Dragon Drive, Volume 3 Book

The tale of a loser kid who gets whisked off into a magical world where it turns out he and his little but, powerful dragon may play a part in saving the world itself!

Reiji Oozora is a total loser! Not good at anything especially schoolwork! One day his friend Maiko Yukino offers to share her class notes with him to help him out on the condition that he takes her wherever she wants to go. She takes him to a secret place where a virtual reality game called Dragon Drive is played. Reiji signs up, gets his own dragon, which ends up being the smallest and weakest in the game! Because of its tiny size Reiji names the dragon Chibi. Right after joining the game Reiji and Maiko are sent to battle a classmate who has as crush on Maiko named Daisuke. Reiji runs from the battle and just when it seems like he can't win his dragon does something impossible! It suddenly powers up and defeats the much larger dragon. Reiji wins and is suddenly addicted to this new exciting game.

A staff member of the Dragon Drive virtual reality game named Agent L realizes that there is something incredible about Chibi's performance and invites Reiji and Maiko to a special training room. There she reveals the real purpose of the game is for players to bring out their dragon's true potential. Just then a strange girl riding a dragon appears and takes them to a fantastic magical world. It turns out it this world is in peril of being taken over by an evil group called RI-ON and the only thing that can possibly stop them in none other than Reiji's little dragon! Thus the adventure begins!

Publishers Weekly

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 la Pokémon, 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.)