Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - Does Dragon Quest Your Story Live Up to Its Legacy?
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ZiharkXVI
Posts: 387 |
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I totally agree about the weird decision to create this game/player storyline. I am a huge fan of the DQ games. Why not just adapt one? It could have been fairly good. I was actually enjoying the characterizations, the animation, and (when the story wasn't giving me whiplash) the general arc about rescuing the heroes mother. I remember thinking it was odd they would start out with the Sprite stuff, then thinking it was an ill-placed homage, then realizing something was up when the girlfriend from the past was introduced in the romantic portion. It only made sense to hit us up with a previously never seen before companion in that manner if the story was actually a game or perhaps a dream (because it was horrendous storytelling). But in the same vein, I kept hoping they wouldn't go with this. And then as we cruised through the rest of the movie I almost forgot my fear...to no avail. It's just not necessary, and its poorly done at that. At least with SAO, it kind of works the first go around. In this, I dont understand the virus thing at all - its motivation, how it's supposed to work, and why the crap a party member is antivirus. Dumb ending, rushed story....MISSED OPPORTUNITY.
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OmegaE50
Posts: 32 |
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I thought the animation in the movie was fantastic but story wise is it just goes to show escapism is not always a good thing
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Chien93
Posts: 10 |
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Of all the properties to mishandle, Dragon Quest is definitely one you have to be careful with in Japan. Which clearly wasn't in this case. Seriously, what was going through the production's heads when they decided to throw that twist in?
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Cain Highwind
Posts: 315 |
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Oh boy, this film has been the biggest love it or hate it split I’ve seen since the Mandarin twist in Iron Man 3 (and even then this has been worse I feel). I for one loved it and was more bugged by all they had to cut from the game.
I really think they saw The Lego Movie and wanted to do something similar. It definitely struck a positive cord with me. I really don’t think not having the twist would’ve been some big improvement. My sister watched it with me and she’s very unfamiliar with DQ and she loved it. I guess there’s just a mindset for movies where you just interpret it one way or the other like an ink blot test. The people who hate it seem to really dwell on how their time was “wasted” or the fact that it was a fake game all this time somehow invalidates everything. The people who like it generally love the movie as a whole and applaud the twist as being something original. |
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Haterater
 Posts: 1728 |
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They really Angry Kirby'd that slime, lol. As for the movie, I can see why its a love it or hate it thing. I would prefer a real adaption(brownie points if they would add Deborah for a bride choice). But, I think knowing this ahead of time would soften the blow for me and I might like it.
Someone warned me about that V3 thing, and I ended up loving that one. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6281 |
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Most of the people I've seen issuing criticism of the movie focus more on the fact that it's in CG and essentially doesn't lean in too hard to Akira Toriyama's art design. Meanwhile I'm over here wondering why they tried to turn this into a condensed adaptation a opposed to something like a 50 episode series. |
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FireChick
 Subscriber Posts: 2482 Location: United States |
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Because in this day and age, unless its a Shounen series or a kids anime, nothing is allowed to go beyond 12-13 episodes. I saw this and I thought it was okay. Granted, the final twist was outright stupid, but honestly, I felt the Ni no Kuni movie's twist was much worse and much more mean spirited. |
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Cain Highwind
Posts: 315 |
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Huh, I haven’t seen that myself outside Japanese impressions when the first trailer hit. You know in Tim Rogers’ review of DQ XI he said it’s really hard to advertise the story of DQ without spoiling things because it’s more of a season of episodes than a movie and boy I think Your Story really proves him right. |
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FinalVentCard
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 641 |
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Here's the thing that really gets me.
Dragon Quest V is... a really important Dragon Quest. Like, the only other Dragon Quest that gets more love than V is III (to the point where, more often than not, fantasy anime and isekai have their protagonists wear armor/clothes that resemble DQIII's protagonist). The decision between Nera and Bianca isn't like asking a person with bad taste who their kin in "Friends" is. You're asking someone to dredge up old "Sega Vs Nintendo" debates, or whether they thought Zelda II was a "real" sequel to Zelda I. So I'm with the writers here, if you wanted to commentate on Dragon Quest's nostalgia--specifically DQVs... you could have done that, but this was just the worst way to do it. I mean, yeah, DQ being "just a game" does ring false when your nostalgia makes it grandiose, but uh... same goes for anything? There's a lot of drek that gets defended purely because people saw it at the right time at a young and impressionable age (ask me about Saber Marionette J sometime). But the thing is, you didn't even have to do that. Nobody wants you to commentate on Dragon Quest's nostalgia. I mean, if they had pulled it off, it would have been great, but people don't go to Dragon Quest for postmodern deconstructions of their relationship with the Dragon Quest series. And DQV has a lot of meat on its own bones about family and growing up. It's a story that you can come back to every year of your life and find something new in it. You can resonate with Abel as a child being led around by his father, or as a young man falling in love for the first time, or as a man who has to come to grips that he has to step back and allow his children to walk their own paths without him. There's your story. That's where the nostalgia comes from. I dunno, it feels like a more effective way of commentating on the nostalgia would have been to just... play the nostalgia straight? |
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Otaku-sempai
 Posts: 125 Location: Lackawanna, NY |
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Dragon Quest Your Story is arguably worth a single watch, at least if you're a fan of the games; but I don't think it would hold up to multiple viewings. Too much is compressed into too little time for it to be satisfying.
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gridsleep
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I prefer Dragon's Lair.
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Fluwm
 Posts: 1020 |
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It's always to see media like this, where an insane amount of money went into production, and then they just cheaped out on the writer(s).
The really bizarre thing here is that even though it's a very long game, DQV's story would probably be the easiest to adapt into a 90-minute three-act movie. Most of us here could probably knock out a better outline that what the film went with in less than ten minutes. |
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Mr. Toto
 Posts: 139 |
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Never played the game. Loved the film. More like this, please.
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vanfanel
 Posts: 1259 |
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My arc watching this was:
-Oh, that's a cute way to race through the early content that we apparently don't have time for. - Err...the CG looks great, but the pacing is really bad. - Are we still in summarizing mode? Surely this is going to slow down at some point. - I know these games are super-long, so maybe this is just necessary to get us where we need to be. - Okay, finally; I think we're done racing through exposition and plot points. We should be able to go along at a normal pace now. - Okay, I'm liking this. It's winning me over. - LOVED the fact that spoiler[they settled the love triangle quickly] instead of dragging it out, and that was a pretty clever way to do it. - And now spoiler[they're married and raising a kid!] We need more of this in anime! spoiler[Of life moving forward instead of being endlessly stuck in limbo.] - This climax is working for me. I'm invested in the characters. I love the family theme they're working here. Everything's coming together. I might even buy this on blu-ray after all! - WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?! - So...are they trying to present a video game with a family theme as a viable alternative to actually getting married and having kids? No wonder this country has a declining birthrate! - What a wasted opportunity. If they'd just done a straight adaptation, they would've pleased most fans of the game, but this is going to divisive at best; widely reviled at worst. |
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Cain Highwind
Posts: 315 |
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That’s a terribly dour way to look at it. Not to mention completely wrong. Sheesh no wonder people are getting pissed. Now, I’m no expert in Japanese culture but I’ve always heard games are regarded as kids stuff. It's a little more acceptable in the West But in Japan you’re expected to grow up and leave games behind as you join the workforce and the message at the end, even if it’s not implemented the best, was a pat on the back to say, “Hey, we get it. It’s okay to feel a connection to these characters there’s nothing shameful or childish about that.” Of all things to do the whole “ HUR HUR Japan’s declining birthrate” joke on. |
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