On today’s stream: The return of “RuriDragon” with a live reaction to Chapter 9.
And read along as well: an initial script for today’s stream is below.
After 12 PM Eastern, a recording of the stream will be shared on YouTube.
An audio-only version will be available as soon as possible wherever you get your podcasts.
Pre-Recording Talk
Hey, everyone. I’m Derek, my pronouns are he, him, his. This is the 61st episode of Sunday Morning Manga.
We’ll get started in a moment, with a long rant about Chapter 113 of Bungo Stray Dogs.
While I’m setting up, feel free to drop some questions in the chat. I’ll answer them in between recording and at the end of the stream.
Disclaimers
And speaking of submitting questions, some disclaimers…
Anti-Bigotry Disclaimer
Every weekend I start the livestream with a disclaimer that I make sure to refer to as “anti-bigotry.”
I use “anti-bigotry” as others have because, while being tolerant and being accepting of other people is necessary, it is also necessary to oppose bigotry, especially at times when I see something and don’t say something clearly and immediately.
This is my quiet way of saying two things.
First, if I was hosting a show where someone said they were going to put a Nazi’s quotations on t-shirts, I would hope I would immediately say, “Hey, that’s fucked up–get the fuck off of my show.”
And second, if I took my music off of a platform that pays a pro-fascist anti-vaccine dipshit, I wouldn’t then put my music back on that platform. I would be doing all I could to find alternate platforms for my work so that I’m trying to get off of, let’s say, Amazon, which has anti-union policies I don’t appreciate, and Google, which has anti-union policies I don’t agree with and who platforms fucking Nazis on YouTube. If I had that kind of money to take my music off of a platform that is paying a pro-fascist anti-vaccine dipshit, I wouldn’t then change my mind later because, hey, money.
But that’s just me talking shit about Jim Cummings and Neil Young.
Anyway, continuing this disclaimer:
This is an anti-bigotry space: I oppose and denounce any form of bigotry, discrimination, or intolerance, as these are threats to the safety and well-being of every single person on this planet, especially people marginalized because of their identity, and these threats run counter to what my country, the United States, claims it cares about: diversity, inclusion, and equity.
Any audience comments that express hate, prejudice, intolerance, or discrimination against any individual or group (on the basis of, but not limited to, their race, ethnicity, religion, nation of origin, gender, or sexuality) will be deleted by me from the comments section.
None of this is at all to say that I don’t have prejudices and biases, especially unknowingly having them or practicing them due to how bigotry can be ingrained in institutions. And this isn’t to say that I don’t have areas where I can improve at practicing anti-bigotry. I welcome remarks that point out how I am practicing bigotry, so that I can improve at not practicing bigotry. I am interested in using this platform to engage in work to put into practice equity, diversity, and inclusion.
(And speaking of: I’m still looking for alternate platforms to host this livestream and podcast. Seriously, I don’t want to be using social media whose owners are bankrolling that fucking orange fascist, and I don’t want to be using a streaming platform that is doing union busting. In case I’m not making my point clear enough: fuck that shitty bird app, fuck Google, fuck Amazon. So, if you have alternatives where I can host video streams and podcasts, please message me.)
Onto the next disclaimers:
Ownership Disclaimer
Sunday Morning Manga is intended for information and entertainment purposes only. It is not endorsed by any companies mentioned, any persons mentioned, or any financial contributors mentioned.
All names, pictures, and sounds are registered trademarks and/or copyrights of their respective trademark and copyright holders.
All original content is the intellectual property of the speaker unless otherwise indicated.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any other persons mentioned in this episode.
No Paid Endorsements Disclaimer
Aside from the names of Patreon and Ko-fi contributors, other persons, businesses, organizations, or entities mentioned in this episode are not sponsors of this episode. My remarks about those persons, businesses, organizations, and entities are not paid endorsements.
(Jesus Christ, I do better at this than some dipshit pretending to be the governor of South Dakota…)
Music
And I’m going to record the musical credits for the podcast earlier, as I have been behind on getting new credits recorded on recent podcasts.
