Dragon Half

Genre: Comedy

Format: 2 OVA

Allegiance: Kadokawa Shoten

Director: Sadamatsu Shinya

Vintage: 1993

Intelligence Agency Report by: Phate

Mink seems to be your average, everyday teenager. Upon closer inspection, though, you become aware that she is in fact the “dragon half” (half human, half dragon) daughter of a powerful knight and the deadly red dragon he was supposed to slay, but instead fell in love with. To add to this, she also has a crush on a famous dragonslayer named Dick Saucer, and plans to go to any lengths possible to get her hands on tickets to his next big concert...

Field Agent Report by: Phate

Plot
Characters
Impact
Visual
Audio

3.00
7.25
8.75
7.00
7.00

Overall

7.25

(not an average)

I first managed to catch a few minutes of Dragon Half about two years ago when I was with my buddies at a local anime club. It’s a good thing I was able to see some of it, or else I might never have known about this hilarious, though short, OVA series.

By far, Dragon Half’s greatest aspect is how it knows exactly what it is, and doesn’t attempt to be anything else. Plain and simple, it is comedy, and only comedy. Not that this is exactly a bad thing, though. Considering its length, if it tried to put in anything that could have deepened its plot or characters, then it would most definitely lose enough of its humor to render it below mediocre. The humor itself works wonderfully, but relies heavily on super-deformed art styles, so if you’re not a big fan of this type of artwork, you may not find Dragon Half to be all that funny. I also tip my hat to the ending theme, My Omelette, which is definitely one of the funniest songs I’ve ever heard.

Keep in mind, though, that I said Dragon Half’s only redeeming aspect was its humor. The plot in this OVA is, in fact, so bad that the only reason it could possibly be there is to set in place all the comedy. I also need to point out that the story is very incomplete, and doesn’t even hint at it being over when it is. As for the characters, they’re not anywhere nearly as bad as the plot, but not all that great, either. The only thing that could be, more or less, memorable about any of them is the incredibly good seiyuu cast, with none other than Mitsuishi Kotono playing the lead character, Mink.

Dragon Half is an anime that I like to put on the same level as a good stand-up comedy routine; you’re just so busy laughing your butt off that by the time the show is over, you just wonder where the time went by. This is exactly what Dragon Half is: a short, yet incredibly fun laugh.

Field Agent Report by: Kuzu Ryu Sen

Plot
Characters
Impact
Visual
Audio

6.00
6.75
4.00
7.00
7.75

Overall

6.25

(not an average)

Comedy is a very difficult thing to master, particularly if the target audience has already experienced its fair share of slapstick gags and one-liners. In this situation, there are some strategies that just won’t work, one of them being the “super saturation” tactic. Unfortunately, Dragon Half uses nothing but this strategy, hurling one mistimed and unfunny gag after the other at the audience, while ignoring any semblance of plot and character development.

Mind you, it is naïve and foolish to expect any plot or characterization from a short comedy, but Dragon Half proved surprising in this regard from the get-go. The majority of the characters were quite interesting, both in terms of personality and history, and the plot even showed unexpected signs of depth early on. Dragon Half probably owes these things to the fact that the source material for the OVA came from a lengthy manga.

While Dragon Half could attribute its surprising depth to the fact that its source material came from a lengthy manga, this created a huge problem for the producers. Namely, because of this fact, there was no way for them to actually realize any of the potential that the characters and story had. As such, they had to put all their eggs in one basket, and try to consciously make Dragon Half as funny as humanly possible. Unfortunately, that approach simply didn’t work, as the collection of overused and predictable physical skits and cheap one-liners used were plagued by awkward timing and flow.

Likewise, the influx of comedy into Dragon Half had some drastic effects on the audio/visual aspects of the show; most notably on the character art. The animation is decent, and the character designs are actually quite good, but Dragon Half employs far too much super deformed character animation. It is one thing to have the characters drawn as “SD” when the occasion demands it, but it is completely another to have characters in that form for 85% of the show. The BGM is surprisingly good, but the ending song… is something that would make a certain dead German composer roll over in his grave. Not to say that it’s bad, it’s just… a tad over the top.

And that’s pretty much the entire story with Dragon Half. Everything is just too over the top and either feels awkward or is completely obtrusive. On the plus side, the show’s not likely to arouse any particular feelings of frustration or rage either. It’s just kind of there; something to kill off an hour as background noise. I do have to say something, though: after watching the OVA, I’ve definitively picked up an interest in the manga, and it is my fondest wish that it expands on the colourful universe that Dragon Half presented.