Dragon Quest Dai episode 3 review: Avan and the Dragon Quest nods

Episode three of Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai, called "The Hero's Tutor," is where the adventure begins. It lays the groundwork for Dai's journey to become the great hero he wants to be. It's a slower training episode, but I think the voice acting and the tone are very good, and as a hardcore Dragon Quest fan I was thrilled by the nods to the games.

The 2020 anime continues the story of Dai, the boy on the island, and this is the episode that brings in the man who will train him.

The Dark Lord's return turns the monsters on Dai's island evil

The episode opens with everything going wrong. The skies are dark and monsters are starting to turn evil. Even the ones on Dai's island begin to rebel and go on rampages. The speculation is that the Dark Lord has returned and is seizing control of these monsters to rebuild his army and conquer the world once more.

Dai is urged to get off the island. He has a good heart, and staying would be bad for him. He might not survive, and he might even be betrayed by his closest friends. As he is about to leave, two mysterious new characters appear.

Avan the hero tutor arrives and frees the island

One of the newcomers does something wacky. He takes his sword and inscribes a giant symbol on the ground across the whole island. Somehow he does it in a couple of minutes, moving all the way across the island in a big circular motion with some symbolism in the middle. Then he casts a spell, the dark clouds over the island disappear, the sunlight comes in, and the monsters go back to normal instead of being possessed.

The possessed monsters have red eyes. If you've played Dragon Quest XI and reached act two, you know what that signifies, and I'm guessing the anime took reference from that game for what the red eyes do. This man managed to spare the island, but there are probably other parts of the world that aren't going to be so lucky.

He introduces himself as Avan, a hero tutor whose job is to train heroes in combat. There's a lot more to his backstory, but his purpose here is plain: he's there to train Dai to be a hero. He also confirms that the Dark Lord has returned and that monsters are rampaging in other parts of the world.

Why calling heroes "heroes" works in shonen anime

The idea of heroes being referred to as heroes might seem a bit silly, and some may find it corny. I get it. But if you like Dragon Ball, My Hero Academia or even One Punch Man, you'll know that in shonen it's a thing that makes sense. There's a lot of meta in shonen about who the hero is, what makes a hero, and fighting spirit.

It's worth remembering that Japanese culture isn't quite as cynical as Western culture is now about loving antiheroes, even though they definitely love antiheroes too. Being a benevolent hero still has substance in Japanese culture, and certainly in fiction there.

Popp's Kafrizz and the gargoyle's Fizzle spell

From here things start to get very good, and the series picks up. As Jim Ross would say back in the Attitude Era, and still says now in AEW, "business is picking up." Two winged monsters show up. They're called gargoyles in this translation, and they went by a different name in the original Dragon Warrior 2 translation. They can't get through the barrier of light Avan created.

Popp, Avan's sidekick, is ordered to fight them. He agrees, casts Kafrizz and turns one of the gargoyles into barbecue, charring him with the attack. Then, and I was cheering as a hardcore Dragon Quest fan, the other gargoyle casts Fizzle on Popp and he can't use magic.

Fizzle was originally known as StopSpell in the original Dragon Warrior translations from the 80s. It stops someone else from casting spells, and in some of those early games it was very useful. Some monsters were far too powerful to face in certain areas early in the game, and if you didn't want to train for too long, you could use StopSpell on them. It's also very useful on the wizards in Dragonlord's castle later on. I'm getting nerdy, but I've been a fan of this series since I was five years old, and this stuff puts a smile on my face.

Dai's cheap sword and the levels from the Perfect Book

Dai faces the remaining gargoyle hand to hand and does well, using the dagger Princess Leona gave him. It isn't a full sword. He ends up losing it, so Avan hands him what he calls a legendary sword and tells him to use it. That's another clue about who this guy really is.

Here's a nerdy detail I forgot to mention in my earlier reviews: in the Dragon Quest Dai manga, Dai has levels. When he fought the fake heroes in the first episode, he was level 10, and when he fought the killing machine in the next episode, he was level 11. He levels up as the story progresses. I've said this show is like a JRPG come to life, and I love those games. Even if you've never played Dragon Quest but you play Pokémon, Persona or Final Fantasy, you can appreciate that. Play Dragon Quest, though: "it's the godfather."

I don't know all the levels, since they aren't all stated, but I think it's very cool. That information comes from the Perfect Book, a Dai guide in the same vein as the Dragon Ball guidebooks I talk about. I don't own it, but I know of it.

The crest on Dai's forehead lights up and he slashes the gargoyle, taking him out. Then we find out Avan is talking to himself: it was a cheap sword, not a legendary one, but the kid used it well. Despite the weapon being junk, Dai made it work, and that shows lots of potential. Avan is a great character.

Training with Avan and the road to the Avan Strash

Training begins the next day after they rest, and Dai breaks the sword, apologizing profusely. It reminded me of when Goku and Gohan broke the Z Sword, except an old man didn't come out of this one. They even mention it only cost 10 gold coins, so of course it was going to break. Avan tells Dai to use the dagger Princess Leona gave him instead, and Dai and Popp train together to build his physical and magic skills.

Another quick tidbit: the symbol on Popp's outfit, with the little red orb in the middle, is an homage to the crest of Erdrick's family from the original Dragon Quest trilogy. It isn't the same symbol, but it's similar, and that's where I think the idea came from. It's a deep cut, and it gave me big feels.

Dai is doing very well, so Avan wants to teach him advanced techniques involving earth, sea and air, and how to use them to slice through those things in battle under any circumstances. In this episode Dai almost masters the Earth Slash, the first of the three moves he will learn. This is like an RPG video game, because that's what it's based on. Dai does go on to learn the other two, but he wants to learn the Avan Strash, and yes, it's pronounced strash. That's Avan's signature move, and it takes time to learn.

Avan's dragon transformation ends a slower paced episode

The cliffhanger is that Dai's training is about to be turned up. Avan takes him to a special place on the island and transforms into a dragon, a spell from the games. I think the original translation called it B Dragon. The dragon looks a bit like a chubbier version of the original red dragon from Dragon Quest One, though not quite. It's funny because he still has his glasses on, and I love that touch.

For a training episode there weren't many crazy animation cuts, and I didn't see any CGI. But it's supposed to be a slower paced episode. Not every episode is going to be an action packed thrill ride. This is an ongoing series; it goes up and it goes down. At the time, the show was streaming on Crunchyroll and Hulu, and it was moving through the story very fast. With the Dark Lord arriving, the next episode was set to be very interesting, and the next big plot point was pretty big and coming very soon.