Awesome Music: "Thunder's Theme" is used for the opening and credits. Its ethereal vocals are a callback to the movies' musical scores.
Base-Breaking Character: Jun Wong. While some fans don't mind her or even like her for her optimistic, supportive and quirky personality, other people strongly dislike or even outright hate her. Reasons for this are because they see her as being arrogant and bad at everything she does, her design (specifically the strong presence of shades of purple in her color scheme) and because they see her as a bad representation for Asians as the show never explores her heritage and gave her an interest in mysticismnote East Asians being big into mysticism is a Western stereotype. Some Alex fans also dislike her as they feel she gets more screentime than Alex, who is generally considered to be the better written character of the two. Lastly, people who ship Tom with Alex over Jun also dislike her because she and Tom end up as the Official Couple.
Contested Sequel: The Nine Realms breaks the HTTYD fanbase further after Dragons: Rescue Riders with an almost equal amount on review websites either loving or hating it. Most fans who hate it vocally despise the series for focusing on an entirely different cast of characters, the story being a Distant Sequel and its Time Skip into modern times, the existence of Thunder and his Night Light tribe, the animation quality, etc. Supporters like it for being a different take on the HTTYD media series after Hiccup and Toothless parted ways and the idea of dragons being around in the modern era, among other reasons. Though if you go by the, at times, hour long essays on a certain video-sharing site, it's much more of a Sequelitis.
Growing the Beard: The first season was considered by many to be the weakest, given that it served as a Slow-Paced Beginning for the formation of Dragon Club. The next few seasons were seen as tremendous improvement afterward, especially with the new realms to explore and many nods to the original HTTYD era.
I Knew It!: The third episode of Season 5 confirms the long-standing fan theory that Tom is a descendant of Hiccup.
Informed Wrongness: In "Journey to the Snowcano", we're supposed to see Jun's friends as wrong for not believing that the myth she's comparing Wu and Wei's current condition to could be correct. The only problem is, not only is it just as much of a random guess as everyone else's assumptions as to what's happening, but it's also leading them toward an area that the mostly-accurate book of dragons warns is dangerous — for all they know, Jun is leading them towards potential death on the off-chance that it could help, and she outright guilt-trips them into continuing when they have reservations about it. The situation's similarities to the myth are presented as Jun having been right all along and thus deserving of an apology, but the fact that she put her friends in danger over what was essentially a hunch is never called out on.
Memetic Mutation: Thunder is inbred Explanation People like joking that Tom's dragon is the result of generations of inbreeding, as Thunder has highly distinct Night Light traits despite the only known hybridization of Night and Light Furies happening hundreds of years prior. Unless his family line interbred with other Night Furies or compatible black dragons in the meantime, it's highly unlikely that Thunder has a low inbreeding coefficient.
After some people complained about the lack of familiar dragon species in Season 1, Season 2 features a Razorwhip and a Skrill, two species who have made regular appearances in the Dragons: Riders of Berk TV series. Season 3 continues this by bringing back the Fireworm, Hobgobbler, Catastrophic Quaken, Monstrous Nightmare, and Gronckle, species that are very recognizable to fans of the movies and previous TV series. In fact, in the 6th season, most "new" dragons are returning ones: The Deadly Nadder, the Deathgripper and the Shellfire all feature in prominent roles throughout the season.
Given how controversial the ending of "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World'' was, The Reveal that Hiccup and his family regularly visited the Nine Realms, to the point he had his own hideout and thinking tree, could be an attempt to alleviate the upset over Hiccup and Toothless being separated forever.
Tainted by the Preview: The initial reveal was met with scorn from plenty of fans, with complaints ranging from the Time Skip to the modern day rather than continuing to focus on the Hooligan Tribe (leaving Hiccup and Astrid's kids wasted as characters in the process), to it seemingly being a rehash of the first movie's plot, to the bland design of the lead character (with the hints that he's Hiccup and Astrid's descendant only feeding into the "rehash of the first film" complaints). Criticism only increased with the release of the trailer, with fans pointing out that the animation looks worse than previous shows in the franchise.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Throughout the Season 6 finale, some of the Riders voice disapproval that they continue to keep Buzzsaw a secret from their parents, something Tom justifies by saying they wouldn't allow them back into the Hidden World if they knew. At the end of the episode, Buzzsaw introduced himself to the parents when he sets Rakke Town alight telling them their children don't seem to trust them. The episode ends with Olivia questioning the group about Buzzsaw. This made it seem as if the Riders keeping Buzzsaw a secret would be a major point of contention between the Riders and their parents in Season 7. However, come the first episode of season 7, which takes place a few weeks after the Season 6 finale, and all we get from that plot point is that the parents now know about Buzzsaw with Chief Baker focusing more on security than before as well as a brief exchange between Tom and Jun in which Tom says it took him and Thunder a lot on convincing until Olivia allowed them to go back to the Hidden World. The latter, of course, happpened off-screen. Afterwards, the plot point is never brought up or even referenced again.
D'Angelo helping his dragon despite his own missing and him telling Buzzsaw to do some introspecting resulted in Buzzsaw's Heel–Face Turn. However, aside from his Heel Realization, this happened completely offscreen and was never explored further than him helping to fight Jörmungandr. Post Heel–Face Turn, he didn't even interact with anyone other than D'Angelo and only for one scene.
is used for the opening and credits. Its ethereal vocals are a callback to the movies' musical scores.