2023 Show
Japan · Japanese
An animated dragon rider meets a regular high school girl in this cute, though uneven, fantasy mixed media series
When live-action and animation meet, it can lead to interesting results. With each medium as a separate world, this choice can lead to awesome, mind-bending, genre-breaking stuff, but not all films or shows that mix media achieve this. One such show is Dragons of Wonderhatch, which at its core, has an interesting idea of two worlds, one mundane, one fantastical, colliding, but there’s just something off with the way the show just drops the audience in the land of Upananta. Rather than take the time to introduce Nagi to us first, and then let Tyme introduce himself in the real world, the show just shifts to the other world, which might cause some confusion for new viewers. As far as the plot goes, it’s not terrible, but there was more that could have helped Dragons of Wonderhatch in taking flight.
Upananta's greatest dragonrider disappears in the middle of a crucial battle. Without him, the world is doomed. The rookie dragonrider, Thaim, goes to find him in another world: a place where flying dragons and adventure only exist in high school student Nagi's dreams.
High schooler Nagi would be just a normal girl with chromesthesia, if it weren't for her random daydreams of flying through the sky. In a universe called Upananta, Tyme would be a normal dragon rider, if he could just hear their voices. One day, their worlds intersect.
The two worlds being delineated between live-action and animation. It’s a great idea to do this, but I also feel like to justify the animated world, it had to be much more fantastical, or at least much more solid, in order to make both worlds feel whole.
The dragon is soooo cute, I wanna squish it!
Isabella Endrinal is a curator at A Good Movie to Watch. She's now free from the corporate night shift. Previous articles have been published in outlets such as NANG Magazine. She's currently catching up on some classic films… if she isn't coping with the fact that the Haikyu anime will end soon.
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