#Dragon Half

[ethereal-fairies]

[0tacat]

Mink (Dragon Half)

Mini Print available here!

[dummy-dot-exe]

dragon half mink cool!!! by Bacun@BacunNG

[animenostalgia]

Happy Year of the Dragon, everyone!

[angelfeed]

[studentofetherium]

[lovehael]

[feletida]

Last one is my favorite

[doyouknowthisanime]

Do You Know This Anime?

[kessyathena]

Kessy's Recommendations

A little while ago a friend who's into Little Witch Academia asked for recommendations and I immediately suggested Magic User's Club. It's one of my go to's and a great show, but it's pretty obscure these days. That got me to thinking about all the other great OVA's I've seen that everyone's forgotten. So here's a selection of my favorites from the golden age of OVA's (1980's -2000's). If you're looking for a thread that connects these, my personal tastes run to character driven stories. I've tried to emphasize titles that are easy to access, mostly ones that are free on Youtube.

Assemble Insert: 1989, 2 eps.

comedy, superhero, idol, mad scientist, police

The city is being overrun by a mad scientist and his mecha equipped gang, so what's the overworked underpaid police force to do? Obviously, hold a competition for the next big idol! Err, I mean superhero to save the city. Wait, is there a difference? Maron really wants to know, since she's the (un?)fortunate winner of the competition.

All Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku Nuku (Bannou Bunka Neko-Musume): 1992, 6 eps.

comedy, catgirl (sort of), android, superpower, evil corporation

Ryuunosuke just wanted a pet, so when the minions of his overbearing mother accidentally kill the stray kitten he'd picked up his father does the only sensible thing: transplant the cat's brain into the experimental android body he's got in the back seat of the car. Ryuunosuke's new "big sister" is cheerful, energetic, able to bend steel beams with her bare hands, and overly fond of fish and sunbeams.

Nuku Nuku got a TV reboot and a second unrelated OVA called Nuku Nuku Dash, but the original OVA is definitely the best version.

Dragon Half: 1993, 2 eps.

comedy, fantasy world, WTF am I watching?, dragon girl

Mink is the child of a dragon mother and a human father. (Don't think about it too much.) Her father was formerly the champion of the evil king, who still bears a grudge. So there are evil minions, a guy named Dick Saucer who can't decide if he's a singer or a swordsman, a princess who's half slime, the finger water squirter of DOOM, and Beethoven! Don't wait for it to make sense, just enjoy the ride.

Plastic Little: 1994, 1 ep.

action, scifi, space opera, fanservice, yuri subtext

Tita and her galant crew make a living in the pet shop trade, capturing exotic animals in their planet's ocean of clouds for export. One day Tita runs into a beautiful young woman being pursued by a group of uniformed goons. Impulsively deciding to help the stranger, Tita and her crew are drawn into a military conspiracy to wreak havoc on the colony. Naturally, there's a caped villain, high speed chases, battleships, and ridiculously unsafe walkways over a vast chasm.

Elf Princess Rane (Yousei Hime Ren): 1995, 2 eps.

comedy, WTF am I watching?, magic, yuri subtext, idiot protagonist

Well, there is a plot to this one, but describing it would take too long, make no sense, and miss the point. Rane is a frenetically paced, gag after gag wild romp into hilarity and the absurd. There are fairies from another dimension who only speak an unintelligible language, a scheming corporation, a large group of identical sisters, and a protagonist so obsessed with treasure hunting he sees it everywhere to the point of being oblivious to what's in front of his nose.

Magic User's Club (Mahoutsukai Tai!): 1996, 6 eps.

comedy, romance, school life, alien invaders, magic, unrequited love, yaoi

The Earth has been invaded by aliens! However, the aliens are content to sit in their giant spaceship while observing humanity with robotic probes. So when Sawanoguchi Sae joins her school's club of neophyte magic users and the club president declares that they're going to defeat the aliens with magic, she's nothing but enthusiastic. And a massive klutz. What hope do they have considering that the rest of the club consists of Sae's best friend who only joined for Sae's sake, a vice president whose main interest is his crush on the president, and a freshman who frequently skips club activities to go on dates?

There is also a very good 13 episode TV series which is a direct continuation of the OVA featuring the same cast and hijinks but with a change in tone, not the least because the aliens are gone.

Birdy the Mighty (Tetsuwan Birdy): 1996, 4 eps.

action, school life, undercover aliens, conspiracy, gender bender, body sharing

Tsutomu is your average school kid out for a stroll one evening when he runs into a man running for his life from… something. The man turns out to be an alien in disguise and the something, well let's just say it radically changes Tsutomu's life as he's drawn into a conspiracy involving interplanetary criminals. A Federation Officer named Birdy Cephon shows up, but due to reasons he winds up having to share his body with her.

