Oozora Reiji is perhaps the most layed back guy in Japan--He never really finishes anything. One day, his child hood friend Yukino drags him over to a place where there is a game called "Dragon Drive". Having already played the game for a while herself, she believed that a game like this could really bring out the sleeping dragon within Reiji. When it came time for new dragon selection for Reiji, a machine determined who best to suit the players talents. Everyone was suprised at the dragon that was chosen for Reiji, including himself--it was the smallest weakling that anyone had ever seen! However, this dragon held a secret bigger than any other... After a while, Reiji figured out the basics of the game; wait.. it *IS* a game isn't it? Or is it? Why don't you watch it and find out for yourself. ;)

In all, the story is another representation of good vs. evil. None of these episodes in my opinion were repetitive or boring, and there were always new suprises.

The characters in Dragon Drive were well shaped--Especially the main villian. I would have to say that above all, my favorite character was Himuro... he was such a bad ass.

Oozora Reiji - a lazy guy; he never finishes anything. He's never really taken anything seriously, until he first sees the game Dragon Drive. It becomes his passion to be able to become the strongest in the game, and to be a winner. He trys at Dragon Drive because he believes its the first thing in his life that he could really be good at.

Yukino Maiko - Reiji's childhood friend, she is a very outgoing girl who tends to let people rely on her. She also has a way of forcing Reiji to do whatever she wants, including taking him to see Dragon Drive for the first time. Her dragon is the only one who can't fly, and they make several references to this throughout the series. However, she has a strong will, and is very responsible.

Hagiwara - Whew.. where to start. This guy seriously has some stability problems--which can probably be attributed to his crush on Yukino.. wait.. not just crush.. MAJOR crush. ("My sweet Honey!"). Naturally, since Yukino is concerned for Reiji all the time, this causes some.. some? a lot! of tension between him and Reiji. Hagiwara starts out as a friend of Tachibana, but also being a member of Dragon Drive, he looses an interesting battle to Reiji. Hagiwara eventually becomes a powerful ally, along with his dragon Camper.

Tachibana - an interesting character, he is known for being able to do everything perfectly, and being the best at it. He's a champion of Dragon Drive, and seems to be a nice guy overall. He and his dragon proove to be great allies down the road.

Himuro Hikaru - A very mysterious fellow, we never really find out much about him. His only drive and ambition is to find a fight that is worth fighting--to find an opponant who could possibly defeat him. Being the super champion of Dragon Drive, and having well over 1000 consecutive wins, he is not someone to be messed with. He is respected by all the players, and is seen as somewhat of a legend. He is known to be able to defeat opponants five seconds within matches.

In my opinion, the music was very good. Especially the opening song; I could listen to that thing over and over again.. and I did, throughout the whole series. Whenever they got ready for a fight, they had the kick ass rock thing going on.. which really got my attention.

It was like the animation slowly got better over the duration of this series. In the beginning few episodes, the animation wasn't too great... but it got better. When it got time to see all the dragon transformations and battles, they started using CG, and it was well done.

I really liked this anime a lot. It was sweet, simple, and had a lot of really cute moments. A must see for those who like the simple cute stuff with really cool (and not bloody) action.

I think the story was kinda weak. It was kinda sad because the concept of this animation was interesting but the author was unable to build up to its full potential. At many parts it bored me with its repetitive and draggy storyline. There was too little build up to the ending and the characters were just simply boring. The fights were almost similar over and over again.

I regret deeply that I did not get a chance to catch either the beginning/early middle or end of this series. But what I did see, I somehow really got into. It might not exactly be children's anime, but it's closer to that than say, One Piece which is the paragon of Shounen (recenly passing the 100 million volumes of manga sold mark). The animation was pretty good, the action was decent, it had a plot which is always nice, and somehow the opening set a good pace. That might have been the time when Shimokawa Mikuni who sang the opening (and maybe the ending too) started to actually come into being able to put out a good song (I hadn't really liked any of her stuff until then). If you don't mind an anime that's a bit "young"er then it's definitely worth checking out. Or alternately, the reason I watched it was as a break from darker or just more serious works. This series really reminded me of Digimon mostly, which was a young teen/childhood staple of mine personally. I don't know if you would want to watch that after this though, I'd reccomend "graduating" from that to this and then something well... higher class like maybe Scrapped Princess. I think that came out the same year and it was a lot better. I rated this 9, but that's "9 for what it is" rather than the mark of a high class anime.