Dinosaur King
|
All of this just works. ― Todd Howard |
This article needs cleanup to meet our rules and guidelines. You can help by editing it. The following reason has been specified: It seems the RQ is really too much, maybe needed more BQ than RQ, the rules said that need at least 13/11 so making more balanced |
| Dinosaur King | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Dino Slash! NOT!
| ||||||||||||||||||||
|
Dinosaur King (古代王者恐竜キング Kodai Ōja Kyōryū Kingu, literally "Ancient Ruler Dinosaur King") is a Japanese anime television series created by Sunrise, card-based arcade game from Sega that uses the same gameplay mechanics from Mushiking but uses super-powered dinosaurs instead of beetles.
Summary
Season 1
Max Taylor is the son of paleontologist Dr. Spike Taylor. After falling out of bed early one morning and witnessing a meteor fall from the sky, Max sets out with his friends Rex Owen and Zoe Drake into a forest where the meteor had crashed. They find stones with the symbols for lightning, wind, and grass on them and a card with a picture of a Triceratops on it. The Triceratops that is later named Chomp is accidentally activated when Max rubs the card on the stone. The D-Team meet their new enemies in the Alpha Gang consisting of Dr. Z, Ursula, Zander, Ed, Seth, Laura, Rod, Helga, and the Alpha Droids. The Alpha Gang plans to obtain the Dinosaur Cards that were lost when their time machine exploded and stranded them in the present. Rex activated a Carnotaurus card which was named Ace and Zoe activated a Parasaurolophus which was named Paris. The D-Team and Alpha Gang often clash for possession of dinosaurs that are activated when their cards are activated. In the finale, Seth turns on his comrades with his Black Tyrannosaurus which is ultimately defeated. Seth attempts to bring Chomp back to the past which fails and Seth is sent into the past alone. The D-Team surrender their dinosaurs to Rex's original parents, with many tears.
Season 2
The Alpha Gang and the Ancients return. While the parents are talking, they are kidnapped by Gavro, a member of the Spectral Space Pirates. This causes the Alpha Gang and D-Team to join forces against the Space Pirates in their plot to obtain cosmic jewels known as the Cosmos Stones. Seth later returns as an ally to the Spectral Space Pirates after they saved him from the time portal. Spectre, the leader of the Space Pirates, provides the dinosaur cards. In episode 75, Seth seems to become a traitor as he appeals to the D-Team for help saying that they forced him to help them. However, it was really a trick to get the two Cosmos Stones in D-Team's control, despite the fact that he attacks and defeats his comrades two episodes later. In the end although the Spectral Space Pirates manage to catch all seven Cosmos Stones, Seth and the Pterosaur defeat the Black Pterosaur. Rex, his parents, and the Alpha Gang leave to their own time as the Spectral Space Pirates are floating around in a pod.
Why Nobody Walk The Dinosaur King
- For starters: It feels like a cheap imitation of Pokémon, while sometimes ripping off Yu-Gi-Oh!.
- There can be some confusing plot holes and continuity errors, for some good examples:
- In "Carnival of Chaos", the Alpha Gang where using dinosaurs that the D-Team already previously rescued, and even if they were it's doesn't explain how the Alpha Gang got them back.
- It's never explain how Rex's parents were recovered back in the pod room in the time machine, even though Dr. Z and Seth jettisoned their pods into the timestream.
- For some strange reason, the world leaders or their governments don't ever bother investigating the still living breathing dinosaurs that have been popping up all over the world, even when they have been reported on natural television worldwide numerus times.
- In "A Kyoto Caper", they mention that the Fukuisaurus was the last of the dinosaurs to escaped from it's egg capsule, but in "The 39 Thieves", it's revealed that the Isisaurus (Genie) is actually the last true dinosaur to escaped from it's egg capsule.
- Also they never really explain how the Isisaurus egg capsule was in Ancient Persia whereas most of the egg capsules were found in the modern day present.
- It wasn't safe from 4Kids dumb censorship, a few easily recognizable ones are "Ninja Nightmare", "Field of Screams", and "Beast or Famine" (this was likely because they removed the Japanese text in certain shots).
- Speaking of "The 39 thieves", "Desert Heat", "Princess of the City", and "Malice in the Palace", it is notable for ripping off the well-known animated film by Disney, Aladdin. Mostly because of the character designs for both Aladdin and Princess Zara (Jasmine in the Disney version) are extremely similar to their Disney counterparts.
- The villain's are a bit if not too cliché.
- Despite being a likable protagonist, Max Taylor can have his dumb moments like when he got easily tricked by Rod and Laura because of his stubbornness in "Dueling Dinos", or having meanspirited moments like in "Santa Saurus" when his parents gave him a math book to help him in his studies, only for him to literary throw the book in his own mother's face! (though, he did at least apologize to them in the end).
- There's a very hypocritical message that dinosaurs are not meant to fight, in a show about that is mainly dinosaurs fighting each other. Doesn't that sound familiar?
- The CGI, while still very detailed, hasn't aged very well and it can look pretty fake (but still better in quality than it was compared to Kirby: Right Back at Ya!).
- There are a couple of idiocy moments that happen within the show:
- In "Battle Royale!" Zoe comes up with a plan to switch places with Meena so she can get to experience the princess life while Meena can live out as a normal person in public. But as soon the royal family picks up Zoe they don't seem to notice that her voice is completely different to Meena's and the fact that she's white skinned or the town citizens somehow don't recognize Meena as the missing princess in different clothing. Zoe's plan makes absolutely no sense at all and even Rex and Max pointed out how flawed her plan was.
- The D Team thinks it was a good idea to tell people to think their dinosaurs are pet dogs, even though they don't look remotely close to dogs nor do they ever disguise them as dogs.
- There are some scientific inaccuracies with certain dinosaurs in the show, some like the featherless Velociraptor pack or Spiny's (Spinosaurus) whole body portion.
Redeeming Qualities
- It has very well designed dinosaurs that almost look real.
- It has great action of dinosaur fights and battles which shows off a nice take.
- Good animations style to that of Pokémon, Sonic X and Bakugan. In other words, a pretty nice anime type animation that anyone can actually enjoy.
- It even perfectly balance the 2D and CGI animations together.
- The English dub by 4Kids Entertainment was very good, such as Darren Dunstan playing as Zannder or Veronica Taylor playing as Max Taylor.
- Lots of funny moments in a couple episodes such as the characters freaking out in the episode "Lights, Camera, Destruction!".
- The chibi forms of the dinosaurs such as Chomp (Gabu) are really adorable!
- Even the bond between the D-Team, the Alpha Gang, and even Spectre with their dinosaurs are also adorable too.
- The season 2 finale was a nice send off to the series.
- It not only features a few recognizable classic dinosaur species, but it also has it's fair share of other dinosaur species that are either unique and original that are new in media.
- There are some education moments, like when Dr. Spike Taylor was telling the kids how the Saltasaurus and Ayers Rock got their names.
- It does send a message telling that you can't hold on to friends forever, and you'll have to let them go eventually.
- The theme song can be somewhat catchy.