Makoto Kobayashi gained notoriety in the 1980's for his work on Zeta Gundam and ZZ Gundam, but among hardcore otaku he was best known for his comics and impressive scratch-built models and dioramas that were often published in model magazines like Hobby Japan and B-Club Magazine. His mechanical designs had a chunky, organic feel that made them standout from the more commercial mecha designs of the era.
ARTMIC's 1988 production Dragon's Heaven combined Kobayashi's talents as a mechanical designer, model maker and a director to create this 25-minute OAV based upon his manga of the same name. OAVs with short running times were common in the late 1980's, targeted at fans of the source material and designed to make some quick money rather than properly converting a story into the animated format. Most of these short one shot OAV's suffered from lack of character development and coherent plot as a result of trying to cram a much larger story (these were often based off popular long-running manga) into a 40-minute format. Dragon's Heaven avoids much of these problems by keeping the plot simple and introducing only a few main characters. Despite the paltry running time, Dragon's Heaven delivers more with it's visual design and detail than a complex plot or substancial character development.
The first six minutes of the video actually features no animation at all, the story background and credits play over video of highly-detailed scratch build kits based on the designs from Dragon's Heaven. The most impressive of which are two very large models based upon the antagonist and progagonist of the OAV. There's a lot of smoke and ridiculous camera angles, but the models feature some impressive details like lighting and limited animatronics. It comes off a little chessy, but when you consider that most of the target audience probably built models or at least thought they were cool, it makes sense.
The story follows a young adventurer Icool who discovers an ancient cydroid named Shaian who has been buried for over 1000 years, following an epic battle with his enemy, the evil cydroid general Elmedine. Upon being reawakened by Icool and learning that Elemedine is still around being a jerk, Shaian decides to take get ready and fight him one last time. The catch is that Shaian can't fight without a human operator, a role Icool readily accepts. And so they set off to settle Shaian's 1000-year old robo-grudge.
What follows is a big battle, an explosion and then the credits roll (which incidently, play over behind-the-scenes footage of the construction of the giant model kits from the intro). Dragon's Heaven isn't a particularly great or complex anime, but then it doesn't pretend to be. It's an excuse to have some cool mecha designs run around in a desert and beat each other up, a fact which thankfully the creators realized.
The most noteworthy aspect of the whole production is the visual design, which does an amazing job of capturing Kobayashi's half-Japanese, half-European art style. While still being distinctly anime, it looks unlike any other anime production I've ever seen, as if Jean Giraud animated it himself. Kobayashi's mechanical designs are wonderful, everything from the giant airplanes to the tanks and the robots look suitably worn for equipment thats been used for hundreds of years. His robot designs have odd proportions and a unqiue, almost organic look to them.
It's little wonder why Koabayashi has never achieved the mainstream success as other mechanical designers, because his designs are entirely unsuitable for toys or regular model kits. Although it should be noted that a substantial number of garage kits have been based on his various designs, including more than a few for Dragon's Heaven.
Approached more as a short art piece than a traditional OAV, Dragon's Heaven becomes infinitely more watchable. Visually it stands apart from any other anime title, with the short running time and simple story making it hard to feel like you've wasted your time. If you have an interest in older anime or mecha, it's worth watching.
Recommended.
Dragon's Heaven
ドラゴンズヘブン
43 Minutes
1988
Never commercially released in the U.S., Dragon's Heaven was released on Japanese DVD back in 2002. Fansubs of it do exist, although it's easily watchable without subtitles.
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