Manga Blue Dragon: Ral Ω Grado

[Dagger]

[center][IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v632/DaggerIX1/ral.jpg[/IMG][/center]

Ral Grado is a brand new Shounen Jump series--and the latest project from Takeshi Obata, the artist for Hikaru no Go and Death Note. It's apparently based on Blue Dragon, an upcoming RPG for the Xbox 360, but I don't know quite how the two stories are linked, since I'm going into this without any knowledge of the game. It's also noteworthy for being Obata's first action series. Out of his major previous works, Ayatsuri Sakon is a mystery series, Hikaru no Go is about a board game, and Death Note is about... notebooks and stuff.

Anyway, I loved the first chapter of Ral Grado. It's refreshingly atypical for a Jump series. The main character is a teenager, but he's more comparable to, say, Wrath from the FMA anime, or even Death Note's L, than any Jump heroes I know of. The setting of the story is referred to as "this star," so it's not clear whether it's Earth or someplace else, but there are monsters/dragons called Shadows coming over from the "world of darkness" and destroying humanity. Shadows take over creatures in three stages. In the First, the parasite form, they take shape in the creature's shadow. In the Second form, the Shadow eats the creature from the inside. In the Third, the Shadow takes over the creature completely.

So all of this sounds fairly run-of-the-mill and may make the first chapter seem like an information dump, but that's not really the case. Ral, the protagonist, summoned (or something--it's not totally clear) a dragon with his screams as an infant. In order to seal the dragon away, his own father had to seal him away. His only human contact is with a woman he calls Mio-sensei, who gives him lessons about dragons and so forth in hopes of enabling him to control the dragon Grado without being taken over. The castle where he's being kept is attacked again, and as a last resort, Ral is released--but, not knowing anything about the female sex, he shows more interest in groping Mio and "learning about women" than saving everyone.

So Mio makes a deal with him: if he kills away the Shadows outside, she'll teach him everything there is to know about women. When he's lolling around in bed waiting for her, though, he [spoiler]innocently falls asleep.[/spoiler] ;)

Not much is known about Ral Grado's writer, but Obata always seems to pick good people to collaborate with. Chapter 1 has a great streak of comedy that isn't too different, in tone, from the quirky humor in Death Note. And of course the art looks fantastic. The first chapter will probably be scanlated soon, so if you're interested, keep your eyes peeled.

~Dagger~

[Semjaza]

Sounds pretty interesting. I'm really interested in the game, but I don't think it's even come out in Japan yet... so I doubt anyone knows terribly much about its story beyond the basic idea of it.

Does Akira Toriyama still work on manga? I ask simply because he did the character designs for the game... so it's interesting to see this from someone else.

[Kei]

[color=darkblue][size=1]Mm, as far as I know, the last thing he worked on in terms of manga might be Sand Land, which came out a few years ago. I know he did the character art for Dragon Quest VIII (since he does design work for the entire series, anyway) as well, but there hasn't been anything much on the comic front. I'll look into it, unless Dagger can provide an off-hand answer. Lord knows she's better versed in this than I am without research, lol.

[b]Edit:[/b] According to my research, he's actually still in the manga business. He's currently working on Kochikame, a one-shot omake. The last full-volume work he did was Neko Majin Z back in 2000.[/color][/size]

[Dagger]

Yeah, Akira Toriyama hasn't done any long-running manga since Dragon Ball--he still puts out short stories once in a while, but I guess he mostly does game character designs and stuff now. I saw some clips from the Blue Dragon game when I went to a Play! performance this summer... it looked pretty different from this manga, but maybe that's because I only have the image of a little boy flying a plane or mecha or something stuck in my head.

It seems like they're really pushing this franchise. There's going to be another Blue Dragon manga (Blue Dragon ST), drawn by Ami Shibata and serialized in Monthly Shounen Jump. I've seen stuff about there being an anime in the works, too, but I have no idea what people are basing that on.

~Dagger~

[Semjaza]

I know that Microsoft is banking a lot on this game in Japan. Really, if this doesn't push some units for them in that country, nothing would (it's now #2 on the Famitsu Readers Most Wanted list). I suppose they'll do as much outside "marketing" (such as manga) as possible. It makes sense.

At least what's coming out looks to be quality stuff.

[evildemonlucas]

i have the first blue dragon volume in raw at home and have read the first chapter scanslated. it looks to be 1 of the better mangas ive read and i cant wait till the game!