In the anime and manga world, especially for Mon shows or shonen, you can often expect dragons to eventually come into play in some form or another.
- Bleach: Hyorinmaru is a draconic Zanpakuto, souls that are generated from their users. While they provide the majority of abilities for their masters, the zanpakuto are beings unto themselves; they often share similar personality traits as their masters, and more than a few seem to represent their respective masters' inner, repressed feelings. And Hyorinmaru is an example of this; 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.
- Burn The Witch (2018): In this one-shot turned full series spin-off of Bleach, which is set in the United Kingdom, "Dragons" are supernatural entities that range from the classic to the cute to the downright nightmarish, and which possess a broad array of bizarre abilities. Special mention goes to Selvie, a Disguiser-type dragon with tentacle-like arms, membranous wings, and a screw-shaped head. The Hollows from Bleach are also seen as a type of Dragon by the Western Branch of Soul Society.
- Cardfight!! Vanguard: Many of the more powerful cards are dragons, and many characters have used at least one at some point. Most of the Kagero and Narukami clans are outright dragon-themed, and Tachikaze make heavy use of Dinosaurs Are Dragons.
- A Certain Magical Index:
- If anyone makes the mistake of trying to depower Touma Kamijou by cutting off Imagine Breaker, his Anti-Magic/Power Nullifier right hand, a massive white dragon will emerge. It's implied that this dragon may be sealed by Imagine Breaker, and is released when the right hand is cut off. What is definitely known is whatever this thing is, it's one of the most powerful beings in the setting, to the point it's stronger than a guy who just minutes before became stronger than God.
- A Certain Scientific Railgun: When this happens, due to his hand being blown off trying to stop Mikoto's out-of-control Level 6 Shift, the same dragon reappears... along with seven others, each wildly different than the other. Interestingly, in all subsequent occasions when the hand is severed, something only described as "invisible" emerges. It's unclear if this is the same entity as the dragon, and there are hints that they are separate entities.
- In the Jailbreaker Arc of Railgun, a criminal esper named Kimi apparently has the ability to summon a vaguely angelic-looking dragon using her right hand, and thanks to the AIM Jammers of the prison couldn't do so until she managed to get out of range. This dragon also looks just like one of the eight that emerged from Touma's severed arm. Mikoto recognizes it and demands to know how she has it. Apparently, it was attracted to the unlimited energy of the black holes that Kimi generates. The AIM Jammers stopped it because with her power suppressed, it had nothing to feed on and left. When she made the mistake of staying merged with it for too long, eventually it got to the point where it wasn't bothered by the jammers.
- References are also made to "St. George's Dragon
" by the magic side. The being actually called DRAGON later in the story is, however, Aiwass, mentor of Aleister Crowley and the most powerful being in the series seen so far. That includes the dragon(s) sealed in Touma's right arm. - In New Testament Volume 22R, this gets taken to its ultimate conclusion when Touma, due to damage sustained from his battle with the demon Coronzon, ends up having his Imagine Breaker breaking off from him and becoming a copy of himself. This results in the two of them gaining the ability to turn into dragons. They resemble a winged lizard with crocodilian jaws, giant bat-like wings and a thick tail, but the colors are different: the real dragon-Touma is sky-blue and lemon-yellow, while the copy is shocking-pink and emerald.
- Claymore: In the anime, one male Awakened Being looks like a western-type dragon, but, apart from that, does not differ from other Awakened Beings. Later in the manga it is stated that the Organization created the warrioresses and the Awakened Beings because they were at war with a species of dragons, and needed a secret weapon.
- 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.
- Cross Ange is all about a group of normal girls forced to fight dragons in Cool-But-Unreliable Mecha in a world that HATES them. The dragons as they seem are alien enough, using rifts to cross dimensional barriers and armed with a ranged-biological arsenal that rivals the latest in advanced technology. Then the second half of the anime comes along and it turns out that the miniature dragons are female were-dragons and are biologically compatible with the mega-giant alpha males. Their ancestors genetically augmented themselves after World War 7 and the Big Bad decided to steal their supreme leader for use as a mana reactor, AURA. The kicker is that magic in Ange's world (which hates her because they can use magic and she can't) is powered by none other than the efforts of Ange and company, as killing dragons powers the reactor.
