Number of episodes: 13 + 13
What Wikipedia says: "Cinque Izumi is a cheerful and athletic half-Japanese, half-English boy who studies at Kinokawa International School in Japan, and has a normal life everyday until he suddenly got summoned to the alternate world of Flonyard. The people there look no different from humans, except for one thing; they have animal ears and tails. The one who summoned him is Millhiore, the dog-like Princess of the Biscotti Republic, who requested his assistance in their war against the forces of the feline-like Galette Lion Army.
After responding to Millhiore's plea, he receives a sacred weapon, the Palladion, and is appointed as a Hero to fight for Biscotti in a war that unlike the ones in Earth, is waged with special rules and no casualties, in a fashion similar to a sports competition with the purpose to raise funds for the Kingdoms involved, where the winner faction claims a larger sum than the losing side. After winning his first battle for Biscotti, Cinque learns that when a hero is summoned into Flonyard he becomes unable to return to his homeworld, a fact that Millhiore also was unaware of.
The scientists of Biscotti promise to Cinque to find a way for him to return home in 16 days, the remaining time until his meeting with his friend Rebecca Anderson whom he promised to spend the last three days of his Spring Break with. Until then, he decides to keep serving Millhiore as Biscotti's hero."
What tTPO says: Unless you are allergic to either cats or dogs or cute things in general, this is a series that is mostly harmless. It is directed at the younger audience, so despite all the fighting, our characters never in anything resembling serious danger until the last couple of episodes when the series got a bit darker. The drama was on the distinctly beige side of things until that point. Having a young target market though is, as always, not a good enough reason on its own to avoid having some light fan service at times. The other downside from this old man's point of view was the lack of originality (think Final Fantasy crossed with K-ON!, the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and just about any other shounen anime and you won't be too far off the mark). Maybe they were tying to appeal to the male and female audience simultaneously?
The overall plot is not complex, but is nicely structured over the course of the series, with a quite large cast of characters (there is some even some exploration of the main ones) and caricatures to stay entertaining. The pacing was also pretty much spot on - Angel Beats and Occult Academy could take some lessons from Dog Days in this respect. So while lacking in originality and fire, it did at least have a beginning, a middle, an end and a little heart, and that alone puts it above many other shows.
How about the music?: Much like the rest of this show the J-rock OP and ED are a bit cute, and a bit disposable.
So how does it end? (Spoiler Free): Neatly, with no important loose threads.
Overall Grade: Grade C (Nice enough, but not enough to spend time on). They set the bar low, but cleared it with ease. So much so that a second season has been announced. I probably won't be watching it though. Maybe a B for the young folk?
Addendum (after watching the second season): In contrast to my own advice I found time to watch the second season of this series - cunningly named Dog Days (apostrophe), or Dog Days' (or even DD') for short. Taking place in the next summer break of school, there were a few changes made to the formula (losing the generous amounts of fan service was not one of those changes) in that about 90% of the drama was stripped out, and the feel-good factor, which was already pretty high is now stratospheric. Seriously, even the token bad guys are good - the Demon-King's worst vice is looking at scantily clad ladies. The plot (what little there was) was also lost with the drama and DD' I think could fairly be called a slice of life series as a result. Having said that, they did actually start to deal with some of the harem / romance issues though in a very supportive way, and we got to hear about things from Cinque's perspective. Despite all of this they managed to increase the already formidable armada of characters by bringing 3 (not just 1) characters from Earth, introducing a new country for the sport-battles (with the associated rulers and retainers) and bringing a couple of historic heroes back from the past for good measure. And increase the number of insert songs performed by Millhiore from 1 to 3.
There was a very strong implication we would see a third series and maybe just maybe, we get a bit of drama back? I'll probably find myself watching again - the short format just makes it a bit easy to commit time-wise.
What Wikipedia says: "Cinque Izumi is a cheerful and athletic half-Japanese, half-English boy who studies at Kinokawa International School in Japan, and has a normal life everyday until he suddenly got summoned to the alternate world of Flonyard. The people there look no different from humans, except for one thing; they have animal ears and tails. The one who summoned him is Millhiore, the dog-like Princess of the Biscotti Republic, who requested his assistance in their war against the forces of the feline-like Galette Lion Army.
After responding to Millhiore's plea, he receives a sacred weapon, the Palladion, and is appointed as a Hero to fight for Biscotti in a war that unlike the ones in Earth, is waged with special rules and no casualties, in a fashion similar to a sports competition with the purpose to raise funds for the Kingdoms involved, where the winner faction claims a larger sum than the losing side. After winning his first battle for Biscotti, Cinque learns that when a hero is summoned into Flonyard he becomes unable to return to his homeworld, a fact that Millhiore also was unaware of.
The scientists of Biscotti promise to Cinque to find a way for him to return home in 16 days, the remaining time until his meeting with his friend Rebecca Anderson whom he promised to spend the last three days of his Spring Break with. Until then, he decides to keep serving Millhiore as Biscotti's hero."
What tTPO says: Unless you are allergic to either cats or dogs or cute things in general, this is a series that is mostly harmless. It is directed at the younger audience, so despite all the fighting, our characters never in anything resembling serious danger until the last couple of episodes when the series got a bit darker. The drama was on the distinctly beige side of things until that point. Having a young target market though is, as always, not a good enough reason on its own to avoid having some light fan service at times. The other downside from this old man's point of view was the lack of originality (think Final Fantasy crossed with K-ON!, the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and just about any other shounen anime and you won't be too far off the mark). Maybe they were tying to appeal to the male and female audience simultaneously?
The overall plot is not complex, but is nicely structured over the course of the series, with a quite large cast of characters (there is some even some exploration of the main ones) and caricatures to stay entertaining. The pacing was also pretty much spot on - Angel Beats and Occult Academy could take some lessons from Dog Days in this respect. So while lacking in originality and fire, it did at least have a beginning, a middle, an end and a little heart, and that alone puts it above many other shows.
How about the music?: Much like the rest of this show the J-rock OP and ED are a bit cute, and a bit disposable.
So how does it end? (Spoiler Free): Neatly, with no important loose threads.
Overall Grade: Grade C (Nice enough, but not enough to spend time on). They set the bar low, but cleared it with ease. So much so that a second season has been announced. I probably won't be watching it though. Maybe a B for the young folk?
Addendum (after watching the second season): In contrast to my own advice I found time to watch the second season of this series - cunningly named Dog Days (apostrophe), or Dog Days' (or even DD') for short. Taking place in the next summer break of school, there were a few changes made to the formula (losing the generous amounts of fan service was not one of those changes) in that about 90% of the drama was stripped out, and the feel-good factor, which was already pretty high is now stratospheric. Seriously, even the token bad guys are good - the Demon-King's worst vice is looking at scantily clad ladies. The plot (what little there was) was also lost with the drama and DD' I think could fairly be called a slice of life series as a result. Having said that, they did actually start to deal with some of the harem / romance issues though in a very supportive way, and we got to hear about things from Cinque's perspective. Despite all of this they managed to increase the already formidable armada of characters by bringing 3 (not just 1) characters from Earth, introducing a new country for the sport-battles (with the associated rulers and retainers) and bringing a couple of historic heroes back from the past for good measure. And increase the number of insert songs performed by Millhiore from 1 to 3.
There was a very strong implication we would see a third series and maybe just maybe, we get a bit of drama back? I'll probably find myself watching again - the short format just makes it a bit easy to commit time-wise.
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