The Dragon Half FAQ v. 1.1111111111 by Joshua Lesnick, geobreeder@hotmail.com HP: http://studio-zoe.com/ with help from Curtis Hoffmann, choffmann@austin.rr.com HP: http://home.austin.rr.com/tsote/ --- Contents I. THE OVAS 1. When is the third volume of the OVA coming out? 2. Why won't there be anymore episodes of the OVA? 2a. Josh's explanation 2b. Curtis's explanation 2c. Other (false) explanations 2c-1. "The show didn't do well in Japan" 2c-2. "The head of the publishing company was arrested" 2c-3. "The producer of the OVA went bankrupt" II. THE MANGA 1. Did the manga come before the OVA? 2. Is it still running? 3. Incarnations 3a. Dragon Magazine 3b. Collected tankoubon 3c. The Dragon Half Trilogy 4. Where can I find copies of the manga? 4a. ISBN Numbers 5. Where can I find translations of the manga? 5a. Zahara's "Dragon Half Manga Translations" Page III. MITA RYUSUKE 1. Who is Mita Ryusuke? 2. Mita's other works 2a. Darkhair Captured 2b. Aiten Myouou Monogatari 2c. Shugen Hakuryuu Rubikura 2d. Okazu Club Doujinshi, Quiz Avenue, Monster Collection --- I. THE OVAS 1. When is the third volume of the OVA coming out?! There are currently no plans to continue the animated version of the series. There is no chance of them ever continuing the series. Deal with it. ^^ 2. Why won't there be any more episodes of the OVA? Why why why? 2a. Josh's explanation Don't feel too bad... Dragon Half isn't the only series that had a run that seemed too short. A lot of interesting OVA series tend to have 2-5 episode runs, not because the OVA had low sales, but usually because that's all they had the money/resources/sanity for. In other words, it's most likely that they intended to do only two episodes from the beginning. There's even evidence of this when they almost completely leave Azatodeth out of the series (hence the scene where Dug checks the OVA of volume one and found all his scenes cut), as he was to be a rather vital character later in the story. 2b. Curtis's explanation This was taken from an email from him to me. Since he's spent a lot of time in Japan, he has a LOT more insight... [begin quote] The OVAs were never intended to go more than 2 episodes. They were released at a time when the big studios were switching away from theatrical movies, 90-minute OVAs, and extended-run TV series. This was right after the "economic bubble burst", and many companies started to panic and look for ways to save money. This transition period was very clear to see in the TV anime of the time -- most of the better TV shows ended, and none of the new shows were expected to run longer than the minimum of 26 episodes each. The studios started looking at ways of making money off of people by reducing the playing times of OVAs, by cutting them down to 25-30 minutes each, and then releasing a lot more of the OAVs per month. (If you look at the Ranma 1/2 OVAs that started coming out after 1993, you can see what I mean.) Dragon Half was released as two short OVAs, one episode per tape. They didn't actually "bomb", but they also didn't generate enough interest to create any more OVAs. (Unlike Slayers, which started out as a text-based RPG novel that was serialized in Dragon magazine at the same time as Dragon Half.) [end quote] 2c. False rumors When people ask this question on newsgroups, answers like this tend to pop up from people who obviously haven't looked into this nearly as much as Curtis and I have ^^; Rumor: "The show didn't do too well in Japan" My reply: This is the one that most people beleive, and in some ways, it's true. As explained above, it didn't bomb completely, but it didn't sell enough to encourage the producers to create more OVAs. Rumor: "The head of the company which publishes Dragon Half was arrested" My reply: Well, this is true. IIRC, Kadokawa Haruki had a bit of cocaine trouble back in '96, and was carted off to jail for it. However, I don't see how this could affect the OAV releases of Dragon Half. Kadokawa Shoten didn't publish these videos, Victor Entertainment did. And if it really did matter, the animated versions of Slayers would have never shown up. Some people have actually misconstrued this news completely and say that it was the CREATOR (read: Mita) of Dragon Half that was arrested. Good lord, that is SO not true!! ^.^;; Rumor: "The company who published the videos went bankrupt" My reply: Victor went bankrupt? I don't think so. Kadokawa Shoten never went bankrupt either. Mita never went bankrupt. Nobody went bankrupt! -- II. THE MANGA 1. Did the manga come before the OVA, or after? Definitely before... The manga first appeared in Monthly Dragon Magazine January 1988, and the first OVA was released May 1993. The creator and author of the manga was MITA Ryusuke. 2. Is it still running? Dragon Half ended its run in Dragon Magazine on April '94. Mita has since started and finished two other series and is working on a fourth! 3. Where Dragon Half has appeared 3a. Dragon Magazine: A monthly publication which is actually full of content for RPG gaming, with a couple comics. Slayers originally appeared here as a text story, and is the ONLY creation from Dragon I know of which went on to achieve fame and success. 