Shonen Jump’s Newest Manga, Ruri Dragon Is Out, Here’s Our First Thoughts

After a very popular one-shot back in August of 2021, Shindou Masaoki’s: Ruri Dragon has been serialized! The first chapter came out earlier this weekend and the events of it are a lot to take in, for both readers and the main character Ruri Aoki! As to what those events are …well, let’s save that and the rest of the details for a later on.

Without further ado, let us take a look at what the series is all about and what we here at Anime Senpai think of it, solely based on the first chapter.

What Is “Ruri Dragon”?

Of course, before we get into anything, we should clarify what Ruri Dragon is for those who are unaware. As we touched on already, Ruri Dragon is a new Shonen Jump serialization coming from Shindou Masaoki. It is the second new serialization for the magazine, following last week’s rushed, but interesting, Aliens Area manga ending.

The series is about a regular school girl, Ruri, who faces the usual issue of pushy classmates and annoying teachers like every other teenager. However, her life changes when one day she wakes up with horns, and later find out that her dad is a dragon, making her half-human, half-dragon. Now if you’d like to check it out first before hearing our thoughts on it, you can find the series in our “Where To Read” section at the bottom of the article.

Ruri Dragon was originally released as a one-shot back in August 2021 and was quick to garner a group of supporters. About a year later, after multiple serialization requests, and an official voice-over on youtube, the series is finally getting a serialization!

Just like the one-shot, it seems that the first chapter of Ruri Dragon is doing well in both Japan and the Western world. Hopefully, this will relate to the series having a long-running serialization.

With the background check out of the way let’s get into our thoughts on the series.

First Thoughts

The first thing that gives you an opinion of a manga, before you even get to the text or plot, is the art. And I must say the art in this manga is amazing! Off the bat, it looks amazing and on top of that, the comedy of the series matches very well with the art.

Speaking of the comedy, I would say that the dry slice-of-life humour that Ruri Dragon has going for it works well. The first chapter alone got more chuckles out of me than some of Jump’s other comedy or gag manga. The way the characters just accept that Ruri has horns now, the dead-faced teacher, and the way Ruri reacts to everyone around her, reminds me somewhat of what we see in series like One Punch Man and Mashle: Magic and Muscles.

However, dry humour can usually take away from a story itself in most cases. Thankfully that’s not the case in Ruri Dragon. The story still moves forward even with the dead reactions. For example when Ruri accidentally sneezes fire instead of panning out or having one of her peers do what can only be called an “Ok.” face from One Punch the story immediately progresses and we don’t stay in that position.

Now of course this is a lot of praise for a series that has literally just begun two days ago, however, I really liked the first chapter and think that the series has a lot of potential. Of course whether or not the series can pull through on that potential or flop depends on future chapters, so I guess we’ll all just have to wait and see how Ruri Dragon does in the coming weeks.

Oh and Shonen Jump, please don’t prematurely axe it, thanks.

Fan Reactions

Where To Read

You can check out the first chapter and plenty of other series officially and for free on both Viz Media and Manga Plus. As always, we urge readers to try to read the series officially, as this supports both the author and allows them to create more stories.

That’s all for today, but be sure to let us know your thoughts on this latest development down below! We’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions on what just happened!