Tanken Driland · review
Tanken Driland is a light-hearted adventure anime. Its story is one that has been repeated many times: defeat the evil villain and defend the land named Driland. The main character, an innocent little princess, is summoned by her master to go on a journey to protect Driland. The setting is that of a fantasy JRPG, where characters encounter the MC and become part of her party, and together they head out to defeat the evil with magic and swords. Story & Characters: The story is too simple, lacking tension, depth, and drama. Character arcs follow a repetitive pattern: it starts with the character in questionyearning for power, then an unexpected obstacle that they have deal with leaves them with newfound strength by the end. I would have overlooked all of that if the characters had more than just their quirk and one-dimensional personality. There's also a noticeable lack of world building and character development that would have stimulated me enough to make me enjoy my time. but who am I to complain about such things when this is clearly a kids show.
Visuals & Sound:
The fights are dull, with characters merely clashing their swords and mouths. The production values aren't impressive either, each action is animated with no more than four frames, there’s no post-processing, and most effects are computer-generated. I didn’t appreciate the art style either, baby-like proportions with round cubic heads.
The OST that comes with this anime is decent. However, there is only one fighting theme that gets tiring after a while. Sound effects are also reused a lot. There are about 3 different sword sounds, that isn't much considering that you will be hearing them for the length of this anime.
Overall Opinion:
I would never have finished watching Tanken Driland if I didn't have any nostalgia for it. And I can't bring myself to recommend an anime that is obviously directed at kids. maybe it was entertaining for its time. however, I would say that it didn't age well, kids have a lot of ways to entertain themselves that are far superior than watching Tanken Driland. And even if you want to watch it, your options are limited. The only versions I know of are the original Japanese and the Arabic dub, and I could only find 19 subtitled episodes.