As I’ve been introducing my older kids to some of my favorite classic animes (I’m still not sure that something made in the ‘00s counts as a “classic”, but in terms of sea changes in anime, the pre-crash shows were definitely a different era), The Queen was apparently feeling a bit left out. She wanted a show that she could watch with me as well. While trying to avoid the usual kids’ fare on Netflix, but also not picking up anything too mature, we happened onto the Netflix licensed Dragon Pilot: Hisone and Masotan. Airplanes! Dragons! Sold!
The story revolves around Hisone, a young member of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) and Masotan, a dragon. In the world of Dragon Pilot, dragons have been at the core of eastern military forces for centuries, and have been masked in various ways to conceal their presence from the majority of the population. Somewhat recently, they have become known as Organic Transformed Fliers, or OTFs. Normally, when an OTF is out in the open, they wear an armor suit to make them look like some sort of aircraft. In Masotan’s case, he takes the shape of a JASDF F-15J. Three other OTFs eventually join the show. These dragons camouflage themselves as an F-2, another as an E-2C Hawkeye, and a fourth as a Kawasaki C-1.
I’m not going to get too far into the plot, which loosely revolves around the team of four dragons and pilots learning to work together so that they can conduct a 75-year ceremony that relocates another island-sized OTF to its new position. The main thing is that this anime ends up being pretty whimsical, despite the TV-14 rating. I was totally comfortable watching this with The Queen.
The flight sequences are quite good. Masotan is usually the only OTF shown with other JASDF aircraft of the same type, and show has an interesting visual way of differentiating him from the normal F-15s: only Masotan ever flies with a centerline drop-tank. There’s an excellent dogfight sequence between Masotan, the F-2, and a number of F-15s.
There’s also an interesting implication late in the show, with some flashbacks from one of Masotan’s previous pilots, that show them in World War II helping bring home a crippled Japanese aircraft. The show doesn’t go much beyond that in terms of OTF participation in WWII, but just hinting at that history was interesting, at least to me.
Overall, Dragon Pilot probably isn’t anything particularly special, beyond its inclusion of some cool JASDF aircraft. It’s worth watching for the aircraft and cute art style, but probably not destined to be any kind of classic. Even so, I’d definitely welcome further adventures with Hisone and Masotan.