Dragon Half
ドラゴンハーフ
Life, in a fantasy universe, isn't all plain sailing. One thinks: how nice, you are always around with the party, every now and then you kill some orcs, when you are powerful enough you can kill the enemies with one single hand ... AND INSTEAD NO! Even little Mink has her little teenage problems. But let's start from the beginning ...
A long time ago, in a distant country, a dragon was wreaking havoc all over the kingdom. The king, worried about the fate of the population, decided to send Ruth, known as the "Red Lightning", to fight against the flying reptile. Everything would have gone well, were it not that the "Red Lightning" has the happy idea of falling in love with the dragon, also a red dragon, and running away with her for other shores.
From the union of the two was born Mink, a half-dragon, a girl with a human appearance but equipped with ears, wings, tail and strength of obvious dragon derivation.
Our little Mink has some problems, in fact she is in love with Saucer, a handsome dragon hunter and, in his spare time, singer.
The obstacles that stand between Mink and her beautiful love are essentially her dragonship nature and Princess Vina, mistress of black magic and founder and president of Saucer's fan club. So, to eliminate at least part of her problems, Mink decides to go in search of the People potion, a potion that will allow her to become completely human.
In fact, the legend tells that a little slime, who fell in love with the king, took the People potion, became human and managed to fulfill her dream by becoming a queen. The poor woman, however, despite her being human in all respects, gave birth to a small slime, dying of the big "emotion" and making the king lose the only hair that grew on his head.
Guess who was the baby-slime daughter of the king? Well done, Vina, who became human thanks to a spell.
Unfortunately, Mink's path will be hindered by the king's thugs, determined to do anything to punish the girl because of her father's betrayal. Imagine then, when the king turns her beloved Saucer against her ...
These are the premises of one of the most funny OAVs I've ever seen in my life: it was from the days of "Kyò Kara Ore Wa !!" that I didn't laugh so much in front of the video. The story may actually seem trivial (and indeed it is), but I challenge anyone to remain impassive for the duration of the videos. When even the most stupid of situations becomes dramatic, the tension drops without being able to realize it, transforming the characters into super deformed (that is, from tall and slender, they become short, squat and with a scary face).
The designs are excellent, especially because they have a very clean stroke and are well colored. The animations are average (we have certainly seen better), and I must admit that the character design did not convince me at all: personally I found it too edgy in some points (when the characters are in SD) and too soft in others, even if, however, it turns out to be very similar to that of the Japanese manga.
A great note of merit goes to the music, which, even if there are not many musics in the OAV, create the right atmosphere (don't miss the typical Japanese silly jingle that emphasizes the escape of Ruth and the dragon) and to the final theme "Pappara funi funi", which in addition to be almost enchanting, presents here and there some small touches of class such as "The hymn to joy", among other things also present in Evangelion (it has nothing to do with Dragon Half but that's okay).
That said, these OAVs may not seem like anything particular, but considered as a whole they are products certainly beyond the average, since their strength is not based on the technical depth, but on the narrative and insane, truly out of category.
Before concluding, a personal note: the version we reviewed was the one with English subtitles; this allowed us to appreciate the fabulous Japanese dubbing, which has such silly voices that it fits perfectly into the demented atmosphere of the OAV.
Honestly, although our voice actors are very good, I don't think a possible dubbing can be up to this, since the vocal range of the Japanese people is very different from ours. The optimal solution would be that of subtitles, a solution that allows you to enjoy the OAVs in all their facets, but remembering to subtitle the songs as well, which both Yamato and Dynamic should learn to do.
