Dragon Drive

Dragon Drive
First tankōbon volume cover
ドラゴンドライブ
(Doragon Doraibu)
GenreAction, fantasy[1]
Manga
Written byKenichi Sakura
Published byShueisha
English publisher
MagazineMonthly Shōnen Jump
DemographicShōnen
Original run2001 – 2006
Volumes14
Anime television series
Directed byToshifumi Kawase
Produced by
  • Makiko Iwata
  • Tatsuji Yamazaki
  • Satoshi Kubo
Written byToshiki Inoue
Music byShinkichi Mitsumune
StudioMadhouse
Licensed by
Original networkTV Tokyo
Original run July 4, 2002 – March 27, 2003
Episodes38

Dragon Drive (ドラゴンドライブ, Doragon Doraibu) is a Japanese manga by Kenichi Sakura [ja] published by Shueisha and serialized in the manga magazine Monthly Shōnen Jump. Publication ended in 2006, with a total of 14 volumes. Dragon Drive follows lazy junior high school student Reiji Ozora who routinely gives up on everything he starts and is terrible at his school work. Tired of seeing him give up at everything and continue to perform so poorly at school, his childhood friend Maiko Yukino shows Reiji the virtual reality game called Dragon Drive. It is a fighting game in which players and their dragon partners face off within a virtual reality city. Reiji's general lazy personality and lackluster school performances lead him to gain a seemingly equally lazy small dragon whom he calls Chibi. Only later do both of their true strengths show as Chibi, despite being small and sleeping in his first appearance, turns out to be the rarest dragon in the game, a discovery which leads Reiji and his friends to another world called Rikyu.

An anime adaptation by Madhouse directed by Toshifumi Kawase and written by Toshiki Inoue aired on TV Tokyo from July 4, 2002 to March 27, 2003 for a total of 38 episodes. The franchise also spawned three video games, being Dragon Drive: Tactics Break for the PlayStation, Dragon Drive: World D Break for the Game Boy Advance, and Dragon Drive: D-Masters Shot on GameCube.

In North America, Viz Media acquired the rights to distribute the Dragon Drive manga and the anime series was released by Bandai Entertainment.

  1. ^ "Dragon Drive (V.1) - Amazing Transformation". Bandai Entertainment. Archived from the original on February 26, 2006. Retrieved January 7, 2020.