The Dragon Dentist

Lore & Background

Nonoko is a newly appointed dentist whose mission is to protect the dragon, the guardian of the country, from tooth-cavity bacteria. Amid increasingly fierce battles with a neighboring country, Nonoko finds on the dragon's tooth an unconscious boy soldier from the enemy country named Bell. He has been resurrected from inside the tooth by the dragon—a supernatural phenomenon that legend says occurs before a major disaster. As Nonoko and Bell go through a series of fierce battles, they eventually learn to accept their fate.

Reader's Guide

The Dragon Dentist originated as an 8-minute short for Hideaki Anno's Japan Animator Expo, a weekly series of anime shorts announced at the Tokyo International Film Festival in October 2014. The short was written and directed by Ōtarō Maijō and produced by Tomoyuki Ogata, with Anno and Nobuo Kawakami serving as executive producers. Animation was produced by Khara and directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki. The short was first shown at the Tokyo International Film Festival in October 2014, then posted online with English subtitles on 7 November 2014. In August 2016, the Animator Expo website revealed that The Dragon Dentist would be adapted into a two-part feature-length anime special, which aired on NHK's BS Premium channel in February 2017. The special was later licensed by Sentai Filmworks for home video distribution in North America. Reception was mixed: Kevin Cirugeda of Anime News Network recommended the short 'with reservations,' praising Tsurumaki's animation but feeling the story overreached in its short runtime. Salvador GRodiles of Japanator thought the story 'a bit weak' but noted interesting visuals and potential for expansion.

Story & Synopsis

Nonoko arrives at her post as a freshly appointed dentist with a singular and extraordinary duty: safeguarding the dragon, the guardian of the nation, against the ever-present threat of tooth-cavity bacteria. The world she inhabits is one where inter-state conflict escalates, and it is during this tense period that she discovers something impossible lodged in the dragon's molar—an unconscious young soldier named Bell, a captive of the rival country. The dragon itself has pulled Bell from within the tooth, a supernatural act that ancient legend warns is a harbinger of catastrophe. What begins as a routine dental defense mission transforms into a series of harrowing confrontations as Nonoko and Bell are thrust into battle after battle. Through these escalating clashes, the two gradually come to terms with the roles fate has assigned them, finding in each other an unlikely bond forged in the shadow of a creature whose very biology defies natural law. The narrative compresses an entire fantasy epic into a remarkably tight framework, leaving audiences with the sense that a far grander saga exists just beyond the frame.

Production & Creative Team

The Dragon Dentist emerged from the ambitious Japan Animator Expo project, a weekly anthology of original shorts that Hideaki Anno unveiled at the Tokyo International Film Festival in October 2014. Ōtarō Maijō penned the script and served as director, while Tomoyuki Ogata handled production. Anno himself, alongside Nobuo Kawakami of Dwango, took on executive producer roles, lending the project the prestige of one of anime's most recognized names. The animation was crafted by Khara under the direction of Kazuya Tsurumaki, a longtime Anno collaborator. The visual pipeline was extensive: Yasuyuki Kosaka and Yoshimichi Kameda shared character design duties, Yuka Kawai led art direction under Kentaro Akiyama's supervision, Hiroyasu Kobayashi oversaw CGI, and Toyotoku Yamada managed cinematography. Shin Inoie crafted the special effects, Yoshitaka Koyama composed the score, and Toru Noguchi produced sound effects under Toshiharu Yamada. For the expanded two-part television special announced in 2016, Anno stepped in as both executive producer and sound director, Tsurumaki returned to the director's chair, Maijō co-wrote the script with Yōji Enokido, and Shuichi Iseki took over character design, all while Khara continued to produce the animation.

Release & Distribution

The eight-minute original net animation first premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival in October 2014, gaining wider accessibility when it was uploaded online with English subtitles on November 7 of that year. Its availability was not permanent, however. In November 2015, the short—alongside the first and second seasons of the broader Animator Expo anthology—was pulled from the series' website. It was not until the revelation that The Dragon Dentist would receive a television adaptation, announced on August 26, 2016, that the original short was restored for streaming, remaining accessible until March 31, 2017. The expanded two-part special, with each episode running forty-five minutes, debuted on NHK's BS Premium channel, with the first episode airing on February 18, 2017, and the second following on February 25. A dubbed version reached international audiences via NHK World in mid-March 2017. For ongoing access, the special is available to stream on HIDIVE, and Sentai Filmworks secured the North American home video licensing rights, ensuring the work reached physical media collectors in English-speaking markets.

Reception & Critical Response

Critical reception of The Dragon Dentist was mixed but generally acknowledged the production's visual ambition. Kevin Cirugeda of Anime News Network, reviewing the first two seasons of the Animator Expo anthology, recommended the short with reservations. He singled out Tsurumaki's animation work as a standout, yet felt the narrative stretched beyond what eight minutes could comfortably sustain, attempting to pack too much plot into the brief runtime. His summary captured the central tension of the piece: it offered a glimpse of this fantasy world while warning that a larger story existed there that viewers would never see. Salvador GRodiles writing for Japanator echoed a similar sentiment, describing the story as a bit weak while simultaneously praising the interesting visual presentation. He suggested the concept held genuine potential, particularly if Maijō were given the opportunity to expand the material into a longer format. The critical consensus pointed toward a work whose visual craft and imaginative premise outpaced its narrative execution in the short-form constraint, a gap the two-part television special was designed to address.

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