Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai

Dai's story is that of a pretty basic shonen. Being dragon quest in anime form, it shares some similarities with the dragon ball in art style and Dai's initial character. --Naive boy with mysterious powers is visited by a girl who sends him on an adventure-- The territory is pretty familiar but the lively cast and dragon quest style keep this manga a fun enough romp. Story: 4/10 Like i said, pretty standard stuff here. Dai and his party have to defeat the demon lord's army. They typically fight one commander at a time while honing their abilities. There are neat swerves in these fights and thestory does a decent job at making everything seem like an impossible threat that our heroes need to overcome. The characters mainly keep the plot from dulling. It's also a little lopsided, the final arc is very long (over 100 chapters or like 1/3rd of the series) but the other 2/3rds consisting of the fights against the commanders goes relatively fast. Your mileage with an arc will vary depending on how much you like the villain. //light spoilers// A lot of my issues come in that this series really doesn't want to kill it's characters. Even when death flags are constantly being thrown. My biggest issue though is with the ending. A lot of plot threads are just left hanging. An "event" happens in the last chapter that feels really out of nowhere and makes me wish that there was another epilogue chapter. (I'm particularly mad about ships being tossed to the side.) // Art: 6/10 Nothing terrible here. In the beginning you can see a shift as they more solidly identify the style of this manga, but it's typically not bad just different. The character designs are fun and soft. It helps that everyone can fall into an rpg role because the designs do a good job telling you what a character is like. The art during action is generally easy to read but it lacks the fluidity of the similar dragon ball. The 2020 anime ups the art in spades so search up some of those fight scenes if you're interested. Character: 8/10 The best part of the manga EZ. The characters have very distinctive personalities and designs to reflect this. Dai is your kiddie main character, Pop is your funny, and resourceful coward, etc etc. Again they are a little trite for shonen but their personalities shine through their relationships with each. Even later in the series, characters will have this charming sense of camaraderie. It's a lot of "this character acts differently around this character and this character respects this one but is related to this one" it's nice and it emphasizes how close and likable these characters are. The character growth is also noteworthy. Characters pretty much start as how you'd expect but throughout the story we're given little instances of growth and complexity. Dai has these great little moments where he starts to question himself and what a hero is. Dai has doubts and moments where people fear him. And it really helps the believability of his character. Even villains, specifically Hadlar are interesting to me because of how they develop. But I'd be remiss not to talk about Pop in this section regarding growth. Pop literally becomes my favorite character because of how much he changes. And the story goes lengths to give Pop his moments in the sun. It really feels like he's the protagonist at times and honestly the story is better for it. Pop is great. Overall: 6/10 At 349 chapters, 19 pages each, it's not the shortest series but it's doable. I had a good time with this series. It isn't going to change your life, but if you like shonen similar to dragonball, it's a fun romp. p.s. I recommend the 2020 anime over the manga. The colorful palette and slick fight animation elevate this story up a tier. But at the time of writing the anime isn't close to finishing soo ya know.