Review: Dragon Heart delivers its propaganda at a full roar

A few years back, when the Academy released their list of Oscar-eligible animated features, there was a fascinating-sounding title on it that I didn't recognize: The Laws of the Universe -- The Age of Elohim. I tracked it down and liked it pretty well. During my search, I found out that the movie was a bit of religious propaganda, specifically a Japanese cult called Happy Science. They're a strange bunch, with a lot of odd beliefs and a penchant for spreading misinformation. The Age of Elohim, at least to my untrained eye, felt like some sort of mythological sci-fi deal, so its effectiveness as propaganda felt pretty limp.

Dragon Heart -- Adventures Beyond This World, the new movie from Happy Science's production arm, is much more obviously serving the cause. With the trappings on a usual fantasy anime movie, this movie seeks to encourage young people (and, I guess, everyone) to commit to the cause. The cause being, helping other people find enlightenment in the pursuit of religious duty.

While the movie's religious aims are obvious, I still found the underlying religion to be very hard to parse. The focus on proselytization feels very Christian, but the way hell is structured is decidedly not. There's talk about Buddhism, but this doesn't feel like Buddhism as I've known it. Even after reading up a bit on Happy Science, the exact belief infrastructure feels impenetrable. For instance, the god they worship has been known as Elohim, Odin, Hermes...feels like a Forrest Gump situation, where this god is actually the god of basically every belief system that has ever existed.

So, you know, if you don't want to partake in a movie like this, I don't at all blame you. It has a small footprint, nonetheless, so chances are you might not even be able to see it if you want to. Here in LA, it's playing in one theater that I know of, the AMC down in Torrance. Not exactly prime silver screen real estate. In Japan, it's being released in 250 theaters throughout the country.

But let me engage with the movie as a movie. On that front, it's not very good, either.

Dragon Heart follows a pretty standard set-up at the beginning. Ryusuke, a middle school student in Tokyo, heads off to Tokushima to spend the summer with his aunt, uncle, and cousin Tomomi. Ryusuke is an enthusiastic mountain climber, so he's excited to explore the surrounding natural beauty. Tomomi is a champion kendo fighter, though she tends to downplay her achievements. They both seem to have a sort of sixth sense, with a heightened awareness of supernatural beings.

Which brings us to Ryusuke's first full day in town, where he and Tomomi see a kappa by a river. They try to chase it down, fall in the river, and get seemingly rescued by a dragon, which brings them to a mysterious old man. This old man tells them that they haven't actually been rescued. They're both dead. But if they are willing to venture through the afterlife and discover what their true purpose is, they may be able to return to life.

This was where my first red flag went up, because when the old man asks them why they want to live, they give reasons that make sense to a kid: they're young so they want to live longer, they have hobbies they want to continue pursuing, more of the world to see, etc. And he's basically like, Not Good Enough. Even at this young age, he wants these kids to be pursuing some high divine purpose. Let the kids be kids! Indoctrination is a not a good look!

And neither is the afterlife, it turns out. The kids are plunged into a red-soaked hellscape that looks a bit like the Entertainment District from that arc of Demon Slayer. And seemingly every single person has a gun and wants to kill every other person. This is only the first stage of horrors, and later we find out, only the first of many hells that exist. The kids end up venturing through quite a few, including a hospital where the doctors use chainsaws, a time-loop suicide bomber train scenario, a brothel run by (literally) monstrous madams. It's a lot.

It actually reminded me of a Christian hay ride thing I went to in high school, where you ride past scenes depicting the fallout of drunk driving, premarital sex, and other sinful actions. It's meant to scare you into submission and service. This movie very much has that vibe. Especially during the hell song (yes, there are a lot of songs in this movie) where you get glimpses of even more hells, and the actions that might send you there (including homosexuality, dang it!).

After facing all these horrors, rather than immediately returning to life as normal, the kids decide to dedicate themselves to spiritual service, which includes traveling to Shambhala. By this point in the movie, I was pretty firmly out. The schtick had become so obvious, beyond in-your-face, and it felt like beating a dead horse to watch Ryusuke and Tomomi venture to the legendary city to brush up on their duties. Talk about beating a dead horse.

As far as movies with such an obvious agenda, this one isn't horrible. The animation is decent, and the English dub is pretty solid. I liked a lot of the songs, weird as many of them were. The story isn't much more than a frame to encourage religious devotion, but there are some interesting sights along the way. Is it worth two hours of your time? No. Unless you think it might save your mortal soul. (It won't.)