Review of “Dragon’s Heaven” (1988)

Moving picture, 42 minutes

Seen in 2024.

A humanoid vehicle spends a thousand years in suspended animation after losing its pilot in one of the apocalyptic wars of far-future South America. It reacts to a solitary traveller on the sands.

The script is uncommonly poor, but the gritty textures are fantastic in this product of the Japanese bubble economy. The post-apocalyptic desert environment is superficially similar to Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1982) without the fukai, but Kobayashi’s organic-looking mechanical and architectural designs remind me more of Jean “Mœbius” Giraud, and the costume design even more so.

moving picture animation Japanese production mecha fiction