Dragon Crisis!

Dragon Crisis!
Cover of the first volume of the Dragon Crisis! light novel series
ドラゴンクライシス! (Doragon Kuraishisu!)
Genre	Action, Fantasy, Romantic comedy
Light novel
Written by	Kaya Kizaki
Illustrated by	Itsuki Akata
Published by	Shueisha
Imprint	Super Dash Bunko
Demographic	Male
Original run	January 25, 2007 – March 25, 2011
Volumes	13
Anime television series
Directed by	Hideki Tachibana
Written by	Hideyuki Kurata
Music by	Makoto Miyazaki
Studio	Studio Deen
Original network	Chiba TV, Chukyo TV, KIDS STATION, Tochigi TV, Tokyo MX, TV Kanagawa, TV Saitama, Yomiuri TV
Original run	January 11, 2011 – March 29, 2011
Episodes	12

Dragon Crisis! (Japanese: ドラゴンクライシス!, Hepburn: Doragon Kuraishisu!) is a Japanese light novel series by Kaya Kizaki, with illustrations by Itsuki Akata. As of March 2011, thirteen volumes have been published by Shueisha under their Super Dash Bunko imprint. An anime adaptation by Studio Deen aired in 2011.

Plot

The series revolves around Ryūji Kisaragi, a seemingly ordinary teenager who is living a peaceful life while also attending high school. However, his peaceful life gets interrupted after his second cousin, Eriko returns from abroad. With no time to waste, Eriko drags Ryūji to a black marketing organisation called FANG. They steal a large relic box from the broker and run away.

After opening the box, Eriko and Ryūji find a young, girl-like dragon with long, blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. The girl instantly recognises Ryūji and becomes attracted to him. They decide to name the girl Rose, due to the rose-like pattern on her left hand. Suddenly, the very same organisation who kept Rose captive arrive to take her back. But Ryūji is not ready to let her go without a fight!

From that moment on, Ryūji and Eriko embark on an unexpected yet exciting adventure as they strive to protect Rose from various organisations that are out to capture her. Ryūji relies on his powers as a Level 10 breaker to fend these bad guys off. On the way, they meet other dragons who share troubled relationships with each other. Also, Ryūji comes face to face with a truth long kept hidden from him since his birth.

Characters

Ryūji Kisaragi (如月 竜司, Kisaragi Ryūji)

Voiced by: Hiro Shimono

Ryūji is 15 years old. His parents are "Lost Precious" hunters like the rest of his family and since they are often away from home, he lives mostly on his own. At first he cannot explain why Rose knows him, however, he eventually remembers a vague memory of seeing Rose hatch from her egg when he was much younger and her saving him from an untimely death. Ryūji is a level 10 breaker, the most skilled of those who search for and use Lost Precious'. Besides Ryūji, there are only seven other level 10 breakers in the world, all older than he is. As the story progresses, Ryūji is recognized by some of the dragons as Rose's fiancé, although this is due to a misunderstanding. Ryūji has feelings for Rose and does care about her. This is evident when he first "Engaged" with Rose, which allowed him to borrow Rose's power and achieve unbelievable power. Ryūji begins to feel embarrassed around Rose after he performs the dragon's coming of age ceremony with Rose (a simple kiss on the dragon scale birthmark on her hand). According to Onyx, Ryūji is not human but the corporeal form of a Lost Precious called "Dragon Crisis" that can exert a great influence over dragons, thus he is able to wield the Lost Precious "Slash Breath" - a powerful weapon made from a dragon tooth and feared by all dragons. Onyx also claims that this is the reason why Rose became weaker after performing the coming of age ceremony with him. This is later proven to be false by Maruga.

Notably, Ryūji means "Dragon Ruler", in Japanese.

Rose (ローズ, Rōzu)

Voiced by: Rie Kugimiya

Little is known about Rose beyond the fact that she is a young dragon, and thus still unable to change form. When she is first released from the case the crime syndicate "Fang" were transporting her in she knows nothing but Ryūji's name, but soon picks up a few words. Since she is unable to communicate at first, Ryūji gives her the name Rose because the dragon scales on the back of her left hand resemble a rose. Rose is aggressive towards nearly everyone except Ryūji, to whom she clings, even insisting on sleeping beside him in his bed. She deeply loves Ryūji, but is unsure of his feelings for her. Rose and Ryūji first met when he was young. He found her when she hatched from her egg and Eriko believes that she fell in love with him at first sight. Later, some of the dragons acknowledged Ryūji as Rose's fiancé due to misunderstanding of the term "Engage". After Ryūji kisses her birthmark as part of her coming of age ritual, Rose becomes flustered and embarrassed around him. When she becomes inexplicably weaker after the ritual. Onyx claims that it is because Ryūji is the corporeal form of the Lost Precious "Dragon Crisis". In the final episode Maruga reveals that this was a lie and that Rose was sick because her intense feelings for Ryūji manifested themselves physically.

