of the series, having lived on an island inhabited by docile monsters. As the series goes on, Dai’s character and mindset is really challenged and for someone so young, he handles it marvellously. Dai even goes through his whole arc of “Am I really a hero? Can I handle this?” The pressure of being the hero, the person that will be the main factor to vanquish evil, the fate of the ENTIRE world rested upon the shoulders of a 12-year-old boy. All in all, Dragon Quest: Dai no Daibouken was a great watch for me. Even if you are not a DQ fan, this is still something that can be recommended to all. DQ is also one of Toei’s best animated shows and even with Wano One Piece airing during all of DQ’s running time, DQ doesn’t fall behind when it comes to big well-animated fights (though the CG could irk some). Does it do anything different from the norm in shounen? Not really. The themes in DQ can be found in any shounen. If I can say that, then what does Dragon Quest: Dai no Daibouken offer in the genre. That is simple. Just a feel-good story delivering themes of never giving up and showing that even the worst of people can be redeemed in the end.