- Delicious in Dungeon has various types of dragons of different sizes and strengths, which live below the earth in the titular dungeon. The Disc-One Final Boss is a large, powerful red dragon with no wings.
- Demon King Daimao has Peterhausen, a ridiculously large western dragon that breathes drills and missiles.
- Digimon has several species who are considered dragons and are distinguishable by the suffix dramon (although not always, most predominantly in Azulongmon of the Four Great Dragons group) in their name. Except for Taichi and Hiro (and maybe Gatchmon?), dragon-like Child/Rookie Digimon tend to be partnered up with an anime's main character. As Digimon are said to be born of computer data about things from the human world, it makes sense that so many kinds of dragons (or "dramons" rather) would be present in the series.
- Their appearance is also inconsistent with almost anything: Davis's Digimon partner in Digimon Adventure 02, Veemon, is a humanoid blue dragon-type Digimon with two legs, two arms and a tail. Guilmon, Takato's own partner in Digimon Tamers, looks like a draconic theropod dinosaur with two arms, three claws on each one, two legs with clawed feet allowing for plantigrade or digitigrade stances, and a tail as well. Pretty crazy!
- One Digimon family, stemming from a squat, four-legged reptilian Digimon named Betamon, is made up chiefly of dragons. Down one line, Betamon can Digivolve into the sea serpent-like like Seadramon, which can further become the many-finned, horned MegaSeadramon, which in turn becomes an armor-plated, Cyborg sea serpent named MetalSeadramon. Down the other line, Betamon can become Airdramon, an Amphiptere-esque serpent with two bat-like wings and no other limbs. Airdramon can further become Megadramon, another cyborg serpent with robotic claws, notched wings, and a metal visor. Megadramon can further become Machinedramon, a fully robotic and hunched-over bipedal dragon. As it happens, both Metalseadramon and Machinedramon were part of the Big Bad Ensemble in one of Adventure's story arcs.
- The Four Great Dragons group consists of Magnadramon◊ (who is best associated with Tailmon/Gatomon, a cat, as one of its possible Ultimates/Megas, and still looks fairly feline itself), Megidramon◊ (an evil Ultimate/Mega of the earlier mentioned Guilmon), Goldramon◊, and Azulongmon◊, the last of whom looks the most like a traditional dragon of the Eastern variety.
- In Digimon Fusion, Dorbickmon's army is composed entirely of dragon Digimon, except that he expands the definition of dragon to include anything even remotely reptilian. In addition to assorted dramons, his army includes Brachimon and DarkTyrannomon, which are dinosaur Digimon, as well as FlareLizarmon and Salamandermon, which are more or less exactly what their names suggest. A pair of Devidramon try to force Shoutmon to fight in Dorbickmon's army. Dorbickmon even DigiXroses with a Huanglongmon, which is the leader of the Digimon equivalent of The Four Gods in the rest of the franchise, to show off how badass he's supposed to be. Some fans beg to differ however.
- A model sheet◊ for the Appmon version of Hackmon shows that he's a mechanical, western-style dragon under that hood and cape. Hidden in his tail are a number of tools that he can use to hack the nearby cyberspace. His evolutions are also draconic. Raidramon is a large dark dragon with a far stronger version of Hackmon's hacking abilities and meaner-looking tools. Revivemon is a massive dragon with a Belly Mouth it can attack with and the ability to restore data, giving it the power to heal other Appmon. His final form, Hadesmon, is a Kaiju-sized dragon-centaur with Reality Warper powers strong enough to make an entire AR-Field fold in on itself Inception-style.
- Weatherdramon, also from Appmon, is a human-sized Eastern-style dragon that rides around on a cloud and can control the weather.
- Doki Doki! PreCure: Melan is a fairy who looks like a tiny turtle lady, but can transform into a powerful Western-style dragon. She also defeats the five Pretty Cures twice to test them.
- Dragonaut: The Resonance has dragons coming from space in many different shapes and sizes. Specifically, they're spawned from a giant space-dragon that takes the form of a planet. These dragons can also take on a human form after resonating with a human being.
- Dragon Ball:
- The most prominent dragon is Shenlong (Shenron), 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. His wishes have certain limitations; for instance, he can't grant the same wish twice, and can't completely regenerate someone who's been dead a very long time. He also speaks in an older dialect, which implies intelligence. A dragon named Porunga is seen on another planet who is more humanoid and is more powerful than Shenron, having fewer restrictions on his wishes and being able to grant three in one summoning (Shenron is eventually upgraded to have the same capacity).
