Dragon Half

[Aleolus]

Is anyone here familiar with an anime called Dragon Half? From what I've seen (which is pretty much all of the official stuff), it looks like a combination spoof of DBZ and Dragon Quest. Mink is a half-dragon, who has a massive crush on a guy named Dick Saucer, who "sings like an angel, and fights like a devil." And she is determined to win his heart. The only problem, Dick Saucer is a dragon-slayer, and Mink is a Dragon Half (half-dragon, same dif). It's a fairly good story, made a friend of mine laugh his sides off the first several times he watched it. Not much in the way of innuendo or anything, though Mink does wind up accidentally flashing everyone at one point. Comments on it, those of you who have seen it?

[Etoh*the*Greato]

It's pretty wonderful. When I first got in the Anime (back in the VHS days) it was the obligatory silly anime advertised on all the ADV dubs. Had to pick it up at some point. Now I've got it on DVD and all is right with the world.

[mitsuki lover]

It is one of those that I would love to add to my collection one of these days.
I understand it is rather short,only two episodes in length.

[Etoh*the*Greato]

They sorta left it open. I gather the impression that it was either cancelled very quickly in Japan or it was one of those cases like what went on in the early days where ADV wanted the rights to something more popular and the original company would only give it to them if they would take that off their hands too.

[Aleolus]

Yeah, they left it really wide open. Although, if it continued, it would only be more of the same, but with the overall silliness of the two episodes that do exist, that would probably be OK.

[mitsuki lover]

From what I have read about it one part of the silliness is that every so often they supposedly broke down the fourth wall.

[termyt]

They sorta left it open. I gather the impression that it was either cancelled very quickly in Japan or it was one of those cases like what went on in the early days where ADV wanted the rights to something more popular and the original company would only give it to them if they would take that off their hands too.

For stuff from back in the 80's and early 90's, it wasn't too uncommon to have a short OVA series of only a couple of episodes that failed to tell a complete story.

Back in the day, almost all Anime came from popular Manga. Some of it got the royal treatment - such as Urusei Yatsura or Marmalade Boy.

Others got a decent amount of episodes so that they could do a real story - introduce characters, establish plot, have a complication, and a resolution such as Bubblegum Crisis and Video Girl Ai.

But a lot of the manga only got a couple of episodes. Some of my favorite anime fall into this category - Galaxy Fraulein Yuna, Hyperdolls, Elf Princess Rane, and, of course, Dragon Half.

It seems to me that these manga probably weren’t run-away successes, but had a modest fanbase with enough numbers to warrant an anime, but small enough to warrant caution. It may be note-worthy that all of my examples are of the more zany variety. It seems that perhaps folks were worried that the random antics would not translate well from manga to anime. Those same antics seem par for the course these days.

To that end, Dragon Half appears to begin like many other TV series with character introductions and plot and setting explanations and then completes an initial minor story arc. If there were any hopes of an expanded series, they did not materialize, to my chagrin.

[mitsuki lover]

On TheOtaku Dragon Half quiz I got Mink.

[ShiroiHikari]

I saw it a few years ago. I thought it was pretty hilarious.

[Aleolus]

From what I have read about it one part of the silliness is that every so often they supposedly broke down the fourth wall.

Oh yes, a few times. In the second episode, one of the new characters says that he needs to check something on the first ep, puts the VHS on, then is like "AAUUGHH! They cut out all my scenes!"