'Drifting Dragons' offers a strange mix of action, adventure and culinary comedy for your streaming pleasure
Dragons, the second you hear that word, it conjures up images of fire and brimstone, fantastical adventures, armored warriors, and probably some crazy warlocks to boot. Netflix's upcoming anime series 'Drifting Dragons', however, is none of that.
The anime adaptation of Taku Kuwabara's Seinen manga series published by Kodansha, 'Drifting Dragons' (also known as 'Kuutei Dragons' in Japanese) is a unique blend of fantasy and comedy. It follows the adventures of a crew of dragon hunters who capture and kill these dangerous rulers of the sky in order to fill their wallets as well as their stomachs.
Based on trailers released for the series, it looks like the show is more about the misadventures of the protagonists and their experiments in dragon-centric cuisine rather than about secrets, sorcery, or any of the other fantasy tropes that are more common in the West. How palatable this might be to an American audience, only time will tell but we're definitely excited to see what this show has to offer.
Piquing our interest even further is the artwork for the show, which is, in a single word, mesmerizing. While the show's heroes, the crew of the dragon-hunting airship Quin Zaza, all appear to be normal humans who wear some pretty drab clothes, the designs for the dragons are all unique, mystifying, and just plain beautiful. Too bad they're all going to get eaten at some point. The dragons, not the crew (though now that we think about it, that's also a possibility).
Here's the official synopsis, courtesy of the show's website, "Dragons, the rulers of the sky. To many people on the surface, they are a dire threat, but at the same time, a valuable source of medicine, oil, and food. There are those who hunt the dragons. They travel the skies in dragon-hunting airships. This is the story of one of those ships, the 'Quin Zaza', and its crew."
'Drifting Dragons' premiered in Japan under the name 'Kuutei Dragons' on January 9, 2020, on Fuji TV's +Ultra programming block. The series will have its global release on Netflix on April 30.