**Screaming**

Hell yeah! Cuz now all DotA fans got new braggin’ rights! See ya later league players 👋

Oh man! I was so pumped up when I saw this announcement. It looked pretty good, and better yet, it was made by the same people who made legend of Korra! Damn! All those bucks we pay Valve, finally justified. International being cancelled due to pandemic finally not in vain! What can I say, thanks Volvo.

Being a DotA fan, I’ve always felt part of a minority community that worships a “dead” game as the other gamers like to call it. Funnily enough, it comes with the highest monetary reward that eSports has to offer every year. But what can I say, when you have a community that worships a game like DotA community does (so do I, btw) and a half decent financing that Valve employs to fund the International, this is what you end up with. If I was one of the people who bought the Battlepass last year for the International that didn’t happen, I’d be pissed. I probably would not fund the upcoming Internationals even if they were to happen. Valve in my opinion needed to appease their player fanbase with something that would keep them around till the next International. It would suck to have an International with a significantly lower price pool, if not one higher than before. Suddenly, the walls of hope that the community has held on to would begin to crumble and cracks would start to show around the DotA ecosystem. The echos of “dead game” from the rest of the gaming community would begin to materialize. Valve had to do something… Something that would rekindle the flames of hope and justify the love for the game and it’s community. An anime! That simply ought to be it! Who could refuse if Valve just strolls in and bestows an anime upon you.

Let’s put all that aside, now that I have given reason enough to shed light on Valve’s most generous actions. It’s time to discuss the anime itself! Let’s start!

First, I want to give props to IGN’s review on the same. Felt their observations were really spot on. I don’t want to comment on it any further, which would essentially make this a review of a review (review-ception), so I’ll just get on with it.

The Art

Pretty good I’d say. A lot like what I’ve seen before, nothing revolutionary. Albeit I’d like to offer credit where credit is due and say it’s great in itself, no way I’d be able to create something as beautiful as this. It’s a mix of 2d art and 3d models. 3d was mostly used for dragons and eldwyrms which made it pretty cool to look at.

Story

My main complaint was that it felt rushed. With the kind of story it had, it should have been a 2 cour show. At least 1 cour to say the least. It was not even that much, like 8 episodes around 25 mins each. In hindsight, I’ve realized while writing that it does come up to about 10 episodes of regular anime. Which is makes it feel a little less worse, but I gotta be honest, 8 episodes or 10 episodes take it as you like was not enough for the story that the show had to offer.

Characters

Some of the characters are decently fleshed out like Invoker and Dragon Knight. Maybe some more work is needed on Mirana and how she got exiled. Another character that we haven’t heard of before was Marci. I could see the comments of YouTubers on reviews obviously taking a strong liking to her. But I’d like to see some more character development going in as well. We don’t really know why she’s mute or how she has superhuman abilities. Same goes with Fymryn and her clan. I’d really like at least an arc dedicated to the different characters in her clan, both the peaceful and violent ones. But I’m guessing these questions will be answered in the subsequent seasons, mainly because from the looks of it, at least some of the characters will be sticking around for the next season.

DK has got good character development naturally due to his being the main character, but he really only shines because of his friends Mirana, Marci and Fymryn. I’d say Mirana seemed to me a very interesting character and would love to get her character more developed. I think most people enjoyed Marci the most, but to be honest, I absolutely loved Mirana. The series really stood out because of her personality, and how the series really highlighted the different angles of it. Whether it was her being jealous of Fymryn or putting her life on the line to save her friends or wanting to secure her stolen lotuses to even having a romantic relationship, the series had it all! I’m sure we’ll see more of her as she’s still yet to cast her ultimate 😉