- Dragon Ball GT: Shenron is corrupted by overuse of the wish-granting and each Dragon Ball turns into a Wicked/Shadow Dragon, most of which were vaguely reptilian humanoids that could cause planets to self-destruct just by existing.
- Yi Xing Long/Syn Shenron is a white, tall draconic humanoid with lots of Spikes of Villainy. Rather than possessing Elemental Powers like the others, he represents negative energy overall. However, he also has the ability to absorb the other six Dragon Balls to become Super Yi Xing Long/Omega Shenron, who possesses all the powers of the Seven Shadow Dragons alongside a general power increase.
- Liang Xing Long/Haze Shenron resembles a large dragonic-toad who poisons people to weaken them since he himself is very weak.
- San Xing Long/Eis Shenron and Si Xing Long/Nuova Shenron are a pair of twins who look like slim draconic humanoids with a slim bodybuild and wings. They control ice and heat and have matching colors to their powers.
- Wu Xing Long/Rage Shenron looks like a small humanoid pteranodon, but he can absorb electricity to cover himself by a pink slim armor that looks like a gigantic and fat version of himself. And he's lethally weak to water.
- Liu Xing Long/Oceanus Shenron is an ugly, winged draconic humanoid being who can disguise herself as a beautiful woman with blue skin. She controls wind and water.
- Qi Xing Long/Naturon Shenron initially appears as a gigantic purple mole with no dragon features whatsoever. After absorbing Pan, he becomes much larger, and becomes a weird mix of a dragon and a blue mole, now having fins on his head and two tails. Besides absorbing living beings to become powerful, he creates earthquakes. His true form is that of a little bit oversized mole.
- Dragon Ball Super introduces the Dragon God Zalama, who created the Super Dragon Balls, which are the size of planets and scattered throughout two mirror universes. If gathered, Super Shenron will come forth and grant any one wish with no restrictions. The other Dragon Balls were made based upon his creations. The wish-granting dragon himself is so huge, galaxies look like Bishie Sparkles in comparison.
- It's pretty telling how these dragons all fit into a specific hierarchy when the only regular dragon in the entire franchise is the anime-only Hire Dragon, known as Icarus in the English dub.
- Doraemon
- Doraemon: Nobita and the Birth of Japan has Nobita getting his hands on Doraemon's Instant-Life Creation Set, which can create animals by injecting their DNA in egg capsules. Nobita creates a trio of mythological animals, one of them being a dragon (which Nobita names "Draco") made from combining bat, lizard and crocodile DNA in one capsule.
- Doraemon: Nobita's Three Visionary Swordsmen sees the gang entering the High Fantasy-themed world of Yumemiru and encountering a dragon who, despite being in a Medieval Europe-esque setting, looks more like an Oriental Dragon (the anime however gives it leathery dragon wings associated with European dragons). Also, instead of fire, it breathes petrifying smoke that turns its victims to statues.
- 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.
- Drifting Dragons throws out ALL the rules with its dragons, which have more in common with deep-sea mollusks than reptiles, and come in a staggering variety of shapes and sizes. They're hunted as a resource in a similar way, and for the same reasons, as whales once were in Real Life. They're also delicious, as it happens.
- 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.
- Fairy Tail: Dragons are a mix of Western and Eastern versions, whereby their physical form mostly resembles the Western versions but like the Eastern dragons are highly intelligent and possess insane amounts of magic that overpowers almost all humans, putting them on the near-divine level.
- Dragons were once the dominant species of Earthland who mostly regarded humans as a food source but were exterminated to the brink of extinction by a special breed of humans, dubbed Dragon Slayers, who were taught Dragon Slaying magic by dragons who believed humans and dragons can co-exist harmoniously. There was a war, set 400 years before the manga, that pitted the dragons who subjugated humans against those who were Pro-humans and their Dragons Slayers. Except for Acnologia, those few dragons who survived lead reclusive lives away from and not meddling in the lives of humans. Only recently has the other surviving dragons become more active, by fostering and training orphans to be a new generation of Dragon Slayers in anticipation of a future war with Acnologia.
