Our Dragons Are Different/Anime

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 * In The Slayers universe, the "demon race" and the "godly race" are vying for control of the world. The godly race usually take on the form of Western-style dragons, but can assume human form if they so wish. Filia, a character from the third season, is a Golden Dragon that apparently isn't much used to her form as a blonde human female -- her pointed tail frequently pops out from under her dress whenever she's emotionally excited (which usually tends to happen when she's in the presence of the Trickster demon, Xellos).
 * Though technically, Filia isn't a god herself. The Shinzoku do often resemble dragons, but actual flesh-and-blood dragons like Filia are just a mortal race that serves them. Which explains why they're so much weaker than their supposed opposite numbers, the Mazoku. The novels themselves state that dragons are far, far outclassed by Mazoku. It's actually a minor plot point in the seventh novel.
 * The Golden Dragons are special. Lina mentions in NEXT that Golden Dragons are some of the smallest dragons, but also one of the most magical and most intelligent. Dragons of other species they come across in the series seem to be little more than big lizards with wings and (usually) some sort of Breath Weapon, while even Lina would hesitate to go up against a Golden Dragon.
 * That said, even regular dragons are intelligent enough to communicate with one another. After Lina is referred to as the "Dragon Spooker" a couple of times and browbeats an explanation out of someone (viz. her reputation is such that even dragons will step aside when she passes) we're treated to a scene where a dragon comes along and starts wreaking havoc in the village...until it spots Lina and starts trying to leave as casually as possible.
 * Yu-Gi-Oh! and its attendant Collectible Card Game feature a number of dragons, most famously Kaiba's iconic Blue Eyes White Dragon.
 * Most of Yu-Gi-Oh!'s most powerful cards are in fact dragons (if not, they most likely have "Dragon" in their name somewhere). To wit: Stardust Dragon, Dark Armed Dragon, Judgment Dragon, etc. etc...
 * Two of the three Egyptian Gods are dragons (Slifer the Sky Dragon, Winged Dragon of Ra) and the three most powerful monsters are dragons (Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, Dragon Master Knight, Mythic Dragon).
 * As do Duel Masters and its CCG. Shobu's signature card is Bolshack Dragon. Worth noting is that there are four types of dragons, including zombie dragons, not to mention "wyverns" that look like dragons but don't count as them (uh...), "Dragonoid" lizardmen, and giant reptiles called Dune Geckos. This was a CCG that was fond of horrible, destructive, scaly things.
 * Record of Lodoss War has at least three distinct "flavors" of dragons. Wyverns are small (read: elephant-sized), unintelligent, non-fiery, two-legged dragons that are domesticated and flown by knights. "Common" dragons are bestial, apparently wingless (we only ever see one so it's hard to judge all of them), huge fire-breathers. The Great Dragons, of which only five exist, are monsters the size of mountains with incredibly vast powers of intelligence and magical skill and close ties to the gods, who guard legendary treasures.
 * Dragon Half features Mink, a half-dragon girl with horns, tiny bat wings on her back (which somehow let her fly) and the ability to breathe fire. Her mother is portrayed as a shapeshifting red Western dragon.
 * Dragons in Narutaru are about as different as they can get:  And the series is still chock-full of traditional dragon lore symbolism.
 * In The Five Star Stories the word dragon is best read as "mysterious alien god". Despite looking more or less like typical European dragons with a few more Eastern influences & some vaguely insectoid characteristics & pretty much living like animals most of the time, they are superintelligent & telepathic (even being able to hack computers with their minds) & breathe quasars instead of fire. It is said they are actually a form of Organic Technology Superweapon created by a lost civilization. Luckily for the humans, it seems they just want to be left alone.
 * Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha has Friedrich; a cat-sized silver dragon whelp (Wyvern-type body) that can grow to adult size when Caro unseals him, and Voltaire; a Kaiju-sized, humanoid, ancient black guardian dragon that can launch searing torrents of flame from its mouth and wing tips.
 * Igneel, Natsu's dragon foster-father in Fairy Tail, is notably a typical Western dragon, in order to fit the pseudo-European setting of the story.
 * on the other hand is more of the antagonistic variant.
 * Yu Yu Hakusho has Hiei and his Black Dragon spirit.
 * for those not in the know, it's called the Dragon of the Darkness Flame (in the English dub, at least) and is made of black fire. He usually keeps it sealed in his right arm.
 * Dragons are apparently little more than very very dangerous beasts in Mahou Sensei Negima. So far, three? have appeared. One was inside the library for some reason, guarding something. Another got its face stomped on by Kaede for a bounty, and Yue took down a Griffon Dragon with barely any supplies except her magical artifact once she bothered to actually study magic. Sooo... the whole 'danger' factor is highly reduced by the fact that they're not really characters.
 * Then one showed up, an ancient Guardian Dragon who can match Jack Rakan in combat. Scary.
 * One could argue said dragon wasn't so great after all, when it was one-hit-ko'd by one of the villain's summons, at least until you consider that said summon was using literal hax to write it out of existence. Negima seems to use dragons as a way of showcasing how the characters have grown or how strong they are, as it seems that anyone that isn't at least a fairly important or relevant character very much hesitates to face off against one (Eva actually gets really angry at Negi when he asks early on how much training he'd need to fight one).
