Drifting Dragons vol. 2

The crew of the Quin Zaza pulls into the port town of Quon to unload the spoils of their draking endeavors and get some much needed R&R as well.  What passes for recreation is very different amongst the ship’s crew. Takita accompanies Mika has he meets up with Ula, the blind and wizened chief of a clan that has a long history of harvesting dragons and crafting things from their remains.  Vannie and a couple of her friends try to relax at a bar, but can’t seem to stop talking about work or avoid being hit on by the other patrons. At least until the taciturn draker challenges one of their would-be suitors to a drinking match. Then there’s Jiro, who winds up accompanying several crew members to the local brothel.   He winds up getting a different kind of action after he rescues one of their younger not-a-working-girl-yet employees from a demanding client. All of these stories are interrupted when a dragon that was brought back by another draking ship turns out to not be quite as dead as they thought it was and promptly starts ravaging the town.

Two volumes in and “Drifting Dragons” is still a pleasantly engaging read.  I still think it should be better than that, given that it continues to draw heavy inspiration from two of my favorite manga series.  The reason it hasn’t is because mangaka Taku Kuwabara doesn’t display a lot of imagination when it comes to his storytelling. Not only is there not a lot of interesting worldbuilding going on in this volume, but a lot of the above-mentioned encounters play out exactly as you’d expect them to.  Or have the added bonus of annoying bits like Ula saying that he recognized that Takita was a woman because of her scent, right before he gropes her breast to be sure. These annoyances fade into the background when the action gets going in the volume’s second half as Kuwabara’s art fuels the clash against the dragon in an impressive manner.  It still can’t wipe away my feeling that this series just isn’t living up to its potential.