- All the dragons tend to vary in personality from what is shown in or described. Grandeeney (who is one of the Feathered Dragons that resembles a wyvern, which is technically considered a lesser beast than a "true" dragon) was very kind and gentle. Igneel (who most resembles the classical Western dragon) was a strict and harsh but loving parent. Metallicana (who looks like a dragon wearing iron plate armor) was a cruel jerk than none the less still took Gajeel and raised him. Atlas Flame (who looks like a dragon perpetually Wreathed in Flames due to having fire instead of skin or scales) is rather ambivalent to humans and even consersational with them but still fully willing to destroy them if they get in his way. Zirconis (who looks like a Western dragon with growths around his mouth and chin that resemble a moustache) despises humans, eats them, and thinks teaching humans dragon magic should have been forbidden, but is at least willing to converse civilly with humans and will give valuable info. Irene sees humans as less than bugs and has no problems torturing or killing them due to their treatment of her despite everything she did to help them, but at least can show some affection for those who prove themselves like how Zeref did for her by letting her regain her human appearance, even if she couldn't biologically be human anymore. Acnologia attacks all humans brutally on sight and comes off as a beast despite his intelligence because he believes humans are such vermin they aren't worth the effort of speaking to despite the fact he still is human, or at least can return to his human form when he wants.
- It's also possible for dragons to be created artificially. When Dragon Slayers begin to mature and further their Magic, they eventually unlock Dragon Force, which begins to change their body's physiology more and more to that of an actual dragon, including scales and, in some cases, wing-like growths. As they mature more and more, a Dragon Slayer's body and mind eventually starts to become more and more permanently like that of a dragon, usually accelerated by the process of killing other dragons and bathing in their blood, until they finally become actual dragons in form unless they have certain antibodies to prevent it. This was how Acnologia, Irene and Elfseria became what they are today, and was why Igneel, Metallicana, Grandine, Weisslogia and Skiadrum sealed themselves inside their children to prevent them from ending up like them by developing those antibodies inside their bodies.
- Following through on that, artificial dragons can return to their original humanoid forms and switch between forms at will thanks to Transformation Magic, though they are still biologically dragons. Irene found, despite Zeref's magic restoring her human form, she still couldn't taste the flavor of food, was incapable of sleeping, and always felt cold like she was cold-blooded instead of warm-blooded. Acnologia went flat-out insane and went from "kill all dragons" to "kill everything", and Elfseria knew all these risks from the start and managed to adjust to the changes.
- Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest: The Five Dragon Gods are five actually six incredibly powerful dragons that survived Acnologia's rampage and went into hiding in hopes of growing strong enough to challenge him, with humans in awe of their extreme power worshipping them as deities. They are Mercphobia (notable for being the first to have a proper Eastern dragon design with a serpentine body and the most benevolent personality of them), Ignia (who heavily resembles Igneel since he's his biological son), Aldoron (who looks more like a giant tree in the form of a dragon), Selene (who has noticeable furred tails and looks more like a draconic Kitsune), Viernes (who is made of gold and resembles a draconic sphinx), and Dogramag (who has scales and overall build like he's made of rock and earth).
- 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.
- Fruits Basket: Hatori Sohma is the Dragon of the Eastern Zodiac. Unfortunately for him, the curse considers seahorses to be the closest to real-life dragons. However, it's said that in the past the cursed did change into "real" dragons, and Hatori changing into seahorse (which in Japanese is called "dragon's bastard child") is one of the signs that the curse is weakening.
- HeartCatch Pretty Cure!: The movie villain Baron Salamander can transform from a human into a dragon.
- High School D×D: There are a lot of dragons and they 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.
- Inuyasha: Dragons are another kind of youkai, but a very powerful one. Although the strength of the dragon youkai can vary, they are among the most powerful youkai. They are visually the eastern type, but are almost always evil. Although almost all of them have a serpentine body, some of them still have wings.
- One of them, Ryukotsusei, was the old opponent of Inuyasha's father. However, this sealed him until Naraku has freed him again. He looks like a dragon of the eastern type, but can spew powerful ball lightning. He also has a mask on his head through which he can speak.
- Another dragon is Koryu, who helped the opponent in an arc against Inuyasha and his friends. However, both Koryu and his master were not particularly dangerous enemies.
