Volumes: 3/3 (Complete), In Print
Shounen/Shoujo (reads like)
Genre: Raising a Child, Adventure, Older Brother/Younger Sister Relationship, Family, Dragons, Scifi
Summary: In a land where Dragon People have evolved into being the dominant lifeforms, there are those who study the ancient creatures known as humans, or as they call them, Muernandes. One day Nid, a young Dragon boy, is exploring the old human ruins, only to stumble across a young human girl, Juana, who hatches out of an egg! She can talk but only speaks Spanish*. Nid, who isn’t a whole lot older than she is, finds himself in a predicament as suddenly he finds himself responsible for her! Only thing is, he’s kind of a coward, and a hapless Dragon who refuses to eat meat. Can he grow up now that someone is counting on him? And where did she come from anyway? (*I would bet a lot that she originally spoke in English, but it did make sense to change it.)
Review: It’s a very charming manga, and very underrated and doesn't deserve to be this obscure, simply because it’s a children’s story but was labeled as Seinen. This is not Seinen at all. It reads like a combination of a children’s adventure story and a story about growing up. The art is so cute and between that and the story starring two children, it’s really hard to believe it ran in a Seinen magazine. That being said for a children's story, it's somewhat wordy and uses a lot of vocabulary, so perhaps YA would be more appropriate.
There honestly isn’t a lot to the story. A lot of the panels and the scenes are spent establishing more about the world they live in. It’s kind of a combination of a tour of the Seven Kingdoms (though the story only covers a few of them briefly), Nid’s story about why he ran away from his family, and his struggles with eating meat. And lastly Juana’s story, although for a lot of it she's just a helpless, but sweet little girl who doesn’t understand the strange world she’s emerged into. Together the two of them set out to solve the mystery of where she came from and why. Meanwhile, a nasty Circus sets its sights on Juana and wants her to be the star of their Freak Show. Lastly, the ending is pure Scifi, and was all round a solid ending to this charming little manga.
I admit, I picked this up for the Dragons, but it’s kind of a mixed bag. On the plus side, there’s literally like a dragon on every page and tons of dragons everywhere. On the downside, they wear clothes and act a lot like humans, they don’t fly (except one minor character) and they don’t breathe fire. Still overall, I enjoyed it anyway, but I also like cute dragons. If you prefer your dragons to be more fearsome, then you probably won’t enjoy this.
Recommended: If you want to read a sweet YA story about an unusual Older Brother and Younger Sister pair as they travel together, and discover more about their world and themselves, then it’s a great read.
Age Rating: PG: Nothing objectionable in here except the brief slavery from the circus. Also Nid’s father wears a baggy dress (this is not why he left home btw), it’s really not offensive at all, and blink and you’ll miss it.
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