Dragon Drive

Dragon Drive (ドラゴンドライブ, Doragon Doraibu) is a Japanese manga by Kenichi Sakura [ja] published by Shueisha and serialized in the manga magazine Monthly Shōnen Jump. Publication ended in 2006, with a total of 14 volumes. Dragon Drive follows lazy junior high school student Reiji Ozora who routinely gives up on everything he starts and is terrible at his school work. Tired of seeing him give up at everything and continue to perform so poorly at school, his childhood friend Maiko Yukino shows Reiji the virtual reality game called Dragon Drive. It is a fighting game in which players and their dragon partners face off within a virtual reality city. Reiji's general lazy personality and lackluster school performances lead him to gain a seemingly equally lazy small dragon whom he calls Chibi. Only later do both of their true strengths show as Chibi, despite being small and sleeping in his first appearance, turns out to be the rarest dragon in the game, a discovery which leads Reiji and his friends to another world called Rikyu.

An anime adaptation by Madhouse directed by Toshifumi Kawase and written by Toshiki Inoue aired on TV Tokyo from July 4, 2002 to March 27, 2003 for a total of 38 episodes. The franchise also spawned three video games, being Dragon Drive: Tactics Break for the PlayStation, Dragon Drive: World D Break for the Game Boy Advance, and Dragon Drive: D-Masters Shot on GameCube. In North America, Viz Media acquired the rights to distribute the Dragon Drive manga and the anime series was released by Bandai Entertainment.

Synopsis
Reiji Oozora is a total loser! Not good at anything especially schoolwork! One day his friend Maiko Yukino offers to share her class notes with him to help him out on the condition that he takes her wherever she wants to go. She takes him to a secret place where a virtual reality game called Dragon Drive is played. Reiji signs up, gets his own dragon, which ends up being the smallest and weakest in the game! Because of its tiny size, Reiji names the dragon Chibi.

Right after joining the game Reiji and Maiko are sent to battle a classmate who has as crush on Maiko named Daisuke. Reiji runs from the battle and just when it seems like he can't win his dragon does something impossible! It suddenly powers up and defeats the much larger dragon. Reiji wins and is suddenly addicted to this new exciting game.

A staff member of the Dragon Drive virtual reality game named Agent L realizes that there is something incredible about Chibi's performance and invites Reiji and Maiko to a special training room. There she reveals the real purpose of the game is for players to bring out their dragons' true potential. Just then a strange girl riding a dragon appears and takes them to a fantastic magical world. It turns out it this world is in peril of being taken over by an evil group called RI-ON and the only thing that can possibly stop them in none other than Reiji's little dragon! Thus the adventure begins!

(Source: VIZ Media)

Manga
Kenichi Sakura [ja] was published by Shueisha and serialized in the manga magazine Monthly Shōnen Jump. Publication ended in 2006, with a total of 14 volumes. Dragon Drive was published in English by VIZ Media from April 3, 2007, to June 2, 2009.

Character
Reiji Ozora is a chronic quitter who never completes what's assigned or handed to him, but one day Maiko, his closest friend, walks him to a local arcade where the latest game craze is happening: Dragon Drive. After meeting Chibi, a seemingly meek dragon, Reiji wants to make himself and Chibi stronger. To obtain this strength, both are taken to a secret training room in the "D-Zone", the same room Maiko and Daisuke snuck into earlier upon seeing a strange dragon appearing in the sky. The dragon suddenly absorbs them into another Earth known as Rikyu, where they meet Meguru, a girl who was also transported to Rikyu. There, the elder of the village reveals the intentions RI-ON, the group behind Dragon Drive, have trying to obtain the Jinryuuseki stone, which grants its wielder the power to control all dragons in Rikyu.

RI-ON conspires the children to be used as their soldiers. Should they succeed, both Rikyu and Earth will be destroyed. This is where Chibi, who is actually the legendary dragon Senkoukura, the savior of Rikyu, and Reiji become important to both worlds. In order to protect both worlds, Reiji and Chibi must enter the Dragonic Heaven tournament, where RI-ON has already sent for an agent to enter, and win the Jinryuuseki stone. Remembering that Agent L is an employee of RI-ON, the one who helped him through his first few games, Reiji is polarized between both sides, believing the elder and Meguru's testimonies while skeptical of the alleged foul intentions of Agent L or the employees of RI-ON. In the end, he doesn't truly choose either side but instead resolves to fight in order to learn the truth about RI-ON, Rikyu, and Dragon Drive.