- The anime shows some more dragon youkai, which are similar to the eastern type, but like the western type, not very intelligent, and very vicious. But one of them is also benign, and the companion of Sesshomaru.
- Three more dragon youkai can be seen in a human form. However, only really powerful youkai can look like humans so that in their true forms they probably resemble the other dragon youkai.
- Kurohime: Dragons are usually golems made from magic bullets. In some cases, they're whales who eat time and freaking fly. However, even the golem type ones are considered as powerful creatures that only strong and skilled mage/witch can summon.
- 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.
- Magic Knight Rayearth has the Water Rune God Selece, who takes form of a blue winged dragon, based on how the West saw dragons. The show later gets an Alternate Continuity OVA, Rayearth OVA whereas Selece returns... except this time, he's a blue wingless, long Eastern dragon.
- Mazinger Z: Several Mechanical Beasts resemble dragons, and the aspect and weapons of each one of them is different: Gelbros J3 looks like a bipedal dragon with three heads that can shoot heat waves, soundwaves or acid streams: Drago Omega 1 resembles an Eastern, flying dragon shoots missiles...
- Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: Due to the Fantasy Kitchen Sink nature of Cool-kyou Shinsha's verse, all of the dragons have vastly different powers and appearances. The only real consistencies seem to be their ability to fly and use magic (generally to turn into human form). It's also important to note that Tohru's fight with the gods and Quetzalcoatl's backstory demonstrates that dragons are the level of power below godhood in the series.
- My Monster Secret: Rin's dragon looks like a pretty standard western dragon… except it can grow and shrink at will, do shopping for you and you can live inside it. As in, the inside is literally an apartment, with rent and all. Oh, and it's also a Time Machine.
- The Mysterious Cities of Gold has a mechanical dragon, built with Heva technology. The second season's intro also features a large red Eastern dragon.
- Naruto:
- The Demonic Statue of the Outer Path can release dragon spirits which extract chakra from people. Since chakra is synonymous with life force in the Ninja World, this means instant death to the people hit with them.
- Kabuto claims that he has evolved from a snake to a dragon after mastering Sage Mode.
- Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Dragons are apparently little more than very very dangerous beasts. So far, three have appeared. One is inside the library, guarding something. Another gets its face stomped on by Kaede for a bounty, and Yue takes 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 shows up, an ancient Guardian Dragon who can match Jack Rakan in combat. 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).
- One Piece:
- The first filler arc 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.
- In Chapter 655, the crew has runs into a giant Western dragon which can apparently talk. Except it turns out that it wasn't the dragon talking. It was a set of human legs with no upper body or head that can talk and had been attached to the dragon..., thanks to Trafalgar Law.
- Later, they encounter a small talking Eastern dragon who is actually the son of the samurai they met earlier named Momonosuke Kozuki. He ate an artificial Zoan-type Devil Fruit that turned him into a dragon.
- One of the Four Emperors, Kaido, King of Beasts, is revealed to have the power to turn into a massive Eastern dragon. It's eventually revealed Kaido's Devil Fruit is the original upon which Momonosuke's artificial one was based, and when Momonosuke makes the choice to age himself to adulthood to aid in the battle against Kaido, his dragon form fittingly grows to a similar size.
- Rakuin No Monshou: Dragons were the native species of the planet before humans settled there and originally intelligent. After their defeat by humans, the dragons became bestial and are now domesticated for use as war mounts and beasts of burden. Individual breeds vary significantly in appearance, shape, and even number of legs but are uniformly ill-tempered and never fully tame. Their fossilized remains are a key component in the setting's magitek airships.
- 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.
- Record of Lodoss War has at least three distinct "flavors" of dragons. Wyverns are comparatively small (as in, elephant-sized), unintelligent, non-fiery, two-legged dragons that are domesticated and flown by knights. "Common" dragons are bestial, apparently wingless (there's only one shown 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. The intro has a point that scales Humans to Wyverns then to a Great Dragonnote
- Sgt. Frog 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.
- Shadow Star: Dragons are about as different as they can get: baby planets shapeshifted into vaguely starfish-like flying immortal monsters with the power to duplicate any object they come in contact with who need to fuse with a human (or other intelligent lifeform) host then join with another dragon/human pairing to grow into an actual planet. And the series is still chock-full of traditional dragon lore symbolism.
