By Toru Fujieda. Released in Japan by Akita Shoten, serialized in the magazine Princess. Released in North America by Yen Press.

After spending the first half of the series trying to balance out its cheering plot and its romance plot, the second half of Dragon Girl definitely leans towards the latter. Rinna still has several choices of hot guys to choose from, and because it’s only a 5-volume series (released as 2 omnibuses here), it’s not too long before she’s able to fall for her true love and live happily ever after.

Of course, there are still tons of plotlines to tie up as well, mostly regarding either the cheering club or Rinna’s feelings for Subaru. The latter is definitely handled better than the former. Having established the student council president as a reprehensible jerk, the author tries to show his good side here in his interaction with Yaotome, but it comes off as fairly forced, as if you can’t end a shoujo romance with a bad guy so he has to see the error of his ways. His reasoning for harassing Rinna is also not nearly as obvious to the eye as his reasoning for harassing Hasekura.

On the other hand, the Subaru plot is handled very well, clearly having had the most thought go into it. The actual secret revelation is not all that surprising, especially if you’ve read any shoujo manga at all, but Rinna’s reaction to it is excellent – the moment she finds out the news, she feels vaguely sick, which is a refreshing change after all the overly dramatic shoujo heroine angst over the same revelation in other works. In addition, we finally meet her father, who, given that she’s a total Daddy’s Girl, would have to be massively over the top just to live up to the buildup he’s gotten. And indeed he is, showing exactly why Rinna loves him so much – while also coming across as an extremely fallible and selfish person.

There’s a healthy dose of humor here too. The manga isn’t especially dark or anything – even the dramatic scenes are short and usually followed by something funny – but I really did enjoy the humorous vignettes, especially the ones involving the captain. He spent 3/4 of the series with a completely ridiculous mustache / goatee combo, but this is a shoujo series – so naturally when he shaves it off and cuts his hair a bit, he’s a complete bishie. Seeing the girls of the school suddenly take notice of him (and his clueless reaction to this) is very amusing. I also liked the tie in of the final battle between rivals being a mirror of the first battle for the cheering club, right down to the crows. And it’s always nice to see the blunt dialogue that a short series allows – I love him, Will you go out with me, etc. Complete with a fantastic kiss at the end.

Yen Press had a couple of odd series licenses this last year that they decided to bundle into omnibuses, and Dragon Girl is by far the better of the two. With an unusual choice of ‘sports’ to focus on, an enthusiastic, strong yet feminine heroine, and a bunch of hot guys (even if some of them are in disguise with horrible facial hair), Dragon Girl is a great pickup for anyone wanting a cute, fun shoujo manga that doesn’t drag things out.

By Toru Fujieda. Released in Japan by Akita Shoten, serialized in the magazine Princess. Released in North America by Yen Press.

Toru Fujieda is one of those manga artists who’s been around for some time. In the 1990s she was working at Sony Magazines, putting out short shoujo under their imprint. Then in the 2000s she moved to Akita Shoten, and has been releasing fun, medium-length shoujo series in their magazine Princess. One of her previous works, Oyayubihime Infinity, was released over here by CMX, and now we have the Ouendan-loving manga Dragon Girl, which Yen is releasing in 2 giant omnibuses, each covering 2 1/2 volumes of manga.

Yen has a lot of helpful translation notes (which are at the end of each ‘volume’ in Japanese, slightly awkward for the reader, and make me wonder if the omnibus decision was last-minute), but doesn’t actually get into the concept of ouendan, which may be unfamiliar to readers here. ‘Male cheerleaders’ doesn’t really describe the culture and history of the thing, and they aren’t really much like female cheerleaders at all, something which is pointed out in this volume. However, they do have similar goals. You can read more here.

Into this school comes Rinna Aizen, a tall, athletic, overly enthusiastic girl whose father was king of all ouendan at this school. It’s just recently gone co-ed, so she can finally pursue her dream of following in her dad’s footsteps (and also meet the cute boy who encouraged her years ago). This despite the presence of numerous obstacles in the form of high school boys: the leader of the club today, who wants to stay traditional; the unemotional pretty boy who ignores her; the boy who inspired her years ago, who now seems to have become a delinquent; and above all, the evil Class President, who seems to enjoy torturing her because that’s what he’s like.

Yes, in case you hadn’t guessed, for all of its focus on cheering clubs and high school drama, what we have here is a reverse harem series. This is actually one of its strengths, as we’re halfway through the manga with this omnibus and I’m still not entirely certain who she’ll end up with. Most reverse harems (or regular male-lead harems, for that matter) give a large pile of love interests short shrift while concentrating on the boy you know the heroine will pick eventually. But honestly, we could go in one of three directions here with no real logical leaps. Impressive.

To be honest, a lot of this is shoujo paint-by-numbers. If you’re looking for shocking twists or new variations on a standard theme, you’re not going to find them here. That said, this is a fantastic manga for me, as it pushes a lot of MY buttons. Rinna is exactly my sort of manga heroine – tall, strong, loud, a bit dense, and cheerful as the day is long – and seeing her personality slowly win over others is another favorite plotline of mine. Also benefiting the series is the fact that Rinna’s immediately given two best female friends (who are almost polar opposites), who help make the reverse harem aspect of the plot slightly less obvious, and give a wall of common sense for Rinna to occasionally run into. Nice to see this in Volume 1, where usually it takes series like Ouran 9 or 10 volumes to do this.

Most of all, Dragon Girl passes my most important test: I really, REALLY want to find out what happens next. After reading it, I went to Yen’s site to see when the 2nd and final volume is due out. (Yen says ‘Spring’, Amazon says February.) It’s not the best shoujo in the world, but it’s fun, funny, and doesn’t offend my sensibilities. That’s a winner for me.