A Good Start But Meh End: The Dragon Dentist

Synopsis

In a world where dragons exists, a young woman by the of Nonoka has taken on the job of a Dragon Dentist. Her role? To protect the dragon, the guardian of the country, from tooth-cavity bacteria. One day she discovers a boy from the enemy side resurrected from within the tooth of the dragon. Such an phenomenon has been noted to be a sign before a great disaster. THis is a story of war, people, and fate

The Good

When looking at the first few moments of the work, you feel as if you were dropped right into the middle of an epic cinematic battle at sea. The details, the animation work all worked in making the scene look much bigger than it was. Outside of the action work however, the scenery and tone also bring a great blend of color and style to many scenes. One such example is when the characters are all waking up and it is the crack of dawn, the way that the scenery presented like a white canvas to emphasis the characters made for great visual work.

The characters also hold a great interest when introduced. The most interesting character to be introduced however, was Bell. Not only was his concept interesting but the way that the anime handled his development was structured quite well. Man concepts that were explained about the Dragon Dentists were just generally interesting and thought provoking. And mixed in with Bell questioning himself and purpose presents a lot of potential for the OVA as a philosophical/fantasy work.

The Bad

As the series progressed into its second half, that is when you truly find the flaws of the work, especially when it was revealed who one of the main villains was. In all honesty, as amazing as Shibana’s design was as a bacteria, her motivations as a villain comes off as not only weak but rather cliche as well. The story could have easily taken a more philosophical route to things, but instead it takes on this war story that for the most part, comes off as rather cliche and also out of the blue and not that well structured.

Many points of the second half didn’t structure as well as the first half did. The build up with the new antagonists, the chase scenes and the way that every soldier was wiped out except or that one soldier who survived amongst the thousands just for the sake of the overall story all just brought down the potential that was shown in the first half. For one thing, they could have easily maintained the identity for the first antagonist but changed her motivations to something darker and not related to the “love avenged” concept.

Conclusion

In terms of art, music, character development and overall visual and story presentation, the OVA did a commendable job. However, in terms of antagonists and plot structure towards the second, left the overall story rather disappointing in the end. As stated, if the work had developed more on what was shown in the first half, from characters to plot line, the OVA could have turned out completely different.

Rating: 6.5/10