16-page episodes were published here on roughly a monthly basis, until part 7, when the schedule became a little sporadic (and it becomes obvious when you see Mita's art jump in quality by light years alvasudden ^_^;) NOTE: This is a completely different publication than the Dragon Magazine published in America. 3b. Collected tankoubon: A tankoubon is essentially the equivalent of a "graphic" novel in the US, except they're usually more compact and have cover sheets with flaps. There are 7 volumes of Dragon Half altogether, and they were published by the publishers of Dragon Magazine: Fujimi Fantasia Comics, a divison of Kadokawa Shoten. They are no longer in print. 3c. The Dragon Half Trilogy: Surprisingly, Dragon Half has been re-released in a new collection of double-sized tankoubon! That's a good sign... Mita's popularity must be growing. ^_^ The tankoubon are published under Kadokawa's "Dragon Jr." label, in three volumes which cover all 7 chapters of the manga, along with a few extra features. The third volume was released April 1998, and I beleive the comic is still in print. Dragon Half has turned out to be a rather easy comic to find, despite what you may have heard elsewhere =P 4. Where can I find copies of the manga? Special Ordering is about the only thing you can do short of sending a friend to Japan. Stores and conventions tend to only carry EXTREMELY popular comics (i.e. Dragonball), or recent ones, of which Dragon Half is neither. There are quite a few online places you could special order from these days. I will recommend the one I use. Sasuga Bookstores is the BEST place to go, IMHO. Write to them at sasuga@world.std.com. They may very well have the Trilogy books in stock, and if not, they should be able to order them direct from the publisher. If that doesn't work, you could try a few other stores found in the Anime Resource Guide (use AltaVista to find it ^_^;). 4a. I've found a website with ISBN numbers. What do I do with them? ISBN numbers aren't absolutely necessary, but they do help. Just include them with your order when sending your letter to Sasuga or wherever you're ordering from. You can find the ISBN numbers on Zahara's Dragon Half page, found in the next question... 5. Where can I find translations of the manga? On Zahara Medina's "Dragon Half Manga Translations" page, the first four chapters have been translated by Zahara Medina and I. We became to busy with other things to do the rest, but Masato Asada has stepped forward and translated the last two volumes of the Trilogy. Also available are the character guides and summaries done years ago by good ol' Curtis. They should be quite helpful too. =) http://www.swb.de/~zahara/dh/dh.html III. MITA Ryusuke ( 見田竜介 ) 1. Who is Mita Ryusuke? He's a mangaka who dons a baseball cap and glasses... Born August 24, 1967, blood type AB. He's an artist for games on the PC98, former artist for Dragon Magazine, and the creator and writer of 3 manga series so far. He's also a big fan of Mitsuishi Kotono. ^^ The actual romaji for his name is Mita Ryuusuke, but he seems to prefer to leave out the extra "u." And for those who are unaware of the proper name order in Japan, "Mita" is his LAST name. You can find his official home page at http://www2.odn.ne.jp/miogi/ There is also an English fan page run (sort of) by me at http://studio-zoe.com/kurokami/ This is esentially the "reborn" version of Curtis Hoffman's page,which was located at his Three Steps site. 2. Mita's other works. 2a. Darkhair Captured Mita's second comic, published in Dragon Comics on January 1992. This comic has Dragon Half's style of humor, but not as much of it. It stars a young boy named Captured in a a quest for purpose and identity, similar to Gally in GUNNM. It features a lot of letcherous art of babes, and some greuling violence, and is definitely geared more for mature audiences than Dragon Half was. The comic ended June 1997. 2b. Aiten Myouou Monogatari A different work by Mita. Unlike his other comics, it does not take place in a fantasy setting; it takes place in modern-day Tokyo. Though it's even more dark and sinister than Captured, the Mita-esque humor and bounciness still shows up. Seems to revolve around a young gal named Kotono Mitsuyoshi (hmm ^_^) and Aiten, a creepy kid who's staying at her place. This was a very short story by Mita, ending after two volumes. 2c. Shugen Hakuryuu Rubikura Mita returns to his roots with this one. Published in Enix's Shounen Gangan serial, it's a story set in a fantasy world that seems similar to Dragon Half's, complete with the RPG-like setting, big ugly monster, and, of course, the cute girls in skimpy outfits. =) As of writing this verion of the FAQ, the comic is so new there are no collections yet. 2d. Okazu Club doujinshi, Quiz Avenue, Monster Collection Like virtually ALL published mangaka, Mita does doujinshi. He co-heads a circle called Okazu Club along with his friend and fellow artist Chiaki Ogishima (who had a character named after her in Aiten ^^). Okazu Club publishes doujinshi based on fighting games and Final Fantasy games, most of which are decidedly etchi. =D‾‾ Mita also used to do art for PC98 games, Quiz Avenue being the only title I know of. Currently, he also does freelance work for the RPG group SNE (the group that brought us Lodoss War), including work for their Monster Collection card game. Other freelance sightings include work for Comickers, Comic PaPiPo, and Venus in Paradise. --- Last updated: 4/21/2K