[Review] DOTA: Dragon's Blood, Dive into Lore DOTA 2 in a New Adventure!

Announced as an original anime adaptation project of Netflix in collaboration with Valve, DOTA: Dragon’s Blood ready to introduce fans to a lore of the world of DOTA games that has never been seen before. Taking a story that focuses on the figure of the Dragon Knight – Davion, so far the anime does look quite promising and provides a very interesting story point of view, especially the involvement of several key characters who are popular among fans.

Luckily we had the opportunity to watch this anime first through Early Access provided by Netflix. The entire anime itself is summarized in 8 episodes format with a standard duration of approx 25 minutes for each episode. As a warning, there will be SPOILERS which we include in this review, so you can anticipate if you really want to watch the anime “Blind”. Instead of further ado, here is the full review.

Pretty Solid Visual Side

Before going into the part of the story which of course will contain SPOILERS and how we measure the quality, let’s first discuss the visual side. To be honest, from all the trailers shown, we weren’t really WOWed with the animation quality which felt a little flat. But this initial impression changed after we watched it live, which turned out to be not so bad and even comfortable to look at.

We didn’t have much of an issue with the animation quality, but Studio MIR might be able to give some depth to the character designs. Examples like Davion, who in our opinion could be made more fierce, but at least he still has the aura of a dominant fighter. Mirana looks quite charming in her normal costume, including for the elf characters Fymryn to Selemene which is dominated by purple light that makes her look like a goddess. Each character comes with a design that is quite bold, simple, and still pleasing to the eye.

One part that we probably like the most from the animation side is the added effects, especially for the action scenes. This includes how the anime still looks natural even with the addition of 3D or CG effects that are very visible. Of course the visual element is a subjective part for everyone, so it would be much better for each person to decide for themselves when they have watched the anime. One thing is clear, Studio MIR managed to do its job quite well from a visual perspective.

The Focus of a Branching Story

To be honest, we or specifically I am not an active DOTA player. Apart from the experience of playing DOTA 2 in the first internet cafe era in just a few fun matches, our knowledge of the game is indeed very low. So for the story and lore deepening, of course, there are no big expectations other than seeing DOTA: Dragon’s Blood as a fantasy-themed anime in general.

However, DOTA: Dragon’s Blood turns out to have a fairly branched story focus and often changes focus from one character to another. This may be because the anime is indeed an adaptation of a game that places many important hero characters with their respective background stories, so splitting the focus on more than one character is a not so bad approach. It’s just that we can see it as a drawback, especially if you just want to enjoy a linear story with a focus on Davion’s point of view and the conflicts that follow throughout the anime.

To give you a clearer picture, we’ve broken down the focus of the story for some of the characters which you can see below (final warning: SPOILER BEWARE!!):

– Davion’s Point of View

Let’s start with the main character, Davion the Dragon Knight. The story begins when Davion and his partner named Bram go on a dragon hunt before meeting an evil man who wants to hunt down an “eldwyrm”. To stop his evil intentions, Davion seeks help before finally meeting Mirana and Marci for the first time. Mirana and Marci themselves have also met a suspicious elf figure who gave information about the racist actions of humans against their race.

The evil man that Davion was trying to stop was eventually possessed by the Terrorblade before he could execute his plan to hunt down the eldwyrm. This event was finally known by Bram who then gave a warning by going to Dragon’s Hold and dripping his blood into a kind of purple scroll.

Of course the Terrorblade managed to execute its plan to kill the eldwyrm, and waited for Davion to arrive in his lair to be possessed. Unexpectedly, Slyrak who tried to stop the Terrorblade appears and ends up being defeated by a crushing death. Davion who tried to stop his suffering, surprised him again, was slit by Slyrak who then possessed him.

– Mirana’s Point of View

Following the story of Mirana who we know will be sold into sex slaves along with Marci, they luckily managed to escape and try to meet the Sage after getting the Gem of True Sight. After he and Marci try to help Davion to accompany them on their adventure, we know the story point where Davion who has been possessed by Slyrak turned out to be the figure of Galra.

There is a part where Mirana is separated from her group and is faced with a battle against Ghoul monsters. At this point we encounter the oddity of Mirana’s personality change, who suddenly feels pity or panic when killing the ghoul. This was in stark contrast to how he seemed relaxed and used to taking someone’s life, especially when he and Marci had previously killed a group of bandits, who were clearly still living humans.

Mirana and Davion’s relationship in this anime also feels stronger than when she was paired with Marci. There is no explanation as to how he got to know and be close to Marci, but at least we know that Mirana has a great sense of responsibility to restore the peace of Silver Woods. This determination and sense of responsibility is still maintained even though he already knows that Selemene is not a savior goddess like he thought.

– Fymryn’s Point of View

Moving on to the next character is Fymryn. This elf from Coedwig has cool abilities like shadow steps and disguises himself very well. Fymryn’s story focuses on his ambition to resurrect Mene by giving the mysterious Sage the “Lotus of Mene”. Fym who got the coin from the Sage was betrayed, in which the Sage took the lotus flower from Fymryn and mocked him for believing in the ancient story.

The story then continues when Fymryn gets into a bloody tragedy when the three closest elf figures to him are killed at the hands of Luna. Fortunately due to the armor plot, Fymryn was the only one who was saved thanks to the help of the previous Sage. There is an underexplored part in this story point of view from MacGuffin Fymryn. But at least he managed to avenge Luna, though not to the point of taking his life.

– Terrorblade Viewpoint

The character we met in the first episode is already known to have killed an eldwyrm named Uldorak. After making a “seven souls for one” agreement, he then absorbs some kind of life force or the source of the Selemene’s power. Overall Terrorblade doesn’t have much screentime apart from the first and last episodes, so this part of the story is indeed the shortest compared to other points of view. Maybe the role of Terrorblade will be more focused in the next season or what they call “Book”.

End of “Book One”

As you can see from the summary of the story above, DOTA: Dragon’s Blood tries to break up the storyline to give different perspectives of some of its important characters. Starting from Davion who is possessed by Slyrak, Mirana who keeps trying to restore peace to Silverwoods, Fymryn on his mission to resurrect Mene, to Terrorblade who, although appearing briefly, at least managed to fulfill his role effectively. Not to forget Luna is also described as a brutal figure and does have a dominant killing aura, especially when she kills the three fellow elves from Fymryn.

Summarizing a story with a lot of divided focus in the format of 8 episodes is really lacking. We feel that there are some story points that are not explored more deeply, including the cliffhanger which is unavoidable especially for anime that seems to be getting a continuation of the season.

Without the name DOTA in front of it, we think this anime might be very easy to sink into people’s radar, especially from how anime is now more visually highlighted to attract the attention of the audience. Despite the shortcomings, we are still satisfied with the quality of the anime as a whole.

At least when compared to the initial impression, the experience gained after watching it must be admittedly better and even invites our curiosity for “Book Two” in the future. This is a very easy recommendation, especially for those of you who are fans of the DOTA game.

If you’re curious about the show schedule, DOTA: Dragon’s Blood will arrive on Netflix on March 25th. This anime will even get an option Indonesian dub too you know!

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