News
BBC iPlayer is Streaming English-Dubbed Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai
posted on by Andrew Osmond
The BBC iPlayer is streaming 25 episodes of Toei Animation's anime of Riku Sanjō and Kōji Inada's Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai (Dragon Quest: Dai no Daibōken) manga. Unlike previous streams of the series in territories outside Japan, the BBC is streaming the English dub of the series, featuring Sabrina Pitre as Dai.
In the story, after the defeat of the demon lord Hadlar, all of the monsters were unleashed from his evil will and moved to the island of Delmurin to live in peace. Dai is the only human living on the island. Having been raised by the kindly monster Brass, Dai's dream is to grow up to be a hero. He gets to become one when Hadlar is resurrected and the previous hero, Avan, comes to train Dai to help in the battle. But Hadlar, announcing that he now works for an even more powerful demon lord, comes to kill Avan. To save his students, Avan uses a Self-Sacrifice spell to attack, but is unable to defeat Hadlar. When it seems that Dai and Avan's other student Pop are doomed, a mark appears on Dai's forehead and he suddenly gains super powers and is able to fend off Hadlar. The two students then go off on a journey to avenge Avan and bring peace back to the world.
Kazuya Karasawa (Dragon Ball Super episode director, Dragon Ball Super: Broly storyboards) is serving as series director at Toei Animation. Katsuhiko Chiba (Rune Soldier, Baby Steps, Tiger Mask W) is supervising the series' scripts. Emiko Miyamoto (Maho Girls Precure!) is designing the characters. Ayaka Fujii (Studio Pablo) is the art director. Yuki Hayashi is composing the music. Aya Mori is in charge of color design. Dragon Quest series director Yuji Horii is credited for supervising the original manga.
The pop rock band Macaroni Enpitsu ("Macaroni Pencil") are performing the opening theme song "Ikiru o Suru."
Toei Animation is producing the anime, which is a hybrid of CG and 2D animation. The 37-volume manga ran in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine from 1989 to 1996. The manga previously inspired a 46-episode anime series that aired in 1991 and 1992, and three short anime films that opened in July 1991, March 1992, and July 1992.
Grateful thanks to Tyrell Landsberg for the heads-up.
