Some of the most iconic blends of live-action and animation include movies like Space Jam, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Disney’s Enchanted. Since most of them have primarily been from the West, the Disney+ Japanese original series Dragons Of Wonderhatch offers a new take on the format with its mix of live-action and anime. Does it succeed?

How To Train Your Dragon

This new series is basically an isekai at its core, but it subverts the genre by having the fantasy characters enter the real world instead of the other way around. A reverse isekai, if you will. Dragons Of Wonderhatch freely shifts from live-action to anime sequences but they don’t cross over or intersect like Who Framed Roger Rabbit? or Space Jam. They’re always separate from each other and feel more reminiscent of something like Disney’s Enchanted where the characters become real in the real world and are only animated when they’re in the animated world.

The anime parts in Dragons Of Wonderhatch are well-animated with high production value and quality. That’s to be expected, considering the high pedigree of the studio producing the animation; Production I.G. (best known for Ghost In The Shell and Psycho-Pass, amongst others). The anime parts contain the most action and they’re usually fast-paced, but there’s less and less of it the deeper we go into the season as the fantasy anime characters travel to the real world. The dragon riders remind me of DreamWorks’ How To Train Your Dragon, with each rider having their own unique dragon.

The live-action parts are slower-paced and more dramatic in nature. Dragons Of Wonderhatch features lots of emotion and drama as the main characters are struggling with their own issues. For example, the main character, Nagi (Sena Nakajima), has to face bullying and being an outcast, as well as having a single father raising her and worrying about whether she’s also schizophrenic like her deceased mother. Well, she’s not actually schizophrenic but it all has something to do with that “other world”, which is called Upananta. The story is best when the anime characters from the world of Upananta are forced to face the bleak and harsh reality of our world, which is in contrast to their fantasy world (Upananta) where “everything is possible if you just believe hard enough”.

Another impressive aspect in Dragons Of Wonderhatch is how they’ve made a fictional language for the people from Upananta. It still sounds a bit like Japanese or another Asian language to a non-Japanese like me but it sounds foreign enough to be distinguishable. This much effort reminds me of Elvish in The Lord Of The Rings and Klingon in Star Trek. The CGI and visual effects for the dragons also look pretty decent for a TV series; not great but not bad either. Unfortunately, Dragons Of Wonderhatch feels a bit too serious sometimes, considering the out-of-this-world nature of its premise. All of the characters perform well enough, and for those planning to watch this for Mackenyu’s role as Aktha, you won’t be disappointed. His performance here is better than in the Saint Seiya live-action movie and One Piece series. It seems like he’s a better actor when he’s performing in what I assume to be his native language, Japanese. It’s less wooden than his English performances. On the other hand, both Sena Nakajima (Nagi) and Daiken Okudaira (Thaim) are great and likeable protagonists to follow throughout the story.

Dragon Wonderland

After watching its first four episodes, Dragons Of Wonder is definitely good enough to continue watching. Its unique blend of live-action and animation in a reverse isekai story makes for something refreshing that stands out in today’s sea of content. Only Thaim (pun intended) will tell if viewers will be able to resonate with it.

FINAL SCORE: 70/100

We received early screeners of Dragons Of Wonderhatch courtesy of Disney+ Hotstar Malaysia. Dragons Of Wonderhatch is slated to premiere on Disney+ Hotstar on 20 December 2023.