Eriko Nanao (七尾 英理子, Nanao Eriko)

Voiced by: Yukana

Ryūji's busty 19-year-old second cousin. She has been studying abroad for some time but returns to Japan to intercept a "Lost Precious" that "Fang" will be transporting through the city docks. Despite the danger of taking anything that "Fang" believes is theirs she does not back down because she believes the contents, which she suspects to be an S rank "Lost Precious", will prove her worth to the other "Lost Precious" hunters. Initially unable to identify what or who Rose is, she is shocked when she discovers that Rose is a Red Dragon.

Misaki Etō (江藤 実咲, Etō Misaki)

Voiced by: Mayako Nigo

Ryūji's classmate. She has feelings for Ryūji, but is shy whenever she is around him, making it hard for her to approach him casually and express her feelings. She is in shock after misunderstanding Ryūji and Rose being engaged.

Maruga (マルガ)

Voiced by: Yui Horie

A dragon whom Ryuji' meets during his trip to the beach. She is the princess of the ice dragons. Initially she has a haughty attitude towards Ryuji, but she warms up towards him. It is implied that she likes Ryuji, as she blushes when Ryuji is around. She asks Ryuji for a favor - to take a cursed Lost Precious from another level 10 Breaker, George Evans. After the incident, she shows up in the last 2 episodes of the anime, where she convinces Ryuji to go save Rose. Since the black dragon, Onyx, used to live in her land, they have known each other since childhood.

Ai (アイ)

Voiced by: Yuka Inokuchi

She is 15 years old and is a famous thief of Lost Precious, called Odd Eye (because of her one golden eye). Her tattoo is really a Lost Precious which allows her to transform into a half wolf. Furumori (Ai's master) placed it inside her as an experiment in integrating a person and a Lost Precious. She was taken from her home by Furumori and grew up believing that her family was dead and that she was born a half wolf. She finds out that Furumori lied to her shortly before he dies in battle against Ryuji and forgives him. After her story arc, she finds and returns to her real parents. She likes Ryuji for saving her from her life of thievery as well as accepting her unusual appearance and continues to visit him in later episodes.

Onyx (オニキス, Onikisu)

Voiced by: Hiroshi Kamiya

Onyx is a black dragon and the main antagonist. He claims to be Rose's fiancé. He uses black dragon magic.

Sapphie (サフィ, Safi)

Voiced by: Emiri Kato

A blue dragon girl. She has lived with Onyx since hatching 5 years previously. She is jealous of Rose for taking the attention of Onyx away from her. She is also Onyx's fiancée, however Onyx doesn't like her that much as Rose. She has power over water, but has very little control over it so her attempts to use water typically end up backfiring on her.

Anime

Dragon Crisis! was adapted into a 12-episode anime television series by Studio Deen under the direction of Hideki Tachibana and with screenplay by Hideyuki Kurata. The series began its broadcast run on Chiba TV on January 11, 2011 and was scheduled to end on March 29, 2011. However, the last three episodes were temporarily put on hold after a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami struck Japan on March 11. The series was rebroadcast by Chukyo TV, KIDS STATION, Tochigi TV, Tokyo MX, TV Kanagawa, TV Saitama and Yomiuri TV days later and simulcast by Crunchyroll to audiences in Australia, Europe, North America, and South America.

