Please Look After the Dragon Volume 1 Review

Murakami is walking past the park on his way to buy something for lunch when he sees a dragon. The dragon is definitely not a statue – and it’s holding up a sign which reads, ‘Please Look Atfer Me.’ Murakami (who’s a student) has seen plenty of dragons in video games and anime but he doesn’t expect to be addressed directly by the dragon who bursts out, “I am neither an auditory or a visual hallucination. You can read this, can’t you? Did I not spell it correctly?” Murakami can’t help but point out the typo and one thing leads to another.

The dragon introduces herself as Ilsera; she’s failed her exams in her home world and has been sent to ‘a world devoid of magic’ to train. Murakami can’t handle the information and walks away – but as he’s on his way home (with onigiri for lunch), he sees Ilsera attempting to fight a large slime and failing. She’s used up all her energy – and it’s only when Murakami tosses her an onigiri that she regains her strength and destroys the slime. Murakami is seriously impressed – and gives in, taking her home. She’s rather large to fit in his apartment but boasts that she’s able to shrink to a more manageable size. For, it turns out, only about thirty minutes. Then when he tries to take her out in miniature form in the basket on his bike, she returns to her normal size, only to be spotted by two young boys in the park. It’s all Murakami can do to dissuade them from taking a video and uploading it! Desperate, he begs Ilsera to get them out of the situation and although she’s running out of magic (again!) she manages to transport them away just at the last moment – high in the air above the town. Rescued by Ilsera as he plummets to the ground, Murakami finds himself riding on her back!

The odd roommates relationship between student Murakami and the high-maintenance young dragon Ilsera makes for an appealing read for dragon-lovers (there’s more than a few snippets of dragon-lore sprinkled throughout the text) and readers who enjoy stories set in everyday Japan with a dash of the supernatural. It’s attractively drawn (great dragons!) by Yuki Higashiura and the story by Shoun Makise is well constructed, setting up storylines that begin to deliver as the manga unfolds. The chapter in which Ilsera helps out Saki, an elderly lady who runs an onigiri shop in Tamayama Shopping Street by grilling the onigiri for her and bringing in lots of customers (unaware that a dragon is cooking their food for them) has all the local shopping district vibes of a slice-of-life manga. Saki’s sight is so poor that she doesn’t see Ilsera as a dragon, describing her as, ‘a bit chubby’ and ‘painted white’, telling Murakami, “It must be the ‘diversity’ everyone’s talking about these days” as well as calling Ilsera ‘Vuvuzela-chan.’ But it’s the hints at the town’s shrine that start to accrue as the build-up to the Tatsui-Chou Dragon Festival gets underway. It seems that the town has venerated a dragon for centuries… surely that doesn’t mean the dragon is real. Or does it?

Translation for Yen Press is by Sarah Burch and a page of useful translation notes is included at the back; the lettering is by Elena Pizarro and all work really well together to bring the dialogue and effects to life. There is an afterword from author Shoun Makise, an extra story ‘Good Night, Dragon’ as well as several one-page bonus comics sprinkled throughout. The next volume (of five so far in Japan) is due out in June.

The first volume of this story of a student and his dragon roommate is a quirky, enjoyable read which will appeal to all those who enjoy manga where the everyday and the supernatural quietly overlap.

Read a free preview at the publisher’s site here.

Our review copy was supplied by Yen Press.