There’s nothing like having a goal. You find something you want, you look for all the steps to complete it, and then go for it. Mink’s goal is simple — to be with Dick Saucer…who happens to be a dragon slayer.
Mink is half-human, half-dragon. Would I be remiss to say that’s the tip of the iceberg for Dragon Half?
Dragon Half, which began serialization in 1988, tells the tale of Mink and her friends Lufa and Pia. Though mostly Mink as she’s the daughter of a former knight, Rouce, and a dragon, Mana. Rouce was ordered to kill Mana, but after a one panel duel, they decided to love each other instead. And thus Mink was born! Many years after her birth, however, the King who ordered Rouce to kill the dragon is looking for revenge. Now that the King’s been sending assassins to do the deed, Rouce sends his daughter to fight them in his stead.
Well, mostly because he’s kinda lazy…and unaware…and kinda lazy!
But while doing that has tested her mettle, her life changes when she finally brushes against her idol, Dick Saucer. Like most young girls her age, she’s fallen in love with him. There are two problems though: her dragon half nature, and Dick Saucer’s not just great with the mic, but with slaying — specifically, slaying dragons. And thanks to a misunderstanding, she believes there’s no way Dick will ever fall in love with her current form. That is, until she’s told about the Pido Potion, which would allow her to change into a human! And this starts her journey, which involves taking her long-time friends Lufa and Pia, and leads her to many challenges, and also the threat of facing a potentially super strong demon Lord…
The part that makes Dragon Half stand out is the humor. It’s essentially abusing the cliches you’ve seen in most fantasy and manga media, and complete with scantily attire for about all of its cast, the comedy will determine any enjoyment of the manga. Sometimes, considering this omnibus is massive (at 342 pages), the humor can wear you down the longer you go.
Then, of course, when the humor mixes in with the battles, that’s when there can be issues. That’s mainly because the battles are definitely the weakest part of Dragon Half. Not lengthy, and not always exciting, they’re usually short affairs that generally revolve around a joke. Those can be fine, but sometimes not so much. Unfortunately there’s one battle that occurs during a tournament later on that’s neither humorous or a good fight, and is even anti-climatic. There’s actually a lot of this in Dragon Half, but the general set-up in that arc feels clumsily executed. Chances are the fights and the comedy will vary as the series goes on, so it just has to hit far more than miss for this to work.
Thankfully, this hits a lot.
Dragon Half is fun thanks to Mink, who is a super favorite of mine. No-nonsense, cute, is still naive in some aspects, and saddled with level 1 party members while she’s so far above them, whatever she does in the manga is great. Whether that’s destroying something and making the villains threaten to cry or wet themselves because of it, or traversing around and kinda doing whatever she wants, she’s fantastic.
Adding to her development, or struggles, is her friends Lufa and Pia, who each come from a bloodline of apparently useless RPG characters. Lufa is a magician who can’t seem to do magic well (and neither can her father). Pia’s just a young girl who’s been overprotected by her parents. They do have their interests, as Lufa appears to be bi (though she struggles to admit it) and Pia wants to be useful. However they’re just the butt of many jokes, whether that’s because Lufa can’t accurately hit an enemy with her lightning rod (instead shocking her party) or Pia can’t realize that yes, the one sharpening their teeth with a rasp is probably dangerous.
The entire cast of characters in Dragon Half are pretty good, either because they suck or have an interesting backstory. However, I’ll only highlight a few that generally take up most of the volume. Mink’s primary antagonist, Perfect Princess Vina, is a talented magician with an interesting backstory that explains how she’s the father of the King, and how she can survive getting stabbed in the chest. For Captain Damaramu, just think of Drax the Destroyer, and boom, you have Damaramu, but quite possibly dumber. Lastly, the main baddie Mink will face later in the series, Azetodeth, has a son, Dug, that’s small and strong. These three manage to stand out, and I’m interested how they (possibly) change as the series goes on.
Between these characters and the humor, some of it may not work out. But they have a moment where a Hydra reference is snuck in. Between that and the overall package of the collection — super interesting early illustrations and color pages, author notes for each chapter (poor Mita — there was one chapter where he had spent three nights working on it and had to run to Shinjuku at 10PM to make the deadline!) — this is a finely crafted work that’s worth a look for those into fantasy, and then having that flipped upside down in world where TVs apparently exist.
And also Mink. Mink is good.