DOTA: Dragon’s Blood will drop on Netflix this Thursday. While we’re all excited to see one of the world’s greatest esports titles finally show up on the streaming platform (and as an anime, no less), there are still many questions to be answered before the premiere.
Questions such as, why is Davion the Dragon Knight the first lead out of the hundreds of characters in the game?
The show’s showrunner and executive producer Ashley Miller tells SPIN.ph the answers.
“Those characters were to some extent already on the table for me when I came onto the project,” Miller said in an email interview.
According to Miller, Netflix was the one who pitched the idea to him with the characters already in place for the first (and hopefully not the last) season.
Soon after Netflix signed a deal with the game developer Valve, Miller was brought along to create the story and help turn the game's world into an anime.
Miller, whose previous work includes screenwriting credits for X-Men: First Class and Thor, explained how he expanded on the existing set of characters, as well as their relationships to one another.
“What I loved about Davion was the contradiction inherent to his character. Here’s a guy who spends his life hunting down and killing this thing he hates only to become that thing and have to deal with it,” he said.
“As a character, I liked the idea of this pampered Princess (Mirana) being out on the road feeling very much out of her element and exploring how she would connect with a guy like Davion,” Miller explained.
He added, referencing an old ‘90s rom-com: “It’s a little Notting Hill in that you have this very regular, almost middle-class hero finding himself in a burgeoning relationship with royalty.”
The anime is also the first time DOTA fans will see Selemene, the goddess of the moon. The character was previously limited to mentions in Mirana and Luna’s in-game voice lines.
Aside from Selemene, Dragon’s Blood will also expand Invoker’s story and role in the world of Dota.
“Mirana and Selemene both emerged from the same thought experiment. If Mirana’s purpose is to protect the lotuses, what happens if she fails? What does it mean for the story and what does it mean for her personally,” Miller said.
“The Invoker came down to wondering what he thought about all day by himself, why he wanted to live forever, what he would do with all of that time.”
Miller adds that after building each character he simply needed to connect the dots.
DOTA: Dragon’s Blood is animated by Studio Mir, the same studio who animated Nickelodeon’s Avatar: Legend of Korra and Netflix’s Voltron: Legendary Defender. Miller praised the studio for their work and was thrilled when he was notified who he’ll be working with.
“I was very excited by the opportunity to work with Studio Mir. They’re simply the best in the world when it comes to this kind of thing,” he said in the interview.
Miller, who recently turned 50, admitted candidly that he had not yet played the game.
“I’ve never played Dota before, I’ll admit it. I’m a little intimidated but mainly worried it would suck me in and consume my life,” he confessed.
Wise choice, Mr. Miller. A very wise choice.
DOTA: Dragon’s Blood drops on Netflix this Thursday, March 25, 2021.
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