Shut Up Evil Dragon

I would first look for Tubi to stream the hilarious “Shut Up Evil Dragon” (one of anime’s funnier titles). As a free streaming service with ads, it surprisingly includes a good-sized anime library. Unfortunately, Wakanim, with its large European library of often hard to find titles, sometimes will have this show as well. But be warned, rarely are there English dubbed versions on Wakanim, so prepare yourself for subtitles unless you are fluent in Japanese.

Their dialogue is the strongest part of their characterization. Jiang Zhe and the dragon are so like a married couple (and also walking disaster) – their back-and-forth is both hilarious and poignant. Initially, Su Xue speaks in formal, dutiful tones but you can slowly sense dry humor and growing vulnerability beneath. It’s all revealed through their natural conversation as opposed to info dumping. The author does a great job of constructing distinct voices that clash wonderfully.

A couple of suggestions for anyone looking to dive into this story: The magic system, and how the dragon’s powers interact with his illness, is incredibly well done. What starts out as what appears to be a simple “find the healing spring” type of quest actually is a much deeper and very creative story. The dragon’s illness warps around his draconic mana, and in turn his mana warps around his illness in rather interesting ways. So what might seem to be a simple spell to heal another character in the story would likely put the dragon in great risk of life and limb. Because of his illness the dragon has to use his human intellect to find very creative ways to apply the magic that is so freely available in this world. The survival tactics that the dragon uses are very deeply integrated into the story and the world that it takes place in. It’s very very satisfying.

'Puff the Magic Dragon' is a love letter to impermanence. It doesn’t judge Jackie for growing up as much as it does Puff for hanging around as long as he did. Yet, it affirms that childhood, however fleeting, is beautiful in and of itself and should be acknowledges and played and and remembered by us children of grownups. This song always gets me in the gut, particularly at the line “Into his cave once more / Puff of smoke came out and there stood Puff, / No longer pink nor tidy nor bright.” In fact, the line gives me chills every time. Puff isn’t dead in this song. He’s gone into dormancy much like bears do every year. His time of play is over, but wonder is not. It simply awaits the next kid to come along or for that kid to grow up and remember. My take is that we should revisit our Puff’s from time to time – even if it’s just a memory we visit in our heads.

Imagine a powerful dragon but instead of breathing fire it breathes silence so powerful that it can even cause bleeding in your ears. It is a masterpiece of cosmic horror, and instead of normal forces, it uses absence. Its scales are so powerful that when you touch one you can get pulled into another dimension. If you look into its eyes you can see your own death, and it is not just one death that you see, it is many deaths in different timelines, some of them fractured.

Its wings are rigid and tremble at a frequency that splits stone. Its bellowing doesn't travel through the air - it vibrates right inside your skull and splits your eardrums. Many of the Void Dragon's victims report that their own shadows have split off and are attacking them long before the beast itself moves.

The Void Dragon is notable for its blood consisting of a swarm of micro-black holes which immediately evaporate when coming into contact with anything. Weapons that strike the beast are instantly returned to a long-lost era, decades or even centuries past, having long since rusted. Magical attempts to read the beast’s mind amount to little more than flipping through channel after blank channel of static, the Dragon’s lack of interest in the sort of treasure that normal dragons dream of for being far outweighed by its interest in collecting moments in time. By removing individual events from the current of history the Void Dragon creates spaces which even memory cannot fill.

The books you’d find with this tag? Search for “high angst,” “denial of feelings,” “idiots in love,” or “mutual pining” on TikTok and you’ll find tons of comments with this acronym. Yes, it’s a badge of honor for those particular tropes and how characters typically interact with each other within said books.

The final fight was awesome, but after that, the scenes with the tamers from the academy were way more interesting. They used to act all superior when they saw me and my doggy because we were “just a runt” and now they have to admit that said runt is a legend. This is so amazing. I love this so much. It’s just so good. The author dedicates one chapter to their stunned faces and condescending words afterwards, which is so great for this kind of petty revenge.

This question is somehow related to my anime club days in college. So, an “uncensored version” of this would probably just be the entire thing without all of the steam or lightly placed beam shots that were censored in the normal TV version of this. This has been released in an uncensored form on some of the uncensored Blu-rays for this series that have been released in Japan, and it is available on streaming in the uncensored form on a few different streaming services, such as HiDive. From what I understand, though, HiDive’s selection of anime changes somewhat from time to time, so this series may not be available on HiDive forever. Anyway, the uncensored version of this is somewhat different from the censored version. First of all, there is more fan service in the uncensored version. But also, some of the magic circles and some of the other visual effects are more detailed. As for the overall experience of watching this in uncensored form, the best way to put it would be to say that this series is a show that is ABOUT its premise. And so, watching it in uncensored form really feels like you are experiencing the show as it was MEANT to be experienced – that is, in a somewhat chaotic, unconventional, and slightly bizarre form. (Diablo’s inner monologues, for example, are awkward enough on their own, but they are also awkward in ways that are compounded by and made worse by by the increasingly visually complicated and chaotic nature of the scenes in which they appear.) It’s a very specific kind of “experience”, but if you’re asking this question then you probably have some sense already of what I’m talking about.

It's also worth noting the economic model of such a story. It's clearly designed to be as engaging and addictive as possible, in order to encourage microtransactions on a freemium app. As such, I would not be surprised if this story was available on platforms such as Webnovel or MoboReader, where it could be read by people who are able to pay for addictive, power-fantasy, day-by-day, installment-by-install content. Your legal read would likely be behind a coin or ticket system on such a platform - for example, you might be able to read the first few chapters for free, and then have to pay per chapter or sign up for a subscription to read more. (It's not the best model for readers, but it's the model that's currently dominant for this sort of content). I'd try downloading the big webnovel apps and searching for the story within them.

The expletive "fuck me" can be hilarious or heartbreaking. In BoJack Horseman it's saturated with self-loathing, in Brooklyn Nine-Nine it's a comedic set up and timing. Writer's note: the way a character react after they've said this will define the scene more than the word itself. Use it as often as you like, just don't use it as a writers crutch.