Dragon Pilot: Hisone and Masotan

This has been enjoyable enough so far! i'm far from a connoisseur of anime, but this one mostly managed to avoid the things that i dislike about the medium (stilted dialogue, fan service, melodramatic monologues, exaggerated humour, etc. - there are exceptions of course), but they're still there occasionally.

the 'messages' in the show and the characters used to showcase them (e.g. friendship) are sledgehammered into your head. still, i thought the humour, which you'll get to see in the very first episode, was pretty good. overall, the show runs a bit on the bland side. it's sort of like if you were invited to a halloween party open to all sorts of crazy costumes and you came dressed as a witch.

my two cents, since there's so few reviews for this show.

There's something wonderful about this cartoon in the way it presents itself and is animated.

The plot is at times confusing often leading you to wonder where on earth it's going and how it's going to get there and that alone captivates you right up to the end at which point you wonder how you got there.

An enjoyable journey, whimsical and innocent. One to watch if light hearted animation is your thing.

Not a big fan. Although its something original (out of norm storyline) but not a huge fan of the characters designs. The use of light tone and oil painting colors didnt appeal to me. The animation style reminds me of crayon shin chan and atashinchi (huge fan of those), it doesnt go well with the plot. Mediocre sound scores, very patriotical. Few actions, very comedic and can fall under scifi category. Cute ending song and typical japanese opening song. Not a fan of any of these characters especially hisone (tend to be very annoying and judgemental) and masotan was cute in unlikelable way. Anyway not my cup of tea, stop watching halfway as theres no solid plot, strong enough to keep me continuing. Worth trying.

Dragon Pilot's trailer enticed me to the series because it reminded me of How To Train Your Dragon, still an excellent animated film. It shows a girl who gets picked by a dragon and doesn't understand what is happening at all; it seemed like it'd be funny, and at 12 episodes, it wouldn't hurt to watch it. What I got was a highly original concept, some stunning art and animation from legendary studio, Bones, and some solid voice work--not to mention a killer soundtrack. The Story: Some characters come off as tropey in the beginning, but do not discount them yet. There is a lot of growth to be had between them all, and it seems like there are some more stories to be told here. One of the characters aspires to be a combat pilot, what of her dream? Hopefully a season 2 comes soon. Overall the plot is wholly original, and i will not spoil what happens, but it does echo HTTYD in a lot of respects. Animation: Smooth overall, not many noticeably lower quality cells. Sound: Voices are good, some of my personal favorite American VAs are present here, such as Christine Marie Cabanos of K-On! and Squid Girl fame, Erica Harlacher of Persona 5 and Toradora, not to mention Bryce Pappenbrook from Attack on Titan and Durarara. Soundtrack is great, the big standout is the credits song.

tl;dr good anime if you liked How To Train Your Dragon. Prepare for a bit of an "earn your happy ending" though.

I thought that Dragon Pilot was pretty good. Yes, Dragon Pilot has more than it's fair share of issues, but overall I had a pretty good time watching it.

The characters are a bit archetypey, (and before you ask of course I looked up whether that was a word or not before I typed it) but I like all of them just the same. There were a bunch of characters that were made into unnecessary villains, which immediately after their villain phases were turned into friends throughout the show. These characters were only villains to add conflict, and I don't love that because it felt unnecessary, but it's whatever.

I think that overall this show just had too much stuff in it. It was very ambitious, and I can respect that, but it definitely bit off a little more than it could chew. I know this doesn't really happen, but if this show were 8 or 9 episodes and they cut a lot of the filler stuff they had, it would feel a lot more like a complete and thought-out product. There were just some things that I thought that were completely unneeded.

Another thing this show tries, and fails, to do, is to add drama. The drama isn't the worst I've ever seen, but I really feel like it clashes a little with the tone of the show. There is some serious stuff in starting maybe a little before the second half of Dragon Pilot, which I just found to not fit in with what they had established the show to be like. It had mostly been a funny, coming of age type story until they added in the drama, and it stuck out. Yes, every story needs at least a little drama here and there to be really excellent, but it did feel a little forced into this show.

One thing I don't have too many complaints about is the ending. I'm sure that other people do have a lot of complaints, but *spoiler* I'm a sucker for a happy ending. Honestly you don't really get more of an anime-esque ending than this one. It does clash a little bit with the more original and unique vibe that the show is going for, but I didn't really find it too disarming.

One thing that this show is not lacking is originality. Anime can be weird, and this is far from the weirdest anime I've seen, but dragons that turn into fighter jets sounds like a pretty cool concept to me. I also absolutely love the art, I think it works extremely well. Art is not the first thing I look for when watching an anime, but when it is unique I really appreciate it. If it just looks like any other anime I don't hate it, but it's just a lot better when it has its own look. Some good examples of this that I have seen are flip flappers, AOT, Mob psycho, Kobayashi's dragon maid, kill la kill, March comes in like a lion, and others. It just makes the show more memorable in a good way when the art is different. I don't even mind if it looks worse than a typical anime, as long as it's different, and this is something this anime does well. I have no complaints with the music, either.

I know I took some jabs at Dragon Pilot, but overall I liked it and thought bit was worth watching, and I think you should give it a try too. It's not going to blow your socks off, but it's a solid show and it is pretty unique as well.