Slobbish Dragon Princess Review – NEET Dragon

The quality of a visual novel can sometimes be found in the price. However, the genre is something to pay attention to as well. I mean, if it’s an eroge, you can’t really go in expecting high-level storytelling. So I turned my expectation lower for the Whirlpool-developed visual novel Slobbish Dragon Princess, which is good because I wouldn’t call its narrative as captivating as its visuals.

Slobbish Dragon Princess sets up a rather interesting premise where Dragons have returned to Earth to turn us into slaves or kill everyone. However, a few days before this invasion, our protagonist Takeru finds a strange lizard with wings and names it Haru. It turns out that Haru is actually a dragon princess who puts a halt to the invasion.

The premise is actually the coolest thing about the story because they basically call out humans for their sins and aim to judge them. After this, the invasion comes up a few times before, but the story mostly forgets about it all as we focus more on the three main characters’ relationship. Suzuka is Takeru’s childhood best friend, and she admits that she’s liked him for a long time. They don’t try to hide this fact, but Takeru is none-the-wiser.

The thing is, Takeru is a NEET. What’s worse is that he has no plans to change and is pretty much broke the entire story. Every day focuses on what they will eat, which is almost always crawdads that he catches near his house. Food is absolutely the only thing he has in common with Haru and Suzuka, so their feelings for him completely surprised me. There are a few moments where he shows bravery, though, since he knows martial arts, but honestly, I didn’t care.

The relationship writing also has weird pacing as Takeru and Haru pretty much hook up on the first night that she changes into her girl form. After that, though, the story pacing until the next romantic scenes between them take a while to get to. This first encounter happens out of nowhere and pretty much throws the worldbuilding from the initial 30 minutes out the window as we can now see this visual novel as just an everyday eroge.

I’m hard on it, but the story really has no direction. One minute Takeru and Haru are enjoying the NEET life; the next, he’s hooking up with Suzuka and saying that he won’t be a NEET for long. Does anything get resolved? No. Instead, the story finds a way for him to continue his lazy ways without really explaining the relationship or the possible end of the world.

There are a few comedic relief moments, but this is just a story with no structure or rules. The plot is all over the place from a pretty decent foundation. Still, I ended up laughing a few times as Takeru decides he wants to be a beast hunter, and the two girls encourage him.

I don’t really know what I was expecting from this visual novel, but the illustrations were excellent. Much like Whirlpool’s other titles, there’s a nice breakup of CGs, and even though this is only a 6-hour story, there are plenty of CGs to unlock. I’m going to assume that you’ll be picking up the adult patch for this title, but those interactions only make the plot messier. If you’re looking for a harem route, there isn’t one here, which is surprising since the three characters are often just hanging out in a room together.

The finers point of this dragon adventure is the quality in which everything is presented. There are numerous backgrounds, character poses, costume changes, and funny outings with the cast. There are even scenes where Suzuka goes to college for the day, which threw me for a loop because I’m so used to high school characters. In all, if you’re not looking for anything of substances, there’s some haphazard fun to be had in the scenes. It might now lead to anything substantial, but you won’t be bored.

Slobbish Dragon Princess’s narrative is all over the place and exceptionally hard to follow. The relationships are silly and meaningless, just like the main protagonist. Still, some quality CGs and character illustrations make up the visual novel’s finer points, and sometimes a cute dragon girl is all you need.