Dragons Archives | Otaku No Culture

In Dragonkeeper, Why Is There Only One Protector?

Part of the charm in Dragonkeeper is because of Ping. She’s a character whom some may associate with Ray from Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Dragonkeeper DVD Case — Available to purchase on Amazon USA

Shout! Studios

Ping (Lucía Pérez) is the Dragonkeeper, and if she’s to help Danzi (Mario Gas), an elder oriental dragon, she better learn how to train the next generation too! That’s because someone asked her to deliver an egg to a magical pool so it can hatch. As for whether this baby will bond to the human, that’d be saying too much.

Although the choice to have mostly European voices instead of Chinese for this production is very unusual, all I had to do was imagine Michelle Yeoh and James Hong’s voice over what’s heard. Technically, the British/Australian casting isn’t out of place when considering who wrote the book. Carole Wilkinson is an Australian whose series did quite well when it was released down under. I suspect the producers wanted to keep this flavour.

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My Father’s Dragon, More Than A Thoughtful and Magical Adventure

I can’t help but wonder if My Father’s Dragon should’ve been what PIXAR’s The Good Dinosaur wanted to become.

Now on Netflix

Elmer Elevator (Jacob Tremblay) is young and optimistic, but his mother Dela (Golshifteh Farahani) is worried about making ends meet in My Father’s Dragon. This animated fantasy is loaded with splendid production design, and Cartoon Saloon never fails to deliver. We are never told what happened to his father. It’s assumed he passed on and was the “breadwinner,” but since he’s gone, the family is struggling. Nora Twomey‘s last film had that title, and its story is very similar to this one.

In part one, he’s forced to move to a new town with his mom, and they’re struggling to pay the bills. The boy wants to help, but he’s going all about it wrong. After an argument, he runs away.

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Dragons: Only Finding One than The Nine Realms

This series synopsis says this latest is a continuation of HTTYD. There are a few nods, but I’m fairly sure none of the heroes here are reincarnations of Hiccup and crew.

Available on Hulu

When DreamWorks bought the media rights to Cassandra Cowell‘s How to Train Your Dragon, nobody realised how much of a success it would be. That book and cinematic series about a gangly hero who becomes best friends with a rare dragon is technically over, and the studio is continuing the saga as Dragons, which looks at other humans becoming a rider.

Rescue Riders is a pre-school non-canonical oriented version where each episode essentially teaches kids a solid core of values. It’s not a series for everyone. The Nine Realms is a modern-day take geared for the tween crowd. The latter is a decent watch as it puts the story in the present day. A comet crashed on Earth and created a fissure. Scientists are curious about what it has opened, and it’s literally a “Hidden World.”

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On What Raya and the Last Dragon Lacks…

Without the proper cultural milieu made front and center, Raya and the Last Dragon feels like another atypical Disney Princess origin story.

Disney‘s Raya and the Last Dragon is a very paint-by-numbers animated film which lacks originality. We are introduced to another princess with her pet, and we get to visit a distinct part of Asia! If I had to say which movie knows its mythology, Moana wins hands down!

The world of Laos, Malaysia and Indonesia is the spotlight and sadly, the missed opportunities I noticed are plentiful. The distinguishing features of each region aren’t really played up. The details don’t show how the people are unique. Each nation has lost their focus ever since a magical crystal that can keep the Druun–rejected shadowy entities from Studio Ghibli’s Mononoke Hime–shattered.

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