Dragon Drive Volume Six is rated “A,” which means it is suitable for readers of all ages.

Dragon Drive Volume Six
Written by: Ken-ichi Sakura
Publisher: Shueisha
English Publisher: VIZ Media
Release Date: January 29, 2008

This volume of Dragon Drive continues from where the last volume left off, with Reiji and Hikaru competing in the auction for Shinsaber. The remainder of the tasks for the auction, as well as determining the winner, makes up roughly half of the story in this manga volume. In addition, Silver learns an incredible secret about the young dragon that she has been protecting. When this storyline finishes, Reiji returns to Yaudim and discovers that the town has been destroyed. The next section of the manga shows what happened to the town before its destruction. The manga volume ends with Reiji and the other competitors banding together to stop Ri-On from acquiring the Jinryu Stone.

I was glad to see that the auction for Shinsaber was wrapped up in this volume. Unfortunately, it took nearly half of the volume for this part of the storyline to finally reach its conclusion. It was also good to see what was happening to the other characters, such as Maiko and Daisuke, since they were essentially absent from Volume Five. Hopefully the next volume will finally get the story back onto its original path, and not meander off into other side stories. I’ve personally gotten to a point where I’d like to see this storyline get wrapped up before I lose any more interest.

When it comes to the art, there are only a couple of sections that utilize the “busy” panels for the fights, and they’re two of the most climactic battles in the volume. One thing I really noticed in this volume is how Sakura’s depiction of Reiji is starting to change. In the previous volumes, Reiji was always shown as being a rather carefree person, because he always had “soft” expressions, even when he was angry. In this volume, however, there are several times where Reiji’s expressions have hardened quite a bit, and he’s beginning to look more like a person who’s going to be a hero and save the world. I’m sure this change in depiction was very deliberate on Sakura’s part, and it shows that Reiji is starting to grow as a character. Hopefully, Sakura will continue to follow Reiji’s course as the series continues.

Dragon Drive is definitely a manga series that is going to appeal to readers who have an appreciation for similar “fighting” manga series, such as Yu-Gu-Oh!

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