Music today included the tracks:
“Los Angeles” by Muzaproduction.
“Sunshine” by lemonmusicstudio.
And “For You” by nomaBeats (Hyeon Yeong Jeon).
These tracks are royalty-free and available at Pixabay; links are in the description.
Starting the Recording
With all of this out of the way, let me cue up to record today’s livestream. I’ll read from the script, then we can get started. And as I keep recording, feel free to jump into the chat with questions, and I’ll respond to them along the way.
Okay, starting recording now.
Intro
This is Episode 62 of Sunday Morning Manga for Sunday, March 17, 2024. It is not safe for work.
Let’s get started. Welcome to Sunday Morning Manga. I am Derek S. McGrath, my pronouns are he/him/his.
Accessibility and Links
You can find a transcript and links from today’s episode at dereksmcgrath.wordpress.com.
Contributions are appreciated at ko-fi.com/dereksmcgrath. Purchases from my Amazon wishlist are also appreciated.
And you can email me at derek.s.mcgrath@gmail.com.
Livestream and Podcast Info
I livestream on Sundays at 11 AM Eastern on Twitch and YouTube, @dereksmcgrath. A podcast version is then available on a later Sunday wherever you get your podcasts. (I apologize for not finishing podcast versions yet. I hope to share bonus content as a substitute soon.) Early access to the podcast and other works in progress are available at patreon.com/dereksmcgrath.
Next Weekend: Akane-banashi Chapter 103
The next episode will be a live reaction to Akane-banashi Chapter 103. You can listen to that episode live on March 24 at 11 AM Eastern.
Today’s Live Reaction: RuriDragon Chapter 9
Until then, today we’re doing a live reaction to the return of the gone-way-too-long RuriDragon! The series has been on hiatus for almost a year and a half–but it is back, and today we are looking at Chapter 9! RuriDragon is written and illustrated by Masaoki Shindo, translated into English by Caleb Cook, with lettering by Sara Linsley in earlier chapters and now Kyla Aiko in post-hiatus chapters. RuriDragon is licensed by Viz and can be read at viz.com.
RuriDragon has been on hiatus since July 24, 2022. That was also the date I started Sunday Morning Manga, so, hey, anniversary date.
The last time I talked about RuriDragon was in Episode 2 of Sunday Morning Manga on July 31, 2022–which was just to say that the series was now on hiatus. Bad timing on my part.
I also wrote previously about Caleb Cook’s translation of RuriDragon and how its chill atmosphere reinforced the relaxed tone of the series–link to my essay is in the description.
The Plot
What is RuriDragon about? The Viz summary is actually useful here. Quoting the description: “Ruri faces the usual issues: pushy classmates, annoying teachers and…waking up with dragon horns?!”
Chilled Storytelling
That tagline from Viz is direct and simple–and just what this manga needs. That’s not to say that RuriDragon doesn’t have stakes. But they are introspective, they aren’t typically “person versus person” so much as “person versus self.”
I bring this up in my essay linked in the description–but what is so entertaining about RuriDragon is just how chill everyone is. Ruri is a dragon? Okay, cool, we can roll with this.
We Deserve to Be Accepted
It’s not as if you can’t have a good story in which magical properties are allegories about marginalized identity in which difference is discriminated against for awful reasons: we have Nimona for that–and, to a far lesser extent and in very flawed fashion mutant characters in My Hero Academia.
Still, for the sake of having stories beyond only those about angst and instead about the joy of being who you are, you need stories like RuriDragon that are chill, that are life-affirming, that say that you are loved. I know we need that when we have a destructive educational system in the United States, taken over by fascist Nazi-like Republican shitbags that are getting students killed by bigotry, by discrimination, and by literal violence–but there I go being political again–and for damn good reasons, because fuck those bigots.
But I did say we need life-affirming stories about love and acceptance, and there I go getting angsty. My point is, we need stories like RuriDragon that can let readers of all ages and identities feel a sense that they are accepted for who they are, not because of it, not in spite of it, but because they deserve to be accepted.
(I wrote a lot of this about deserving acceptance before the new post-hiatus chapter, with Chapter 7 kicking off a new story beat of Ruri _not_ getting accepted by everyone. So, this is still a story about how not everyone will accept you, but that there are people who will.)
Character Designs
What about artwork? For now, I don’t want to talk too much about paneling or action or meme-able reactions, and I just want to focus on the design of Ruri herself as a character.
I don’t mean this to sound condescending or sexist or misogynistic–although I’m worried it is–but I don’t ignore that some appeal to RuriDragon owes to centering on a girl like Ruri who gets to embody a lot of classical tropes around a girl lead. She’s snarky and monstrous, but she gets to do so in ways that come across as adorable.
I’m not overlooking the thought process Shindo had in Ruri’s design, in terms of how to design her hair, her face, her mouth, her sharp eyes and sharp teeth. But also, it isn’t the most outstanding design either: here’s a teenage girl, here are dragon horns, boom, done. That’s not ignoring how her design tries to be quote-unquote “normal” but may not offer much in variety of body types, whether within its own story or the larger demographic of manga geared to young readers, and I think that is something that I should talk about at greater length another time, as it is bothersome that a default “normal” is considered to be a girl of average height who is not fat or skinny.
Defining Normality
All of that being said, the point I’m trying to make is that, out of all of her qualities, about the only thing atypical about Ruri is her horns–which is the point. And I think this detail is better communicated here than it can be in other series. Forgive this diatribe as I engage in one of the worst forms of criticism, that being to compare one work to another work in order to tear down the other work and elevate the first one. But RuriDragon succeeds where I think other stories have failed at trying to communicate a level of normality–and then either makes things boring or fails to define what is normal.
On one end of this spectrum is Witch Watch, which I think leans too much into making characters look quote-unquote “normal” instead of leaning more into creative ways to have these characters more obviously retain features that mark them as different, as witches, ogres, werewolves, tengu, and vampires. At least with Witch Watch I can acknowledge that is probably the point: if you assume that people need a physical bodily marker to be considered “different,” you’re trying to divide people instead of acknowledging their shared humanity. The thing about Witch Watch, though, is that I think it both sacrifices more engaging and surprising designs and thinks that “passing” as human is preferable to showing shared humanity rather than letting the characters’ actions and beliefs show that shared human quality. RuriDragon therefore benefits by making it obvious that Ruri has a physical difference–and then reiterating over and over again that she is still accepted as human.
(Give or take Ruri’s own mother in Chapter 8 complaining that she can’t drive her dragon daughter anywhere and making sure to refer to her as a dragon–so, I have to be open that I may be getting this wrong. Like, I’m the same person who thought My Hero Academia was going to be a story about how far the characters in this setting arrived at making accessible cities for people of all body types and sizes–before the anti-mutant storylines for Spinner and characters in the spinoff manga Vigilantes undermined my assumption. In other words, I have to be open to the potential that I may have to retract a lot of what I’m saying here. But to get back on track…)
So, that’s one end of the spectrum, the Witch Watch approach, where you make everyone look the same and hence refuse to show anything outside of “normal.”
Then maybe in the middle of that spectrum is RuriDragon, where there are markers defining difference across characters while not undermining their shared humanity.
On the other end of the spectrum is making everything so off-the-wall that it’s harder to define what is “normal” and hence how someone is marginalized as different.
There are a variety of stories where that can work and where it fails.
Gintama works largely by having such varied alien designs and the capacity to succeed or fail at passing as human. Gintama also benefits where the definition of what it means to be human is also contrasted not only by extraterrestrials but also by what it means to be a mythological being. In this regard, our protagonist Gintoki exists as someone who is so blood-stained and battle-weary that he risks becoming as inhuman as the aliens and myths he battles–but also shows how “human” as a term is held by people using it to marginalize others. It works in Gintama because it shows the capacity of being human exists across various groups, and it works because there are clearly defined communities in that story.
Similar to Gintama, this works as well in Dandadan–but largely because of the “rule of cool,” where you can toss in just about anything, and we already accept that it is going to be bizarre. I’m not sure Dandadan has done it yet, but I’m guessing at some point the series is going to do a story arc where it is about the most quotidian everyday boring detail–but after all the stuff the story has given with aliens, war trauma, mythology, vampires, and ghosts, eventually the story will take something as simple as a game of checkers and turn the mundane into the awesome. Think about how Regular Show would take something mundane like a tricycle and suddenly the story is about intergalactic courtrooms policing individuals for being too cool.
So, RuriDragon works for defining its level of normality, Gintama and Dandadan work by having a level of normality but still violating it repeatedly–the works that work do so because it sets a standard for what is normal and keeps it there.
What would break that rule?
Fire Force.
And we’ll get to Fire Force in about 40 or so episodes from now because, God, did Fire Force fail at its own goals.
RuriDragon Fills a Need
What else can I talk about?
I’m not going to say that RuriDragon is breaking new ground.
But there is a reason this series got so popular despite lasting only six chapters before going on hiatus: the manga is a fun good time.
This is one reason why I get so irate with some of the worst people in podcasting and on YouTube who would rather complain about currently ongoing series they don’t like and think should be canceled already. There are few series that I want to see canceled. The ones I would want canceled are ones that I think do damage by how they represent topics and refuse to be anti-discrimination.
Instead, I see the most caustic critics whine about stories I thought were at least fun, even if flawed, such as Magu-chan: God of Destruction, Ginka and Gluna, Candy Flurry, and Nine Dragons’ Ball Parade, all manga that I think ended way too soon. Each of those series I think added something that Jump offerings needed, whether something chill and everyday like Magu-chan, something magical and adventurous like Ginka and Gluna, something colorful and eye-catching and bizarre in fighting techniques like Candy Flurry, and something that delved deep into various motivations to get into sports as with Nine Dragons’ Ball Parade. Of all of those series, RuriDragon gets closest to carrying on the spirit of Magu-chan, where it’s about fantastic beings living humdrum lives, and I want to see that series persist so it can carry on that spirit.
Pre-Hiatus Recap
So let’s carry on that spirit with a live reaction to the newest chapter of RuriDragon!
Before I get to the new chapter, though, let’s do a quick recap:
Chapter 1: Ruri learns that her dad is a dragon and accidentally sneezes fire that burns a bully’s head, so she has to miss school.
Chapter 2: Ruri controls her flames and discovers her classmates really miss her.
Chapter 3: Ruri returns to school, apologies to her bully, and is accepted by her classmates.
Chapter 4: Ruri learns to bond with new classmates and comes to realize that they aren’t interested in her because she is a dragon–but because they want her to feel welcome. Also, coffee.
Chapter 5: Ruri and her mom bond over video games.
Chapter 6: Just as things seem to be getting back to a “new normal” for Ruri, she begins to generate electricity.
Then there was the hiatus. And Chapter 7 picks up where Chapter 6 left off…
Post-Hiatus Chapters
…And I can’t say I’m a huge fan of this choice.
If there is any criticism I have about the return of RuriDragon, it’s the anticlimax. We had this extended hiatus that caused an unplanned, unearned anticipation that the subsequent chapter didn’t satisfy. All of this works when reading the arc all at once, but it doesn’t work for serialized storytelling.
For this reason, I’m happy RuriDragon took off as well as it did, because series just as good as it did not get that opportunity to build their audiences because of a foolish insistence on quickening the pace or souring an audience on these kinds of cliffhanger stunts. For these reasons, I’m glad the revelation that Ruri is developing electricity powers all leads to a game of volleyball with her mom, to practice controlling her strength. It’s again that combination of the extraordinary and the quotidian that lets RuriDragon stand out as a story that has a rather believable portrayal of how some people would react to such a surprise, and shows how well adjusted Ruri’s mother is to handle such extraordinary circumstances.
Today’s Live Reaction: Chapter 9
Now let’s see whether her mom’s plan pays off. Let’s begin today’s live reaction to Chapter 9 of RuriDragon! The series is written and illustrated by Masaoki Shindo, translated into English by Caleb Cook, with lettering by Sara Linsley in pre-hiatus chapters and now Kyla Aiko in post-hiatus chapters. RuriDragon is licensed by Viz and available to read at viz.com.
[TRANSCRIPT TO BE INCLUDED HERE]
Wrapping Up
I’ll wrap up there. Thank you for listening to another episode of Sunday Morning Manga.
What aspects of RuriDragon made you enjoy the series, and come back after its extended hiatus? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section, or email me, derek.s.mcgrath@gmail.com.
Thanks to Ko-fi and Patreon Contributors
If you like what you heard, let me know!
Contributions at ko-fi.com/dereksmcgrath and patreon.com/dereksmcgrath are appreciated.
Please include a note to let me know what you liked in the episode and what you would like to hear more of. And your contributions give you the opportunity to recommend works for me to cover each week. You can join other Ko-fi and Patreon contributors such as Emily Lauer, Ellak Roach, and Alexis Duran–thank you all for your support!
Other People’s Awesome Stuff
And if you like what you heard–or didn’t like what you heard–check out other people’s awesome stuff! A blogroll of recommended people to check out is at my site, dereksmcgrath.wordpress.com.
Today I’m promoting the podcast The Final Word with Frangela. Please listen to Episode 336, titled “Sorry Losers and Crappier Winners.” I hope I paraphrase well what Frances and Angela discuss in that episode, because they hit upon a good point: if this orange jackass had been held without bail and kept in prison, more people would take seriously the threat he is and recognize his criminality. This fucker says he will exonerate January 6th insurrectionists: fuck that shit–arrest him and hold him without bail right fucking now for the current indictments and for the same crimes he is repeating right fucking now before he further destroys this country. In any case, please listen to Episode 336 of The Final Word with Frangela wherever you get your podcasts.
One More Thing
And one more thing before we wrap up–and it’s the thing I’ve been saying pretty much every weekend for the last few episodes: you got to vote for Democrats for President, for Congress, for your state legislature, for your governor, for your local races and school boards.
This orange jackass says he will defund Ukraine and let Putin take it over: when he tells you what he’ll do, believe it.
This orange jackass said he would get rid of Roe v Wade, he let the Supreme Court get rid of Roe: when he tells you what he’ll do, believe it.
This orange jackass says he will cut Social Security and cut Medicaid: when he tells you what he’ll do, believe it.
This orange jackass says he will defund schools and let viruses infect your children: when he tells you what he’ll do, believe it.
This orange jackass said those Nazi-adjacent fuckers in Charlottesville were fine people, and this orange jackass runs ads on pro-Nazi videos–I am going to repeat, there are pro-Nazi videos on the Internet, and this fucking orange jackass is running ads on those videos–WHAT THE ACTUAL FLYING FUCK?! Again, when he shows you who he is, believe it.
Vote by mail, vote early, or vote on Election Day–all are safe and valid ways for legally permitted registered voters to vote, and while getting your vote in early is better so that you don’t run out of time on Election Day, all ways of voting on time and in person or by mail are valid. Just make sure you vote for Democrats, and stop listening to Republican lies. If you can legally vote where you live, check your voter registration at vote.org. And while you’re at it, look up any local race in your area, see whether a Democrat is running for that seat, and get to work getting the best Democrat you can find into office. Please visit postcardstovoters.org for more information about how to campaign.
Next Time
That’s all for this weekend. Next time, a live reaction to Akane-banashi Chapter 103.
Schedule updates will be posted at youtube.com/dereksmcgrath.
Until next time, stay safe out there, people: make sure to mask up, get vaccinated, install adblockers, prevent artificial intelligence from stealing your work, register to vote, campaign against fascism and against war and against ethnic cleansing and against genocide and against terrorism, and learn and practice anti-bigotry. I’ve been Derek S. McGrath. You have a good afternoon. Bye.
Links from Today’s Episode
Support My Work
My previous writing about RuriDragon
Series Discussed
Other People’s Awesome Stuff
The Final Word Podcast with Frangela
Other Links
Postcards to Voters: https://postcardstovoters.org
Music
“Los Angeles” by Muzaproduction
Derek S. McGrath 