From the very first frame, gamers can notice that Dragon Knight is based on an RPG of the same title. In the next ten minutes, I quickly recognized some of the characters, Takeru and Luna, from Dragon Knight III (Knights of Xentar). I remember I enjoyed that game immensely, so one can understand the anticipation I felt when I added DK to my anime collection. Unfortunately, I was in for disappointment. Takeru in the first volume looked like Keith of Voltron, was thinking with his phallus, and was a generally uninspiring person. The anime was a bore, with no trace of the fun that I had experienced when I played DKIII. Everything was fast. There was virtually no story line. The was no sense of action because every monster was killed before you can even bat an eyelash. Voila! Everything was over. Not even Luna’s cute “other side” to her persona can save this poorly done anime. Heck, even the artwork here could not do justice to the beautiful 16-bit CG that was presented in the DOS-based RPG!

Thank heavens they came up with a sequel that was totally different from the first one. The second chapter was a phenomenal improvement in terms of art, animation, and plot. It was as if there was a whole century between the making of the former and the latter. I couldn’t believe Takeru of the previous period could actually look handsome! What’s more, he had developed some brain cells. Sure, he was still the same lecher who had problems getting lucky, but at least this time he was able to develop some conscience and a modicum of restraint. It basically has the same old story about a knight and his penchant for rescuing people, but of course there were a lot of wit and charm involved this time around. Now…if only they’d be a little more detailed on the hentai scenes…

There was also one perceptible add-on to DKII that wasn’t present in the very tame DK—torture scenes. The high ranking bad guys in DKII had a high ranking level of sadism. I couldn’t bear to watch! Even the evil minions, who wouldn’t mind raping young women, could not stand and watch either. Good thing it didn’t take forever to finish, and DKII was able to hold up to its promise of quality.

Individual Rating: Art/Animation: 8 Story/Plot: 8 Characters: 9 Sounds: 5 Ecchi Level: 6

This entry was posted on Friday, August 3rd, 2001 at 3:03 pm and is filed under Dragon Knight Series (1 and 2), Anime Hentai. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.