I dont usually write reviews but this anime is somewhat meaningful to me and I have stuff to say. The first time I saw Blue Dragon was when it aired on Cartoon Network in the late 2000s. Being a young kid it was one of the only anime I had access to at that time so I always looked forward to its airing and watched every episode that was available on our limited Comcast streaming service. That is to say I have a good amount of nostalgia for this show and its characters so I may not be entirely objective. The majority of Blue Dragon is an enjoyable and lighthearted if bland shonen. I only ever saw around the first 15 episodes when it first aired so I was excited to be able to finally get the whole story. Minor parts of the plot didnt make that much sense but it didnt really bother me because I wasnt taking it too seriously. At its worst it dragged and at its best it made me genuinely feel for the characters and their struggles. But I still wouldnt recommend it and heres why spoilers ahead: If it had ended one arc earlier it wouldve been totally fine. Just a story about some standard super powered kids who defeat a standard super villain with the power of friendship. But in my opinion Zolas betrayal ruined the story. Im biased because shed always been by far my favorite and I loved her as a kid but just because it was foreshadowed doesnt mean it makes any sense. At one point the other characters even ask her why are you doing this? Destroying the world will make sadness go away yeah but only because everyone will be dead? And she just says like a single sentence of nonsense and no one asks her to clarify. It was totally cheap and just meant to make you feel sad about how a character youd grown to trust and care about for 50 episodes turned out to have been heartless since the beginning. To its credit it worked but that doesnt mean it was clever or well written. Her motivation was very vague and her backstory was completely glossed over and difficult to follow. Pros and cons: +Some pretty great side characters actually. I liked how the minor antagonists got depth and made you feel for them and I wish thered been more of that earlier in the show since its mostly in the last arc or so. Bonus points for making me genuinely like General Rogi even though he was an antagonist it was clear he cared about his squadron and that its younger members looked up to him. +Even though they were introduced not too long before each of their deaths I ended up really feeling for Homeron and Dragnov and they didnt seem like they were written in just to die. +The character designs are fun and I liked seeing all the different cool Shadows and robots etc : The main cast didnt get any character development. I was especially disappointed by Bouquet who seemed like she was going to learn how to be brave and useful but after she got her new power she literally never used it again and didnt even contribute to the final battle even though her copy ability couldve been incredibly cool and useful. She was just the annoying uncomfortable fanservice character the whole time. Sometimes the details and reasoning behind things didnt make sense/was hard to follow I already talked about how dumb Zolas plot twist for the sake of plot twist was Because of the ending overall I felt like I wasted my time getting invested into this show especially considering its length. I really wanted to like it but it was just disappointing :