The series got a TV reboot called Birdy the Mighty: Decode. In my opinion, the original OVA is better.

R.O.D: Read or Die: 2001, 3 eps.

action, superpowers, secret agent, yuri subtext

Yomiko Readman is your average substitute teacher… Okay, no she isn't. She's absolutely obsessed with reading: her home is filled with stacks of books. She also has the ability to manipulate paper in any way she wishes, turning ordinary stationary into shields, weapons, giant flying paper airplanes, and so on. And she has a side job as a secret agent. So when a group of superpowered villains threatens the world, agent "The Paper" swings into action. Immediately after one of the bad guys steals her book!

ROD also has a TV series that has the same setting but completely new characters and plotline. The connections to the original OVA only gradually become apparent.

Murder Princess: 2007, 6 eps.

action, fantasy world, action girl, body swap, yuri subtext, lost technology

Alita and Faris are from such different backgrounds that you'd never expect them to meet. Alita is the princess of the kingdom of Forland and has lived a sheltered life in the capital. Faris is from a tragic background and survives on her wits and her skill with a sword as a bounty hunter. However, one night there is a palace coup and Alita is forced to flee for her life into the dark and dangerous Ellend forest, where Faris is hunting monsters for the price on their heads. The two literally run into each other and straight off a cliff. During the fall, the shared near death experience causes them to switch bodies. They're forced to reluctantly team up to defeat the coup and uncover the forces behind it.

Electromagnetic Girlfriend (Denpa-teki na Kanojo): 2009, 2 eps.

drama, mystery, romance

(Note: "Denpa" literally means "electromagnetic wave," but is colloquially used to mean "crazy" in much the same sense as "tin foil hat.")

Juuzawa Juu is a high school delinquent. One day a girl he's never met comes up to him and declares that he is a reincarnated king and she is his servant and knight. Despite Juu's best efforts to get rid of her, she continually follows him around. As if this wasn't enough, there's a serial killer stalking the town, and Juu suddenly finds himself caught up in the case when he's the one to find the body of the latest victim: one of his own classmates.

[ethereal-fairies]

[exit-running]

Absolutely wild to think that this was where the first piece of Slayers media was published, and yet the cover is the now-obscure Dragon Half. I might be misreading things, but it looks like the story isn't even mentioned on the cover—I've heard of humble beginnings, but this is ridiculous!

[morlock-holmes]

I read this and thought Tumblr might appreciate it.

[vampirevalentineart]

dragon half (pipe)

[shadowbrightshine]

@fartcowboy continuing on with it.

Rip Satoshi Kon. You were incredible

Anyways, this here is one or my personal favorite anime of all time. The hilarious comedy anime OVA of Dragon Half.

In fact I loved it so much I hunted down a real physical copy. Something I haven't been able to do in a long time. The first few minutes made me a tiny bit wary but it's absolutely incredible. Mink, the half dragon girl herself is a Bimbo in the most positive sense. She's dumb, she's pretty, she's funny, but she's not babied for it. It's not a character flaw that she's kinda dumb. This movie is amazing. One hour long.

Next up for all the monsterlovers, we have a sex comedy called Call Me Tonight. It's funny it's cute, the art is great. Basically this dude turns into a new weird looking monster every time he gets hot and bothered. Warning though. There is an attempted assault scene near the end which soured it a little for me. Throughout it though there is no actual genits shown. It's a sex comedy, not hentai. It's very funny, and you may just want to skip a bit ahead for that one bit. It's less than an hour and apparently there's more to the series that I haven't seen.

Now!

We have Lily C.A.T a space slasher body horror alien space horror story. It's about this crew being picked off, and there is mystery and horror and it's great! It looks so good.

For one of the most beautiful series I've watched so far I bring you part one of Yokohama kaidashi! it's a slower paced walk through the life of an android woman who realizes it's time to enjoy her life and do new things with the aid of a special camera that connects to her eyes. The music is wonderful. The animation and shots are beautiful, and I genuinely have cried. This is a series so you should go look for more.

Ok! If you want more? Go watch the Original Yu-Gi-Oh and Digimon digital monsters. Especially Tamers. Tamers in the second half deals with existenalism, childhood trauma, death, the D-Reaper which is an incredible and so creepy monster design, and it's so good.

Tada!

[hotwaterandmilk]