Dragon Goes House-Hunting
Dragon Goes House-Hunting is a Japanese fantasy manga series written by Kawo Tanuki and illustrated by Choco Aya. It was serialized in Mag Garden's shōnen manga magazine Monthly Comic Garden from December 2016 to December 2022 and was collected in ten volumes. The manga is licensed in North America by Seven Seas Entertainment. An anime television series adaptation by Signal.MD aired from April to June 2021.
Characters
;Letty
;Dearia
;Pip
;Nell
;Hero
;Thief
;White Mage
;Archer
;Huey
;Albert
;Letty's father
;Lord Samuel
;Varney
Media
Manga
The series is written by Kawo Tanuki and illustrated by Choco Aya. It was serialized in Mag Garden's shōnen manga magazine Monthly Comic Garden from December 5, 2016, to December 5, 2022, and was collected in ten volumes. The manga is licensed in North America by Seven Seas Entertainment.
A spin-off manga was serialized in the same magazine from January 5, 2023, to May 2, 2023.
Anime
An anime adaptation was announced in the fifth volume of the manga on October 10, 2019, later revealed as a television series on May 9, 2020. It was animated by Signal.MD and directed by Haruki Kasugamori, with Shiori Asuka and Su Shiyi designing the characters, and Kyōhei Matsuno composing the music. The series aired from April 4 to June 20, 2021, on Tokyo MX, ytv, and BS Fuji. Masayoshi Ōishi performed the series' opening theme song "Role-playing", while Non Stop Rabbit performed the series' ending theme song "Shizuka na Kaze". Funimation licensed the series. Following Sony's acquisition of Crunchyroll, the series was moved to Crunchyroll.
Reception
Previews
Anime News Network had three editors review the first episode of the anime: Richard Eisenbeis was critical of the "meta-commentary" referencing RPG video games that's either a fourth wall breaking gag or implies technology is being used in its fantasy setting but was intrigued by how the house-hunting content will sustain a whole season; Caitlin Moore was initially positive during the opening minutes but criticized Letty for being an insufferable character, the repetitive humor and the "extremely limited" animation for making it a "pretty boring" viewing experience. She concluded that: "At the very least, it's gentle and harmless, unlikely to upset or offend even the most sensitive viewers." The third reviewer, Rebecca Silverman, praised it for being a good series prologue that contains humorous scenarios and designs that transfer from its source material into animation very well, concluding that: "This series stands to be a lot of fun, the fantasy and real estate mashup you didn't know you needed. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more."
Series
Fellow ANN editor Mercedez Clewis reviewed the complete anime series and gave it an overall B grade. While finding criticism in the inconsistent comedy, generic soundtrack and peripheral human side characters, she gave it praise for having a "well-acted and solidly directed" English dub with Michael Kovach and Steven Kelly as standouts, the chemistry between Letty and Diaria, and being a suitable gateway anime for younger audiences, concluding that: "In the end, Dragon Goes House-Hunting is easily one of the most underrated anime from the Spring season." Stig Høgset, writing for THEM Anime Reviews, wrote that: "Dragon Goes House-Hunting turned out to be a fun little journey in the world of reasonably tough love and diverse housing. It understands comedy well enough not to repeat the same joke three times, and, like I said, it's got some wonderfully snappy dialogue to its name. It has a colorful, wonderful world for Letty to discover as he goes from house to house on his lovely journey of discovery and homemaking, and if a second season is ever greenlit, I will be there."