Dragon Half

Mink is no ordinary teenage girl, being half-human and half-dragon. Her father had fallen in love with a red dragon he intended to kill, and instead of slaying the dragon, he married her. Their union gave birth to Mink, who inherited horns, a tail, retractable wings, and incredible strength—characteristics which signify her dragon half nature.

Mink spends her days accompanied by her friend Pia, a dwarf girl with overprotective parents, and her best friend Lufa, an elf with great healing powers but impressively bad magic. The three find themselves mooning over the dreamy and charming dragonslayer, Dick Saucer. But in a sudden, absurd turn of events, Mink gets closer than ever to the object of her fantasies, only to realize that her love may never be reciprocated because of her dragon heritage.

Thus, the trio sets out on a quest to find a potion that will make Mink fully human. They may unwittingly make enemies, but they are sure to have one heck of a good time.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Mink Main

Mitsuishi, Kotono Japanese

Lufa Main

Kouda, Mariko Japanese

Pia Main

Kawata, Taeko Japanese

Saucer, Dick Supporting

Matsumoto, Yasunori Japanese

Damaramu Supporting

Ootsuka, Akio Japanese

Vena Supporting

Sakuma, Rei Japanese

Rosario Supporting

Shiozawa, Kaneto Japanese

King Siva Supporting

Ogata, Kenichi Japanese

Rouce the Red Lightning Supporting

Aono, Takeshi Japanese

Narrator Supporting

Tomita, Kousuke Japanese

Ishikawa, Mitsuhisa Producer

Sasaki, Shirou Producer

Sadamitsu, Shinya Director, Episode Director, Script, Storyboard

Mitsuishi, Kotono Theme Song Performance

Reviews

Nov 7, 2010

Colonelfancy

Recommended

The early and mid 90's were probably the golden age of mindless comedy in anime as far as my viewing goes. A lot of it was just as hit and miss as any other period of time, but the field was vast, filled with various styles of comedic offerings, like Compiler and Junk Boy. Dragon Half is one of these, an OVA parody of RPGs and fantasy adventures, and is the best of the sub-genre I've seen to this day, without a close second.
The plot is incredibly simple, but it's all the motivation a comedy needs. Something as easy as a half dragon ... who wants to win the affections of a super pop star who slays her kind in his off time by becoming human is just absurd enough to rank very high on a comedy scale. Getting into a comedic show for a plot is asking for trouble, and you might rob yourself of fun. So, it's about as easy as The Little Mermaid-er, Dragon, as Mink and her friends make a complete mockery of the adventure genre. It deserves it after giving me Those Who Hunt Elves.
Character designs are really cute and vibrant, with virtually every cast member shifting between vaguely serious mode to wacky chibi in a matter of frames. The show spends most of the time in super-deformed mode. It's hammered down your throat, but this was back when chibi characters using physical comedy was still pretty damn funny and fresh to me before becoming a fairly predictable and stale novelty that it is today. The animation is mildly dated, but still looks pretty great with Production I.G, as the visual gags and dialouge are perfectly timed, making the best out of SD characters and a silly script. I loved them all, from Mink's completely perverted father, to Vina and her father, including his assistant. As well as Damaramu, who was Kamina from Gurren Lagaan for his time, only 5000 times funnier and more enjoyable to me.
The English dub is one of my favorites, including some of ADVs best best talents from the mid 90's like Marcy Rae as Mink's mother, the fantastic Brett Weaver doing what he does best; voicing a loud-mouth buffoon as Damaramu, and Jessica Calvello (A woman who needs more work) as Mink. Probably the only English dubbed animes I've found this funny were GTO and Azumanga Daioh. The ending theme is very, very catchy as well, I believe it's singing about breakfast. God, I dig it so much.
IN CLOSING: This is a rare treasure. It's from a different era of satire, so it may not be everyone's cup of tea for younger veiwers. Probably the biggest drawback against it being a satisfying experience is that the manga continues the story, so you might feel a little gipped when the OVA just abruptly ends. Even above and beyond that, it's almost comedy perfection that does little wrong and is probably only hurt by the passage of time and the fan's palette for what defines a farce. It's earned a permanent, golden plaque on my shelf as one of the funniest things I've ever seen come out of Japan.
P.S. Sorry for sounding like an old man again in my reviews.

STORY: 6
ART: 9
SOUND: 8
CHARACTERS: 10
ENJOYMENT: 10
OVERALL SCORE: 9 out of 10

PROS: Fantastic retro satire, Dungeon & Dragons-inspired parody, a pioneer of the chibi-SD humor, great ADV English dub,
CONS: Lack of continuation might dampen experience, out of date style of comedy might not sit well with younger audiences

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jul 6, 2007

RuneYue

Mixed Feelings

Dragon Half is one of the older anime shows that you find yourself loving for the humour, plot(-holed like swiss cheese), character personalities but not much in the aspect of imagery.

The animation was well done at the time it came out, and still better than half the things I end up finding on TV, but as of recent days it would either be considered of a \"skilled wannabe\" or \"classic\" quality depending on your tastes. Duller than what\'s around nowadays, in anotherwords.

Although it kept me vastly entertained (and somehow made my supply of pocky disappear), I find the fact that after only two ... episodes it\'s done and over with to be extremely disappointing - especially at where it left off. It\'s like diving into the ocean and then being yanked out by a rope as soon as your swim suit became wet.

The entirety of this series (and I use that term loosely!) has enough to pull you in, but due to longevity (or lackthereof) not much to keep you...

I couldn\'t wholeheartedly reccomend this to anyone who\'s a hardcore anime fan, but if you don\'t mind cliffhangers or just want some time to burn whilest awaiting your ultimate doom at your current family reunion, a day you\'ll mostly likely wipe all memory of anyways, then go for it! (You\'ll need all the laughs it can provide if your situation for viewing is of the latter...)

Also, a nice rainy-day possibility for dragon fans everywhere - atleast, those still with power.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Apr 27, 2010

kekekeKaj

Not Recommended

Take the dumbest anime you can possibly imagine, multiply that by 2, and what you get is something that's probably only half as stupid as "Dragon Half".

This is an anime of the dreaded "comedy" genre. I'm not a fan of the comedy found in anime in general, and "Dragon Half" represents the worst of this kind of comedy, containing just about every anime comedy cliche under the sun. Over the top? Check. Nonsensical? Yep. Super deformity? Hell yes. The whole thing is a big joke, and not a very funny one at that. Basically, there are a couple of hilarious moments, and the rest just ... bored me to the point of tears. Making witless noises such as "Piri piri fumi fumi" (I'm sure you'll forgive me if I don't get these incredibly profound lyrics exactly right) over a mix of Beethoven songs in an attempt to pass it off as a funny ending theme isn't clever. It's retarded. And that's exactly what this show is.

I watched this in dub, and unusually enough, the dub actually fits the anime quite well. Having said that, even if it did suck, I can't imagine watching it in sub will be much of an improvement. Shows like these can't be saved by having good voices - they're far, far beyond redemption.

On top of the random nonsense contained in the anime, it has no ending, just a beginning, because it was planned for more than two episodes - I'm knocking off major points for that. Although I guess I should be thankful that this didn't go on for any longer. If it did, my sanity would probably be beyond redemption as well.

Unless you're a fan of the most silly type of anime comedy imaginable, avoid "Dragon Half" like you would avoid a dragon that's bent on eating your brains for lunch, because that's the effect this anime will have on you.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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