Dog Days – Initial Thoughts

(WARNING: Contains REALLY SLIGHT spoilers for Spring 2011 shows… but it’s not like we’re giving the ending away anyway though, so whatever.)

Admittedly, I overdid that Steins;Gate post and went overboard in making it a tad bit too long, so I’ll try to tone it down a little more and stick to the basics.

DOG DAYS

OP:

ED:

Dog Days is described as a fantasy anime being produced and animated by Aniplex and Seven Arcs (Asura Cryin’, Sekirei, White Album) respectively, and is set to run for 12 episodes.

Shinku Izumi

The story centers around the exploits of Shinku “Sink” Izumi (VA: Mamoru Miyano, who’s also doing Riyano from Steins;Gate this season), a 13 year-old half-Japanese, half-English boy who unwittingly gets summoned to the kemonomimi-populated world of Fronyald by the Dog (yes, you read that right) Princess of Biscotti, Millhiore F. Biscotti (VA: Yui Horie; too many awesome roles to mention), whose country is currently locked in a war of sorts with the Lion country of Galette, led by Leonmichelle Galette des Rois (VA: Ami Koshimizu; did Holo from Spice and Wolf and Tenma Tsukamoto from the School Rumble series). Dog country vs. Lion (Big Cat) country? Yes, you probably know where this is going already.

Millhiore F. Biscotti

Leonmichelle Galette Des Rois

Shinku is portrayed as a VERY athletic kid, who apparently has a habit of jumping clear off houses and really high terraces to streets below that are easily 20-30 feet apart (though I’m really bad at estimates, so it’s anyone’s guess just how high off he jumps on a regular basis without breaking his ankles). He’s always accompanied by his childhood friend Rebecca “Becky” Anderson (VA: Mikako Takahashi; did Rushuna Tendo from Grenadier and Ayumu Nishisawa from Hayate no Gotoku), who attends class with him at an international school, and is huge fantasy novel fan as noted by Shinku.

Rebecca "Becky" Anderson

Anyway, Shinku’s really bad habit (arguably at least, since I for one as hell wouldn’t want to be doing that on a regular basis, even if I were crazy athletic like he is) of jumping off really high places finally catches up to him as he does so at school one day. No, he doesn’t break his ankles, but he does end up sliding into a warp portal opened by a dog servant sent by Princess Millhiore to summon their “hero”, who uses the opportunity while Shinku’s in midair to send him to Fronyald. (Moral of the story here? C’mon, you don’t need to tell me that now, do you?).

Princess Millhiore’s desperate bid to get a “hero” to her side apparently stems from the fact that Biscotti is in dire straits already, as Galette is just one fortress away from curb stomping them into the ground. Miss Leonmichelle apparently has no equal on the Biscotti (Doggie) side, and Shinku’s anointed the man to get the job done to match up with her. Luckily for Shinku, his amazing athleticism is put to good use since the wars between Biscotti and Galette are pretty much like this.

Granted though that the combatants still use the normal medieval weaponry and getup in their battles, the agonies of war still are noticeably lessened for them because of the apparent “no-kill, no-prisoners” policy they have in effect because of a treaty. Not only that, the enemies are also actually required to heal those whom they have defeated in battle, who by the way, turn into small animal versions of themselves whenever they’re defeated. Kinda makes you think what the point to of all of this is, huh? Maybe these guys just want to take their war games a lot more seriously than us humans do. 😛

Anyway, Shinku jumps at the chance to get involved in this war as he notes just how interesting it is to him, and noted how Becky would’ve loved to be there with him. At the pilot episode’s end, he decides to take up arms, and is locked and loaded and ready for battle.

Booyah!

Dog Days feels like a mix of a toned-down and moefied Utawarerumono with a pinch of Zero no Tsukaima in it (what with the summoning and stuff). The whole concept of the battles they fight and the battle scenes themselves leaves for a lot of head scratches to be had, but then again, I don’t think they were really meant to be taken too seriously in this sort of series anyway. Compared with previous fantasy anime such as Tear to Tiara for example, Dog Days takes a detour from the usual deeper storylines and focuses on being more lighthearted in its approach, as seen by the absolute absence of bloodshed in their wars. The character designs are great as well, and with a great cast of characters (other featured VAs include Nana Mizuki, Ayana Taketatsu, Kana Hanazawa, Kana Asumi, Daisuke Ono and Norio Wakamoto), this promises to be a very amusing and entertaining show, and as long as you take it for what it really is, this show could be up something that’s up your alley as well.