 * Dragon Ball has Shenlong, the Earth's dragon and a definite Eastern dragon, with a long, slender body, tiny arms and legs, brown horns, and a green mane. He doesn't seem that great of a fighter, although he has the power to grant wishes if someone assembles the show's titular MacGuffins. He also speaks in an older dialect, which implies intelligence. A dragon named Polunga is seen on another planet who is more humanoid and is more powerful than Shenlong.
 * In Dragon Ball GT Shenlong is corrupted and each dragon ball turns into a Wicked Dragon, most of which were vaguely reptilian Humanoid Abominations that could cause planets to self-destruct just by existing.
 * Haku AKA is an Eastern Dragon that's able to take on a humanoid form.
 * Digimon has several species who are considered dragon and are distinguishable by having dra(Though not always, most predominantly in the "Four Great Dragons" family.) in their name. Tend to be partnered up with the main character.
 * Their appearance are also non-consistent with almost anything, Davis's digimon in Digimon Adventure 02, Veemon, is a humanoid (if rather short) blue dragon-type digimon, with two legs, two arms and a tail. Or Guilmon, partner of Takato's in Digimon Tamers, who's a red dragon-reptile-like digimon with two arms with three claws, and two legs, also having three claws. Pretty crazy.
 * The "Four Great Dragons" family consists of Megidramon, a legless red dragon with two arms and a long tail for the rest of it's body, Magnadramon, which looks much more like a Beast-Type, Goldramon, which is a gold humanoid (though having a cloud for it's lower body) dragon type and Azulongmon, which is more like a flying sea serpent. Even digimon is that inconsistent with it's dragons.
 * Bleach has Hyorinmaru, a zanpakuto, generated from the soul of its user, and while they provide the majority of abilities for their masters, the Zanpakuto are beings unto themselves, often sharing similar personality traits as their masters, and more than a few seem to represent their respective masters' inner, repressed feelings. Here's an example; being the zanpakuto of Toshiro Hitsugaya, Hyorinmaru is an ice dragon, apparently one of calm, gruff wisdom, while Hitsugaya himself is a mature, but grumpy dude that is actually more emotional than he'd like to let on. While in his human form, Hyorinmaru is calm, quiet and obedient, whereas Hitsugaya is irritable and more prone to temperamental outbursts than his ice dragon mentor.
 * In Kurohime, dragons are usually golems made from magic bullets. In some cases, they're whales who eat time and freaking fly.
 * In Rave Master, dragons originate from a dragon clan, which are Lizard Folk until a certain age, at which they either pass a test (and become human looking) or fail it (and turn into a feral dragon.) Appearance wise, they are western four legs two wing style.
 * Vision of Escaflowne's dragons seem bizarre to modern audiences, sporting only two limbs(webbed to the bodies like a squirrel, in lieu of actual wings), blade-tipped tails, somewhat pudgy bodies and snakelike heads, but these animalistic, fire-spitting beasts are probably closer to the dragons of traditional Western folklore than just about any other anime. Also, their hearts are used to power giant robots. That part's not so traditional.
 * The dragons shown in the Anime are known as Chiiryu (Literally Earth Dragons), further reading has that there are three tiers of dragons, Chiiryu Suiryuu and Tenryuu, for the land, sea and sky respectively and that each one is infinitely more powerful than the last. Also while the Chiiryu borrow from western dragons the Suiryuu are more traditionally eastern type dragons (they can be seen in the architecture of Asturia).
 * This is basically the largest plot point of Dragon Crisis.
 * Ryuujin the Dragon God in Yaiba is supposed to be the classical, huge eastern dragon. He actually has a human avatar as a Badass samurai warrior.
 * Several Mechanical Beasts from Mazinger Z resembled dragons, and the aspect and weapons of each one of them was different: Gelbros J3 looked like a bypedal dragon with three heads could shoot heat waves, soundwaves or acid streams: Drago Omega 1 resembled an Eastern, flying dragon shoot missiles...
 * Combattler V: Kiiru, the "Slave Beast" showed up in episode 9 was Garuda's dragon pet (Let me stress this: Garuda's pet was A FREAKING DRAGON). She resembled an eastern dragon, with antler horns, long whiskers, rectangular snout and a long, sinuous body. She could breath fire from her mouth, shooting beams from her eyes and regenerate herself. And it was a Mama Bear, too.
 * Keroro Gunsou has two instances of dragons, with the main alien cast transforming into dragons with missiles, dragons with energy blasts, even a ninja dragon with a BFS.
 * In A Certain Magical Index, if anyone makes the mistake of
 * The first filler arc of One Piece revolves around an elderly dragon, which looks more like a gigantic bird. And that's when it's not curled up into a big ball of feathers, which is the position it spends most of the arc in.
 * Demon King Daimao has Peterhausen, a ridiculously large western dragon that breathes drills and missiles.
 * Drago from Bakugan, who can actually curl up into a tiny ball when he is not fighting.
 * There are a lot of dragons in High School DxD and are considered to be the most powerful race in-universe. Issei, the protagonist, is considered as one even though he's still a human-devil hybrid (he was killed at the beginning of the story thus reincarnated to a devil) because he has a dragon sealed in his left arm named Ddraig, a Welsh dragon.
 * There are a lot of dragons in High School DxD and are considered to be the most powerful race in-universe. Issei, the protagonist, is considered as one even though he's still a human-devil hybrid (he was killed at the beginning of the story thus reincarnated to a devil) because he has a dragon sealed in his left arm named Ddraig, a Welsh dragon.