Several years later progress and Maiko's little brother, Takumi, receives severe warnings to never play Dragon Drive. One day while hiding from a storm, he obtains his first set of cards from a strange old man he meets. After receiving his cards, Takumi finds his new calling by showing strong determination and the mysterious ability to talk to dragons, forming a strong friendship with his strongest dragon Raikoo, as he works to help him gain his memories back.

After a dream one night, Takumi discovers his dragon is one in ninety-nine special dragon cards, all of which are called Raikoo, that were given to certain players of the game called Raikoo masters. Soon a group going by the name of RI-IN enters the scene, and all the players, with the exception of the ones in the gaming stores, vanish, leaving the world in ruins and dragons in their place. Left behind in this rapidly changing world, Takumi, Raikoo, and their new friends must rally the remaining Raikoo masters together in hopes of restoring Earth and bringing the people back. In order to save the world, Rikyu, and Earth join to become one, and the dragons disappear completely to become spirits. Twenty-seven years later, the game resurfaces to a new audience while Reiji, Takumi, and their friends live fruitful lives and he owns a private veterinary clinic.

Abilities
"Let's go Chibi!!"

- Reiji Ozora & Chibi preparing for the battle Due to his short attention span, he is renowned as a lazy quitter who never keeps any of his promises and is nicknamed 'The Tardy Champion'. Blackmailed by Maiko, he was dragged to Dragon Drive against his will but became obsessed with the game after his first taste of victory. He has the ability to tame almost any dragon and becomes synchronized in the battle. After getting a cell phone device that acts as a holder for a Dragon card and dragon belonging only for the user will appear in virtual word.

The true identity of this partner was Dragon Light Senko Kura/Senkocoola (センコークーラ), a powerful force that is also known as the guardian god of the other Earth, the Rikyu.
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TV Anime
The series is produced by Madhouse, and directed by Toshifumi Kawase, with scripts written by Toshiki Inoue, character designs handled by Takahiro Umehara, and music composed by Shinkichi Mitsumune. It premiered on July 4, 2002, on TV Tokyo and other networks. The opening theme song is "True" by Shimokawa Mikuni, while the ending theme song is "tatta, hitotsu no (たった、ひとつの)" by Shimokawa Mikuni. Bandai Entertainment licensed the series.

In North America, Viz Media acquired the rights to distribute the Dragon Drive manga and the anime series was released by Bandai Entertainment.
 * Staff
 * Original - Kenichi Sakura (published by Shueisha "Jump Comics")
 * Director - Toshifumi Kawase
 * Series composition - Toshiki Inoue
 * Character Design - Takahiro Umehara
 * Dragon Design - Takahiro Yamada
 * Art director - Hidetoshi Kaneko → Yoshiyuki Uchida
 * Color design - Naoko Kodama
 * Cinematographer - Ryoma Sakamoto → Kentaro Takahashi
 * Editing - Takeshi Seyama
 * Sound Director - Yasunori Honda
 * Music - Nobuyoshi Mitsumune
 * Animation Production - Madhouse
 * Animation Producer - Katsuya Shirai
 * Producers - Makiko Iwata, Ritsushi Yamazaki, Satoshi Kubo
 * Production - TV Tokyo, NAS, Bandai Visual

TV game
Many original characters also appear in the game version. The basic settings are based on the anime version.

Card Game
A two-player trading card game (TCG) released by Bandai.

There were two types of card games released: the old series, which was released before the manga series, and the new series, which was released after the manga series. The two cannot be mixed together, as they differ not only in design but also in how they are played. Some of the dragons (Senko Koola, Raiko O, and many others) are from the old series.

Sales ended with the release of the eighth series in 2004 (the manga series also ended at about the same time). Currently, there are only a few of them circulating on auction sites, and no used ones are sold, let alone purchased, unless they are sold at a store.

External Link

 * TV Anime "Dragon Drive"
 * Shueisha Official Website
 * Madhouse Official Website
 * NAS Official Website
 * TV Tokyo Official Website
 * Dragon Drive Product TCG ─ Wayback Machine (Archived on September 3, 2000) Can be viewed, but has not been updated since 2004.
 * Dragon Drive ─ Wikipedia  JP 
 * Dragon Drive ─ Wikipedia  EN 

Trivia
'' to be added. ''

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