Dragon Girl vol. 2

Danica Davidson September 16, 2011

When I started reading Dragon Girl, I thought it would be a girl-power story about a high school girl joining a cheering squad that up till then only allowed boys. That didn’t end up being the case.

In the first volume, Rinna starts attending a school that has recently been made co-ed, and faces some prejudice when she wants to join the cheering squad. She ends up showing what she’s made of and facing down the prejudice, but then the cheering squad is disbanded.

In the second and final volume, various attempts are made at bringing back the squad. This weaves in and out of the story, but a lot of this volume deals with Rinna’s issues with boys and family problems, and sometimes these two things overlap. You’ll get what I mean if you read the book.

Rinna has a crush on Subaru, whom she met before as a child. Yes, it’s an old manga cliché, but the result is a little different. When Rinna finally admits her feelings to Subaru, he rejects her. Wait, that’s putting it lightly. He more or less says there’s no way he can ever date her, end of story. He doesn’t give her the reason why, but once the reason is given later on, Rinna can see his point.

Even though she’s had a crush on Subaru, she also gradually becomes more interested in Yaotome, and he in her. They could just become a couple and forget about Subaru, but Hasekura also has a crush on Rinna, and that throws everything off. Hasekura’s feelings for Rinna do deepen his character, because, until this point, he’s felt more like a parody than a real person.

Rinna’s father, a former cheering legend, returns to Japan after working overseas, and while father and daughter are initially thrilled to see each other, that doesn’t last long. Her father has a major confession to make that turns Rinna’s world upside down and makes her question everything she believed to be true.

Dragon Girl is being published in omnibus format, so this volume is a good 450 or so pages. It can be silly and ludicrous, and the need to wrap it all up felt somewhat forced, but it has its entertainment value. The weirdness of the second volume admittedly caught my attention and held it, if only because it was so different from what I’m used to reading.

Publisher: Yen Press
Story & Art: Toru Fujieda