James Nicoll Reviews

Masaoki Shindo’s RuriDragon (Japanese: ルリドラゴン, Hepburn: Ruridoragon) is a Japanese modern-day manga series. Originally a one-shot published in Shueisha’s Jump Giga magazine in December 2020, RuriDragon has been serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump starting in June 2022. Currently, installments appear on the Viz site.

In the previous volume, half-dragon Ruri Aoki was genteelly blackmailed into joining a school committee. Ruri was surprised and a bit alarmed to discover that she had been paired with the blonde girl who openly dislikes Ruri. What possible cause could the girl (whose name Ruri couldn’t be bothered to remember) have for disliking Ruri? More importantly, how will learning the girl’s name affect slacker Ruri’s future actions?

Akari Maeda’s issue with Ruri is that Ruri doesn’t care about other people. Ruri avoids interacting with most students. Ruri not only can’t be bothered to learn other people’s names; she underlines this by using whatever random name come to mind when speaking with schoolmates.

One possible response would be for Ruri to take Maeda’s blunt, accurate observation about Ruri’s rudeness as a personal affront and launch a vendetta lasting years. Alternatively, Ruri could simply breath fire on Maeda. Curiously, Ruri does neither of those things. Instead, she does her best to be a productive member of the committee of which she is a member.

The reward Ruri’s teacher dangled in front of Ruri to convince her to join the committee was advance information about midterms. Irresistible, because Ruri’s recent draconic medical adventures have cost her the time she needs to half-ass her way through the curriculum. With hints about the midterms and ample help from schoolmates, Ruri might be able to pass.

Complicating all this: another draconic trait manifests, one that briefly incapacitates Ruri. Ruri can now add biohazard to her list of powers…

~oOo~

I am just guessing that at some point, Viz will bundle issues 13 to 18 into a tankōbon. I do have sufficient patience to wait six issues or seven issues before catching up, but that’s my limit.

A non-content-related discovery: heretofore, I read RuriDragon and other manga on my laptop (whose screen is, of course, landscape). Having acquired a new large-screened (portrait) tablet, I used that instead. It turns out reading on a device whose aspect ratio is appropriate for the material being read is a huge asset where reading speed is concerned. Who knew?

A not entirely surprising detail, given hints from other manga I’ve read: it’s very easy to fall behind in school in Japan. The curriculum appears to be demanding and if schools offer programs to help kids catch up, Ruri’s school is not one of them. It’s up to kids to organize their own study. Well, I am sure that builds useful life skills, but it seems a little unfair for people who like Ruri have medical reasons to miss class.

Official callous indifference isn’t all bad for Ruri, because any diligent school system would very likely be concerned about a student with razor-sharp horns who breaths fire, summons lightning¹, and now spits up psychoactive, mind-controlling venom. As it is, she’s still free to mingle with her fellow students. This might not necessarily be good for the other students, but it is good for Ruri’s grade-point average.

Shindo’s tale is a comfortable, amusing coming of age story. It’s not entirely clear if there’s an end-goal here or if Shindo will keep providing Ruri’s adventures for as long as readers are willing to pick up new issues. I suppose we will find out…

RuriDragon, chapters 13 to 18 can be read here, some for free.

1. Or in Ruri’s case, generates static electricity. So far.