Dragon Drive, Vol. 1
Most of the clichés of the "versus battle" genre are present in the opening volume of Sakura's fast-paced story, but so are some great fight scenes and intriguing technology. Reiji Ozora is a born loser, so his hopes aren't high when his lifelong friend Yukino introduces him to a new virtual reality game called Dragon Drive. Played in an enormous theater-like facility, participants sit in chairs that connect them to the game computer; a giant video wall allows the audience to take in all the action. Each participant controls one or more dragons (à laPokémon, et al.). For Reiji, the game looks bleak from the start as he is assigned Chibi, a tiny dragon with no discernible battle skills. But Chibi has strength that comes to the surface when cornered—as, it turns out, does Reiji himself. Battle sequences are frenetic and intense; a lot of shouting, lots of concrete destroyed, lots of trash-talking and "super-deformed" emoting. Many more secrets remain, including the purpose of the game and the nature of the people running it behind the scenes; none of those secrets are explored in this first volume, which leans heavily on action.(Apr.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.