Raya and the Last Dragon. There are so many things I loved about Raya and the Last Dragon: the amazing animation, the incredible story about trust and healing, and the wonderful performances by an almost entirely Asian cast. But I also loved that I have a new pair to ship because the dynamic between heroic Raya (Kelly Marie Tran) and her relentless adversary Namaari (Gemma Chan) is seriously gay. Now, I think Disney is unfortunately still a ways away from giving us our first openly queer Disney princess or prince, but with Frozen 2, there had been a vocal push from the community to give Elsa a girlfriend, and the result was that Elsa wasn’t overtly queer, but she also wasn’t straight and had a potential female love interest, if you squinted. With Raya and Namaari, it’s even more than that.
The Importance and Beauty Of Raya and the Last Dragon Walt Disney Animation Studios, Raya and the Last Dragon travels into a world where everything once lived in harmony before an evil force fractured and divided humanity. Through personal travesty that same evil force sends Raya on an epic journey five hundred years later, with the hope of finding the last dragon and restoring all of the life that had been lost. Kumandra was a prosperous land when evil spirits called the Druun began to ravage everything. Known for absorbed souls and turning those into stone, the dragons of Kumandra used what was left of their magic to create an orb that not only warded off the Druun, but also restored everyone to life. However, this came with a heavy price as the dragons who remained were turned to stone. A power struggle for the orb ultimately divided the inhabitant people into tribes based on their placement of a giant river made to resemble a dragon: Fang, Heart, Tail, Spine and Talon. Heart Tribe acquired the orb and has been guarding it ever since. Until danger and conflict strikes again.