Webtoon Review: Dragon’s Dogma
Cassardis is a sleepy fishing village, very little new or exciting things happen there, and the local garrison of soldiers is bored to distraction as honestly there’s nothing to protect the village from. The most interesting person in Cassardis is Ethan, whose youthful ocean-based trauma means he spends his days going inland to hunt, the opposite of the other men. Ethan’s doing better these days, thanks to his pregnant wife Olivia and adopted son Louis. But then the dragon comes.
No one in town is prepared for this attack, and they are essentially helpless against the attacking dragon. Louis and Olivia are slain, and Ethan’s rage allows him to actually strike the dragon, if ineffectually. The dragon steals Ethan’s heart and challenges him to come find and defeat it.
Ethan wakes to discover that he is the sole survivor of Cassardis, and he is being tended by a mysterious young woman. She explains that he is now an Arisen, one of the few beings capable of destroying a dragon, and she is a Pawn, a servant/protector of the Arisen. Since the Pawn doesn’t have a name (among other normal human traits), Ethan names her Hannah. Ethan and Hannah then go on a journey to find and kill the dragon.
This “Netflix original” series was pretty clearly greenlit after the success of Castlevania. It too is an adaptation of a video game with dark fantasy genre themes.
The good: It’s short. There are only seven episodes, titled and themed after the seven deadly sins. Some of the monster designs are decent. The characterization subplot where Ethan and Hannah switch which one of them is humane is an interesting idea. (Ethan starts as the sort of hero who stops to help random people, but becomes bitter and obsessed only with his revenge, while Hannah starts with little understanding of emotion and a strong dose of pragmatism, but comes to care for those they meet, and Ethan himself.)
The less good: One of the themes of the series is that humans are terrible people. Even the ones Ethan runs into that seem nice at first soon lean into their worst instincts. This makes the episodes depressing and the overall message bleak. At the end, why bother protecting humanity?
Hannah’s character development would be more meaningful if we learned anything about what Pawns actually are or her personal background. (I had to resort to video game spoilers to get a handle on what was supposed to be happening.)
Content note: Gory violence, nudity (mostly female), onscreen sex (no genitals), rape by deception, drug abuse, harm to children. One scene brought on uncomfortable flashbacks of the notorious first episode of Goblin Slayer.
Overall: Not good, and not bad in an entertaining way. Fans of the video game might get the most out of it.
