Looking back, I did something a little weird. I reviewed season 3 of Dragon Prince all by itself instead of posting the different seasons in order. Seeing as we might be getting close to the release of season 4, which is slated for the end of eternity, erm, in 2021, it’s a great time to remedy that.

If you’ve been following along, I do have a soft spot for 2D animation films created to showcase art and story. This is true with my fascination with Castlevania as well as the Studio Ghibli universe. It’s no surprise that Dragon Prince is among my favorites.

The Story

As with all opening seasons, there is the expected setting up of all the different forces at work. We see this done masterfully here in the first season of Dragon Prince. The world is essentially divided into two groups, the humans and the elves. The humans, believing they were protecting their world, destroyed the dragon king and his egg which earned them the elves as an enemy.

In retaliation, elven assassins hunt down the human king responsible for the dragon king’s death. What they don’t know is that the dragon egg was not destroyed, but stolen by the human king’s advisor.

All of this big story leads us to focus on the two most important characters, the human king’s son, Ezran, and Rayla, the elven assassin who has a change of heart when she learns that the egg hasn’t been destroyed. Together, along with Ezran’s older half brother, Callum, they vow to return the egg back to the Dragon queen.

Along their journey they encounter all manner of obstacles and difficulties, both in the form of monsters in the world and also from hunters from the kingdom trying to rescue the crown prince Ezran from Rayla, who they believe has abducted him.

With the death of the king and the prince missing, the kingdom falls into the hands of the king’s advisor, Viren, a powerful sorcerer who uses dark magic. While his intentions have always been good, his methods are questionable at best. With each turn, he digs himself deeper into a hole that will bring the kingdom to ruin.

My Review

This show has everything I love in a story. Noble characters, dark and light magic pitted against each other, plenty of humor, and some adorable friendships/relationships. It also has amazing art design, great music, and awesome dialogue.

Honestly, if I were to pick one thing about this show that I didn’t like, it would be that they chose to give Rayla a very distinct Scottish flavored accent. It took a few episodes to get used to it, but after that it felt like it totally worked.

There’s also two different sibling relationships that are beautifully contrasted against each other. One is between Ezran and his half brother Callum which is supportive and playful. The other is between Soren and Claudia which is fraught with issues caused by having a dark sorcerer as their father. Soren, who is as naïve as they come, wants to be an amazing knight of the realm and Claudia, who inherited her father’s intellect and magical talent, wants to please her father.

My Recommendations

My eight-year-old loved all of this show, even the parts that I thought would be too intense and scary. Yes, the plot is fairly intricate and yes there is plenty of tension and also yes, there is the use of dark magic which involves sacrifice of living things to make work, but beyond that, there are hundreds of examples of people making the right choices even though they are hard. I count that as a win.\

I rate Dragon Prince, Season 1 5/5 stars for being all around awesome.

---

Thank you for joining me as I reviewed Dragon Prince, season 1 today on the blog. If you enjoyed reading this review and would like to see more, please consider connecting with me by either following the blog here on WordPress, liking my Facebook page, or subscribing to my newsletter. As an added bonus, newsletter subscribers receive free books, stories, and special offers every week.