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Reviewed by Park Cooper From the beginning, each volume of St. Dragon Girl has contained a few distinct stories with little to connect them to each other, but volume 4's chapters are just interconnected enough to give it a less episodic feel. It's a fairly subtle shift (at least partially resulting from the series changing to a monthly serialization rather than bi-monthly, which editor Nancy Thistlethwaite mentioned a while back when discussing it), but I find it makes me engage more significantly with the story and enjoy it more, since character development is one of the main things I look for as a reader. In these chapters, Momoka and Ryuga get to know the dragon possessing Momoka rather better than they did before--perhaps a little too well for comfort, but they need all the help they can get when confronted by both a vengeance-seeking demon and a powerful magician out to destroy Ryuga's family. The one thing that most of the supernatural entities in St. Dragon Girl have in common is an interest in the Kou family, but their motivations vary from petty vanity to generations-long rivalry. Matsumoto transitions fairly smoothly between lighter and more intense stories, although I find this is a series where I don't feel too anxious about the outcomes, probably because the more lighthearted, comedic plots and the more serious-seeming plots are equally likely to involve something like a character's life being at stake. That lack of concern doesn't really detract from my enjoyment of the story, but I can't deny it has an effect on how I read it. Character-wise, communication still isn't Momoka and Ryuga's strength when dealing with each other (which will probably never stop frustrating me when characters are supposed to have known each other for such a long time, but that frustration is hardly unique to this title), but there does seem to be definite--if slow--progress in terms of their relationship. Ryuga still seems overly inclined to protect Momoka, especially given that so much of the trouble she gets into happens because she's kept out of the loop, but he seems to be gradually improving on that front as well. As before, St. Dragon Girl is a fun, somewhat fluffy read, and I'm glad that I'm starting to feel more invested in the story. Volume 4 includes a bonus feature where Natsumi Matsumoto answers fans' questions, a fanart section, and a page of cultural/translation notes. Review copy provided by VIZ Media. Think you could have written a better review of St. Dragon Girl v4? Write us and we'll probably let you give it a shot! --EiC PC |
29 September 2009
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