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It's like Naruto. Only it's good.
Reviews for "Record of Dragon Burial 1"
It was quite good
Its obvious u put alot of work into this, all i really have to say is fix the proportion on some of the bodies and heads, some times it just looks really awkward, also u coulda explained the story a little more, but im sure ur gunna do that in the next part. So good luck with ur series.
Wow!
This was entertaining all the way to the end. I was at the edge of my seat. This is so well done. It was like a mini-movie. GREAT JOB to all of you =)
Alrighty then.
Honestly the quality wasn't that great. The animation itself was actually pretty decent and completely expected if this is to be a series (which i'm personally looking forward to), but the actual quality was that of a poorly converted video file. It was blurry and blocky like when you watch some kind of pirated film or something. Kinda took away from it. Also the story needs help. While the voice actors are surprisingly good, the actual dialoge seems to have been striped from a DBZ episode. And also the first half of the video gave me serious Naruto knock-off vibes. Aside from that the story itself is condeluted a bit. if this is episode one, then were is the character developement? I appreciate pure violence but if you want an anime worth watching story is just as important. The action was good though the end (kicking off the head) seemed to be brash, nonsensical and contradictive, considering how Shu and his pals were bitching about how fearsome the guy was (kudos for killing the other guy, really built up the villians authority and set a good tone), only to kick off his head in roughly 10 seconds. Dosen't make sense and felt way too rushed. Finally the character designs are WAY too simple and uninspired. Their abilities/fighting tactics are comfortably generic, with almost a campy B-movie anime feel, but the actual designs are pretty awful. I understand the need for simplicity in a Flash series, but these are downright lazy. Trap guy? Does he even have a name? He looks like he graduated top of his class at the University of Generic Goons. C'mon. And the main characters look bland as well. The only character i felt any good vibe was from Shu, but then the head kicking scene happened. The final verdict is that you've got a great concept, but everything else needs a lot more polish.
It needs some polishing, but...
...it's a solid animation. The character design is good; the cast so far seems varied and interesting (even the two who died were unique and had their own personalities). Although it was far for perfect, the voice acting was natural sounding and the voices fit well for each of the characters. The animation was a bit rough, and some actions could have used more frames, but that's a small complaint. More importantly, in some scenes there were anatomy issues that should have been addressed.
Some have said that the story is thin, but since this is the very first episode, that is a weak complaint. I mean, you can't expect a fully fleshed out universe and characters in the first episode. It's possible, but a story needs to be judged as a whole, and frankly, only the surface has been scratched thus far. If anything, I think that this is a good start to the story, as it gives us a taste of the universe and the type of people that the story is going to be about.
I don't know if the music was original or not, but it fit very well, and you worked with it in some scenes that made it more than just background noise. Kudos for that, especially since most action works just have the characters fight to heavy metal and hard rock.
The only strong complaint I have is that the animation was somewhat blurry during practically all of it. Being an action piece, this is a problem, and drags away from the otherwise good animation.
Those who complain about use of cliches and borrowing ideas from action anime are being silly. Just because the characters are in an Asian style fantasy universe doesn't mean that it's an Inuyasha or Naruto ripoff any more than an action movie with explosions and terrorists is ripping off the Die Hard series. One of the characters is (quite clearly) strong and dark, but that doesn't make him a Sasuke clone; we don't know enough about him to make that judgment. I hope that he is more unique than that, but we'll have to wait before we can say anything.
That said, there is obvious inspiration from some action anime, but that's certainly not what I'd call a bad thing. Besides, there is a fair amount of originality among the bits that are inspired. The Chinese setting is relatively unique (too often it is that things just happen to occur in a Japan-esque universes). I feel that the idea of a trap master, while not uncommon, is underused. Also, the "featherweight" skill as an express specialty is, to my knowledge, unique, especially as it is often a secondary skill that many people have in fantasy action anime (the ones that come to mind are Bleach and Naruto, although there are others).
I eagerly await the next episode to see how this develops!