Sega Anime: Panzer Dragoon

So back in my teens I found out about the video 'Sonic: The Movie' being released here, which turned out to be a dub of the anime that I remember clips of from Sonic Jam on the Saturn. Soon after buying that I started to pick up lot of anime videos (yes, DVDs were about but VHS was still the most common format), and in my search for just about anything anime (most of which were rubbish but hilarious) I stumbled across another Sega game turned one-off anime: Panzer Dragoon.


Now safe to say I didn't keep hold of any of the videos I picked up if I didn't like them and unfortunately Panzer Dragoon was one of them: this was not a very good adaptation of the games, or even a great anime in it's own right. The animation is quite cheap looking; I suspect a majority of the budget went towards the now dreadfully out dated looking 3D backdrops that clash with the bland hand drawn characters (the girl in this in particular looks rather lifeless).

I mean I've seen much worse, but really this is something of a missed opportunity. A lot of what made Panzer Dragoon such a unique looking universe in the games is lacking here. It probably doesn't help that the dub is so awful that it only makes it unintentionally funny, and even the music misses the mark compared to unique sounds of the games. At least they drew the dragon accurate to the first game I guess. A shame a bigger budget animated feature wasn't made of Panzer instead of this half baked effort, but in case you're a fan of PD and have never seen this it has been uploaded to Youtube. Unlike 'Sonic: The Movie' ADV never released a DVD of this as far as I am aware but if you really do want to own this I don't think the VHS is too expensive or rare to find.

Video covers from the excellent Panzer Dragoon fan site The Will of the Ancients.

Youtube videos from therealbluedragon.