Episode list

No.	Title	Original airdate
1	"The Abducted Girl" Transliteration: "Sarawareta Shōjo" (Japanese: さらわれた少女)	January 11, 2011 (2011-01-11)
High school student Ryuji's older cousin Eriko returns from abroad to drag him to the scene of an underground transaction where he gets caught up in a shootout and car chase. While they thought they had stolen a miraculous Lost Precious from the criminal brokers, they ended up with a mysterious young girl. The young girl happily latches on to Ryuji even though they have never met. Who is this little girl? Thus begins the romance story of the beautiful young Rose and Ryuji.
2	"The Black Assault" Transliteration: "Kuro no Shūgeki" (Japanese: 黒の襲撃)	January 18, 2011 (2011-01-18)
Rose, Ryuji and Eriko are suddenly invited to the Japanese branch of the society by a researcher named Tokura. While Rose is indistinguishable from a young girl, the society performs a variety of examinations after hearing she is a dragon, and the results are...! Unconcerned by her situation, Rose is simply happy to be with Ryuji, and enjoys eating ice cream. However, a young man in black and an underground broker has come for Rose!
3	"Contract of Determination" Transliteration: "Ketsui no Keiyaku" (Japanese: 決意の契約)	January 25, 2011 (2011-01-25)
Determined to rescue Rose, Ryuji takes possession of a powerful lost precious left to him by his parents. After storming Fang's stronghold with Eriko and Tokura, Ryuji finds that Onyx the black dragon is more than he can handle by himself, until Rose joins forces with him to confront the enemy. They engage and Rose thus lends her power to Ryuji allowing him to severely hurt Onyx. Onyx retreats but Eriko and Ryuji believes that Onyx is still alive.
4	"Beautiful Girl of the Beach" Transliteration: "Umibe no Bishōjo" (Japanese: 海辺の美少女)	February 1, 2011 (2011-02-01)
While taking a vacation at the beach. Ryuji and Rose are approached by Maruga, the empress of the white dragons who asks for their help to recover a lost precious in possession of George Evans, a powerful broker who believes that dragons are an evil to be vanquished, despite that he never actually met one in person. Ryuji, Rose and the others go to a festival and coincidentally meet George. After some trouble comes up to the festival Ryuji, Rose, and Maruga escape up a flight of stairs with George right behind them. The episode ends when George looks at Maruga and falls in love still not knowing the fact that she and Rose are dragons.
5	"Unpleasant Awakening" Transliteration: "Imawashiki Kakusei" (Japanese: 忌まわしき覚醒)	February 8, 2011 (2011-02-08)
Ryuji learns from Maruga that the sword in George's possession is actually a cursed lost precious that corrupts human souls. Rose refuses to believe that George, a usually kind person could become an enemy, but when he finds that Rose is a dragon, he starts attacking her, and it is up to Ryuji and Rose to bring him back to his senses.
6	"Wolf Attack" Transliteration: "Ōkami no Shūgeki" (Japanese: 狼の襲撃)	February 15, 2011 (2011-02-15)
Ryuji, Eriko and Rose attend a party with many A class and above Lost Preciouses. They also meet a new collector who seems interested in Eriko; he tells her that if he finds out anything about her other earring then he will contact her. The guests are attacked by "Odd Eye", a half-beast Lost Precious thief whom Ryuji had just seen in a magazine. Later at their home, she tries to steal Eriko's earring, but ends up tied to Ryuji by a failed capture device and they end up kissing. While waiting for the binding to vanish, they learn that her true name is Ai, and try to figure out who is making her steal, and why. The next day Eriko answers a knock on the door; it is the new collector who says he has found the other earring. He opens the box supposedly containing the earring but it releases a sleeping powder which puts Eriko and Rose to sleep. He then tells Ai to follow him, putting Ryuji to sleep as well.
7	"The Truth about Wolves" Transliteration: "Ōkami-tachi no Shinjitsu" (Japanese: 狼たちの真実)	February 22, 2011 (2011-02-22)
The rope finally came off of Ryuji and Ai. Ai's master puts him in a closed room to ask him of his A-Class precious later. He and Ai then go to a room where he tells Ai to rest for a while, it is also revealed here that her master does actually have the other "True Love" (トル　ラ-ブ）earring. Ai's master leaves the room to go get some drinks and Ai, dazzled by the beauty of the earrings, puts them on, soon realizing that the "True Love" earrings when used together, give the person wearing them the ability to hear a person's true thoughts. Ai's master comes back not knowing that she put on the earrings answers all of Ai's questions falsely, unintentionally "telling" her that he kidnapped her 15 years ago and raised her to be a dog for his experiments. Knowing this Ai flees the room to save Ryuji. They escape to the balcony where Eriko and Rose come just in time to help. It is revealed that Ai's master is Furumori, a person being looked for by the society, and he has five lost preciouses inside of his body. After having four out of five of these Lost Precious destroyed by Rose's dragon fire, Furumori uses his last Lost Precious to disappear into the atmosphere. Ai goes back to her human family where she was kidnapped from.