- Slayers: The Mazoku and the Shinzoku are vying for control of the world. The Shinzoku 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).
- 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.
- Spirited Away: Haku AKA the spirit of the Kohaku River is an Eastern Dragon that's able to take on a humanoid form.
- Sword Art Online has a dragon that eats crystals. We find out in that same episode that crystals are also dragon poop as well.
- Tales of Wedding Rings: Saphir's dragon form resembles a horned, fishlike sea serpent with two pairs of ray-finned wings, a single pair of arms, no legs, and a mane of tentacles.
- Toriko has the Dragon King Derous, one of the Eight Kings of the Gourmet World. It is a giant dragon with giant fangs, a noodle-like tongue in its mouth, and five pairs of eyes.
- The 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 it 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).
- Yaiba: Ryuujin the Dragon God is supposed to be the classical, huge eastern dragon. He actually has a human avatar as a badass samurai warrior. His true form is revealed when Yaiba uses the full power of the Orb of Ryuujin.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! and its attendant Collectible Card Game feature a number of dragons, most famously Kaiba's iconic Blue Eyes White Dragon. Kazuki Takahashi has stated that "anything can become a dragon", and any motif can work so long as it shares the most basic, recognizable aspects of dragons, which has led to the most literal interpretations of this trope in fictional history.
- In the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, two of the three Egyptian Gods are dragons and three of the most five powerful monsters are dragons (Dragon Master Knight, Five-Headed Dragon and Malefic Truth Dragon).
- In Yu-Gi-Oh!: Capsule Monsters, the fifth Trial is about slaying the five evil dragons Tyrant Dragon, Luster Dragon #2, Serpent Night Dragon, Aqua Dragon and Meteor Dragon, who later fuse to become Five-Headed Dragon (despite that Aqua Dragon is technically a Sea Serpent-type monster, so the fusion is technically illegal). Yugi and his friends get also dragons: Yugi has temporarily the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Jonouchi has Red-Eyes Black Dragon, Anzu has Seiyaryu, Honda has Thunder Dragon (which is technically a Thunder-type monster) and Sugoroku has Curse of the Dragon.
- Many trump cards of the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX characters are either dragons or have "dragon/dragoon" in their name or actually resemble dragons. Of note is Yubel, said to be draconic despite being an asymmetric Fiend-type humanoid. Their evolved forms demonstrate this trait a bit more, with two dragon like heads on long necks.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds has the Signer Dragons, the main and signature cards of the heroes. They are Stardust Dragon, Red Dragon Archfield, Black Rose Dragon, Ancient Fairy Dragon, Black Feathered Dragon and Life Stream Dragon.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!: Bonds Beyond Time has Paradox who travels through time and steals the dragon cards of the strongest players and corrupting their monsters into Malefic monsters. His deck contains Malefic Stardust Dragon, Malefic Cyber End Dragon, Malefic Rainbow Dragon, Malefic Blue-Eyes White Dragon and Malefic Red-Eyes Black Dragon. Also, he has Malefic Paradox Dragon and Malefic Truth Dragon as his own cards. Though, Malefic Cyber End Dragon is technically a Machine-type monster.
- Yuma from Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL has Number 17: Leviathan Dragon, a monster that can power itself up twice, and ZW Tornado Bringer. Kite has Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon and his upgrade Neo Galaxy-Eyes. While not technically a dragon, Shark's Shark Drake is very draconian. Kaito's Robot Buddy Orbital 7 uses a deck with an XYZ called Googly-Eyes Drum Dragon, which is also incredibly powerful, but technically a Machine.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V largely focuses on dragons as well. We have Yuya's Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon, Beast-Eyes Pendulum Dragon, Rune-Eyes Pendulum Dragon and Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon, Yuto's Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon, Yugo's Clear Wing Synchro Dragon, Yuri's Starve Venom Fusion Dragon, and Jack's Red Wyvern and Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend. You can also count Constellar Ptolemy M7, who is very dragon-like despite being a Machine.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS has Firewall Dragon for Yusaku, and Revolver's varied Dragon deck. Revolver has three ace Dragons, though only one (Borreload) is an actual Dragon-Type, the others are Machine (Cracking Dragon) and Cyberse, like Firewall Dragon, (Topologic Bomber Dragon).
- YuYu Hakusho has Hiei and his Black Dragon spirit. 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.
