"This future... you must overcome."
Ragna Crimson (ラグナクリムゾン, Raguna Kurimuzon) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Daiki Kobayashi. It has been serialized in Square Enix's Monthly Gangan Joker magazine since March 2017, with its chapters collected into eleven tankōbon volumes as of August 2022.
The story follow Ragna, who is a dragon hunter along with his partner, the strongest dragon hunter Leo. He didn't have much talent at hunting dragons but he had decided to entrust his whole life for her. However he was shown the feel of true despair by his future self on what would happen if he stays weak as he is now. With that, it seems that the reaper of the dragons had now appeared earlier than the original history, but will it be enough to change the future?
An anime television series adaptation by SILVER LINK. premiered on Oct 1, 2023, licensed by Sentai Filmworks and is streaming on HIDIVE.
An English dub was released on December 23, 2023.
Ragna Crimsom contains examples of:
- After the End: The series later reveals that it takes place thousands of years after the destruction of our modern world.
- Always Chaotic Evil: Subverted and deconstructed. Dragons aren't inherently evil, and indeed among each other they have bonds, love, rivalries and other human qualities in their considerations. Some Dragons can even take pity on and spare humans on a case-by-case basis. But because the species as a whole has decreed that humanity is nothing more than inferior, fleshy food to them, no Bloodlines besides Claws even considers anything positive of them, and Claws is Equal-Opportunity Evil in training anyone with potential to be their absolute best. Being able to treat humans like cattle resulted in virtually almost every single dragon touting their superiority as some sort of inscrutable Blue-and-Orange Morality when they're really just incredibly petty and do what they please because their power allows it; it's entirely their predatorial dominance that makes them the monsters they are rather than what they are by birth. The fact that some people can be converted to Dragons by mana in their bodies only muddies the matter further, and anyone with draconic traits tends to face Half-Breed Discrimination for it to boot.
- Anti-Hero: Crimson is definitely an Unscrupulous Hero, as he will slaughter innocents without compunction to make his plans work, brainwash allies and civilians into obeying his orders and poison Ragna to ensure he doesn't betray him. Still, his main objective is to exterminate all the dragons, which are a much greater threat to humanity than he is.
- Bad Future: The premise of the story is Ragna's journey to prevent a horrible dystopian future in which it is strongly implied that humanity has been exterminated by dragons from happening after receiving the powers and memories of his future self.
- Beyond the Impossible: Ragna's Twin Dragon Hunting Flash technique is two consecutive attacks of such power and speed that even Kamui, a literal Lightning Bruiser who has always stolen and adapted his opponents' strengths and made them his own, admits he is not capable of imitating this, let alone understand how Ragna managed to bring this movement into realization.
- Break His Heart to Save Him: When Leonica demands to go with Ragna, he first tells her no because she is weak and will just die, then actually uses force to take her down and leave to prove his point. Leo ends up as a crying mess after that.
- Brown Note: The King of the Clawed Brethren, Gilzea, has the ability to cause all normal humans to vomit and die right then and there just by her standing nearby, while those with more power still collapsed on their knees trying to cling to their sanity. If one survives after such an encounter, they will still have horrible PTSD.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Artemisia and Woltekamui were friends since they were young, in which the former was a few-year-old clone, and the latter is a literal child, and it's obvious that they love each other a lot. But due to various reasons, most of all they being Tsundere, the two never get past the Unresolved Sexual Tension stage.
- Child Prodigy: Leonica is a genius who has been hunting dragons ever since she was a tiny little girl. Even talented fighters like Saix and Yugo are constantly in awe of her sheer power.
- Clones Are People, Too: The clones of the Sun Cult were treated as disposable. However, one of them, a high-ranking leader of the group, and who later became Artemisia, wanted to give some meaning to their lives and treated them as sisters instead. Unfortunately, it ended up causing a mass termination of the entire clone series and pushing Artemisia into accepting God's offer.
- Eating the Enemy: Starlia is introduced munching on a dragon drumstick after a battle, and sees no issue with it since the dragons eat people too.
- Face–Monster Turn: When a human becomes a dragon, the transformation alters their perspective, and no matter how much they hated dragons before, they will join their side afterwards.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: The Dragon God seems to appear as whatever its target wants to see the most so it could manipulate them. It appeared as one of Artemisia's clone little sister in the past but in the present, it looks like a blank humanoid being the size of a child.
- Horrifying the Horror: Ragna traumatizes Artemisia with his power; starting with resisting her ability to stop time after already shredding her to pieces several times. Even after Ragna collapses from a Heroic RRoD, she's so terrified that she won't allow herself to stop time again.
- One Cast Member per Cover: Nearly every volume features a different character on the cover. The only characters who appear on multiple covers are the two protagonists, Ragna and Crimson.
- Pyrrhic Victory: The mission to rescue Starlia is successful but at a massive physical and emotional cost to everyone involved. With the exception of Issac, Hazella, Nazareth and Shin, who lost a leg and an arm, all members of the Silver Armament Army Corps who participated in the battle against the Winged Bloodline died. Even Crimson says it was a terrible victory.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Played with it. Although Ragna has obtained the memories of his future self, he cannot remember events that happened in the future without first having a trigger that reminds him of it. For example, he only remembered Crimson, who was an important ally of his in the future timeline, after meeting him in person in the current timeline and not before.
- Sole Survivor: Ragna was the only survivor of several dragon attacks many times and this was repeated up to eleven in his future self timeline. Exterminating the dragons and making sure he isn't the only survivor again is one of his main goals in the story.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Early parts of the story have Ragna and Crimson working to take on the Winged Bloodline of the Dragons, which keeps escalating further and further to full-out war that finally ends in their extermination, albeit at a great cost to the Silver Armament Army Corps. You'd think the story would then move onto the next Monster of the Week, only for the rest of the Bloodlines to immediately begin plotting together how to eliminate Ragna in co-operative efforts despite usually trying to steer clear of each other, even outright admitting they have to accelerate their plans because of the unexpected fall of the Winged.
- Similarly, because Ragna has grown strong enough to defeat a second-generation Dragon King and a powerful high-rank Dragon who was outright stronger than her to the point of being recognized by Gilzea, once the fight is taken to the Bloodline of Roars, it takes Ragna being too much of a Leeroy Jenkins and attempting to take on all of the Bloodline simultaneously to actually force him to back off. Given the opportunity for individual fights as they try to trap him on their own terms, it's (initially) a Curb-Stomp Battle in his favor; only Bagram is immediately held as a distinct threat on his own within the Roars, and they need all the help they can get from the other Bloodlines to hold the line.
- Touched by Vorlons: Mana is a alien power originating from the Dragon God. The Dragon God's presence has infected the Earth with it to some degree. Humans with sufficient amounts of it develop dragon like traits. In fact, the only meaningful difference between humans with lots of mana and high-class dragons is that they are missing the Blood Covenant, allowing them to retain their Species Loyalty to humanity.