8	"Risked Test" Transliteration: "Kiken na Tesuto" (Japanese: 危険なテスト)	March 1, 2011 (2011-03-01)
Ryuji wakes up finding Rose dressed up in his school's girl uniform saying she wants to go to school too. Ryuji agrees but makes her promise that she won't use her wings and fire. When they get to school, class is suddenly disrupted by Bianca Alexandra Lou, a woman sent by the society to evaluate Ryuji. She fires a SMAW at Ryuji and finds his physical level is 326 and his lost precious level is 120. She seems slightly disappointed and says she will test his maximum lost precious level later. After a whole bunch of questioning, Bianca takes Ryuji outside to start the test. Ryuji needs to battle a Neogolem. After Ryuji severely hurts it and the Neogolem still doesn't shut down, Bianca realizes that there's something wrong with it and tries to automatically shut it down when it doesn't work, she climbs up the robot trying to shut it down manually. Ryuji and Rose engage and stop the Neogolem. At the same time all this happens, Eto figures out it's Ryuji's birthday the day after and tries to figure out what to get him for his birthday present.
9	"Mirror of Truth" Transliteration: "Shinjitsu no Kagami" (Japanese: 真実の鏡)	March 8, 2011 (2011-03-08)
All the girls get sucked into a Cursed Precious that judges whether women tell the truth or not.
10	"Adult's Rites" Transliteration: "Otona no Gishiki" (Japanese: オトナの儀式)	March 15, 2011 (2011-03-15)
A new blue dragon named Sapphie appears and claims to be the lover of Onyx and tries to take revenge on Ryuji. However it turns out that she is not too battle oriented and is forced to retreat. Misaki learns about Rose being a dragon and over in Maruga, the white dragon's home a break in by Onyx occurs. Sapphie later meets up with Rose and they become friends. She teaches her of the Dragon's coming of age ritual, namely a kiss on the dragon mark. Rose and Ryuji perform the rite only to have Rose become extremely conscious of Ryuji's presence (with the mere touch or sight of Ryuji sending waves of heat through her body) which in turn makes Ryuji conscious of her. The couple end up shy and embarrassed around each other to an extreme.
11	"Dragon Crisis" Transliteration: "Doragon Kuraishisu" (Japanese: ドラゴンクライシス)	March 22, 2011 (2011-03-22)
Rose's change in attitude continues even after a night's sleep. This in turn, much to Eriko's dismay, makes the couple awkward around each other. At school Rose tries to consult Misaki and Ryuji vaguely tries the same with Masato but to no avail. Rose's condition gets worse during PE, to the point where she collapses. She is transferred to the Society's Dragon Lab. Meanwhile Eriko and Bianca manage to capture Sapphie who had returned to regain her shoes that she had left behind. Questioning her reveals that Rose's condition is not normal and Sapphie herself does not understand what's going on. Onyx contacts Ryuji and reveals to him that the Dragon's Rite of Adult does not take effect with humans but only with dragon partners and that Rose's current condition is because Ryuji is not human but a Lost Precious with power over dragons called the "Dragon Crisis". If Ryuji continues to stay near Rose her condition will only worsen. Left with no choice, Ryuji hands Rose over to Onyx. More than two weeks later, Ryuji goes to and acts normal in school but Misaki realizes that Ryuji is hiding his own feelings. Later that night Maruga return to talk with Ryuji.
12	"Engage" Transliteration: "Engēji" (Japanese: エンゲージ)	March 29, 2011 (2011-03-29)
Rose wakes up with no memories about her life with Ryuji and her friends. Not willing to take any chances, Onyx decides to leave Japan with her as soon as possible. Meanwhile, thanks to Maruga's counseling, Ryuji finally comes to terms with his feelings for Rose and together with all his friends, he sets to Haneda Airport to rescue her after being tipped off by Sapphie. Where they kiss to defeat onyx and then they return to a not so ordinary school life.

Music

The opening theme of the anime is "Immoralist" (インモラリスト) by Yui Horie, and the ending theme is "Mirai Bowl" (ミライボウル) by Momoiro Clover.

External links

• Light novel official website - archive April 23, 2011 (in Japanese)
• Anime official website
• Dragon Crisis! (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia