Honestly, the fact that I'm even here reviewing RuriDragon at all is something of a minor miracle. While the manga debuted in Shonen Jump to pretty much immediate success, it quickly ran into trouble when its author, Masaoki Shindō, started suffering from health problems very early into the manga's serialization, and it ended up on a hiatus for over a year. When it did return to the magazine early last year, it was only for a few chapters, as it ended up switching over to Shonen Jump+ so that Shindo could work on the series under a more flexible schedule. New chapters have come out more irregularly since then. Between the long hiatus and switching publications, even a fairly established manga might struggle to maintain its popularity and avoid cancellation, yet not only has RuriDragon held steady, but it's even done well enough to get a fast-tracked physical release here in the States despite barely having two volumes out in Japan right now. So, what exactly is it about this manga that's allowed it to beat the odds?

If I had to sum up the appeal of this manga in a couple of words, they would be “delightfully mundane.” On the surface, this series has a pretty fantastical premise as it involves an ordinary high school girl named Ruri one day waking up to discover that she's grown a pair of horns and that she's actually half-dragon on her dad's side. However, where you would expect this to transition into a story about her coming into some kind of grand destiny involving her dragon heritage or a zany comedy about how all her new dragon powers are messing with her high school life, the story we end up getting is a lot more subdued. For the most part, Ruri learns she's half-dragon, and…that's kind of it. Sure, it's a little weird for her to learn that her mom never got around to telling her about her dragon dad, and the first time she discovers she can breathe fire ends up being pretty awkward, but for the most part, her life doesn't go through any huge dramatic changes.

While that might not sound like a winning formula for a story, the fact that it's so relaxed about its premise is actually what works best about RuriDragon. Whereas a lot of anime and manga tend to thrive on big, exaggerated reactions as a source of comedy, RuriDragon derives a lot of its best humor from how understated many of the reactions are. Ruri's new dragon horns are usually met with either brief fascination or casual indifference, allowing the manga to land with a solid streak of good dry humor. Whether it's Ruri wondering if she should allow the boys in her class to touch her horns or her teacher's only reaction to seeing them is to ask if she's doing okay otherwise, it never failed to get a few good laughs out of me.

Caleb Cook's excellent translation further enhances those laughs, as he does a great job of making much of the dialogue feel natural and further leans into the laid-back nature of the series. That sense of finding charm in the mundane is also reflected in the manga's art, as we get detailed panels of Ruri doing things like laying around playing her Nintendo Switch on her bed or enjoying a meal with her mom, which reinforce that horns aside, she's an otherwise average teenager. Those little moments also make the times we do see Ruri's dragon powers in action all the more impactful, as the series is excellent at building up to showcasing Ruri's dragon powers by having her perform some mundane action before turning the next page to see her breathing fire or generating electricity, with the results feeling appropriately out of place from everything else, and further highlighting the strength of Shindo's art.

The strengths of its laid-back nature also come in handy for how it presents its story and how it manages to use Ruri's current situation to tackle themes of social acceptance. While Ruri's new dragon form and powers may not totally transform her life, they still affect it, and she spends a lot of time worrying about how other people will perceive her. This, of course, leads to some obvious messaging about not judging others based on appearances or first impressions.

What keeps this from feeling heavy-handed in its execution is how much of this is conveyed through casual interactions and how it handles Ruri herself. Compared to a lot of other similarly styled high-school manga protagonists, Ruri comes off as a surprisingly realistic depiction of a teenager. She's not always great at being social, tends to snark her way through most conversations with other people, and comes off as a bit self-centered, as she can hardly even be bothered to remember the names of most of her classmates. Because of that, we see that Ruri isn't immune to being judgmental herself, like assuming one of her classmates is a slacker because she dyes her hair only to find out she's actually pretty studious, or assuming the rest of her classmates will treat her like a freak only for them to be way more fascinated than terrified. By having her new dragon traits thrust her into the spotlight, she finds herself talking more with her classmates, and in the process, she starts to learn that many of her worries aren't fundamentally different from anyone else's. That all ends up making her feel pretty relatable in spite of how seemingly unique her problems seem, and as we see her start to gradually make more of an effort to get to know her classmates, that relatability helps drive home the importance of tearing down our own walls and making more of an effort to connect with the people around us.

In spite, or perhaps because of how laid back it is about Ruri's seemingly bizarre situation, RuriDragon really feels like something special, and it's not hard to see why it's managed to be such a hit. Between its snappy dry humor and ability to convey its themes about acceptance through casual conversation, there's a lot to like here, and it's pretty easy to get sucked into its mundane sense of charm. However, that relaxed attitude and sense of humor may not be for everyone. If you're willing to roll with it, you'll find something delightful, making it a pretty easy read. Although it's not too hard to imagine a timeline where this series failed to make a comeback, I'm so glad we're in the one where it's thriving, because it's won me over pretty much ever since it debuted, and it's easily one of the biggest standouts of the current Shonen Jump lineup.