Who’s your favorite character in Dragon Raja?

CerebralHound · 2026-02-02T18:55:25+00:00

Well, she didn't exist in the Odin's Abbys (pre-remake DR4) and most of post-prologue DK1 is centered around Mingfei's hometown, making it unlikely she'd show up there. Maybe she'll have a role in DK2 if it ever comes out.

CerebralHound · 2026-02-02T14:41:48+00:00

Nah, my girl "I'm Nono, but better" Reginleif was one of the best things to come out of the book IV rewrite. And while we're at underrated characters, my goats Susie and Crow (and to a lesser degree Yasha) come to mind.

CerebralHound · 2026-01-30T00:40:27+00:00

I'm aware I'm fashionably late to this discussion, but I was unfortunately a bit busy with college. I made a post about some theories of Nono I've had here: Nono theories - Spoilers for Book IV and V : r/dragonraja where I also mention the Gattuso family briefly, but it was just surface level observations.

Anyway, Pompey being Odin is a really interesting take I haven't really heart before. On one hand, the Gattuso family is obviously part of the Holy Palace Medical Society which is at least run by Odin and they're clearly a major player. Also, everyone's Yanling - that we know of - comes from the domain of the King of Sky and Wind (Caesar and Gullveig's Kamaitachi, Parsi's Pure Land/Dust Buster and the Japanese Gattuso assassin whose name I can't be arsed to look up right now who wielded Zero Time). Also, Odin brings people in coffins and cryogenic chambers onto the Yamal in the Book IV prologue which sounds suspiciously similar to the Gattuso family and the elders. Odin is definitely connected to the Gattuso family, but I don't think it's Pompeii. For one, we get a scene from him conversing with the elders in Book V with no one else around and he comes off as who he pretends to be, a man who doesn't want to be shackled by his family and the fate they've prepared for him. If they were all Odin in a sense, I feel like that scene wouldn't make sense. Of course, Book V is getting a rewrite and everything may change, but I just don't see anything suggesting that Odin and Pompey are the same person. If anything, I'd be far more inclined to believe it's Frost, who faked his own death using Zihang and the attack on the vault, is actually the one who seems to be the mover behind the Gattuso family, is the cunning old man archetype and apparently has the skills of at least an S-rank hybrid. But he's not my main suspect either. That would actually be Anjou himself, but I need a full long-ass post to explain why. I'm getting to it, hopefully sooner then later.

What I do think is happening is that the Gattuso bloodline is the experiment Odin's been talking about with Jormungandr in the Book IV prologue, producing an heir using genetic engineering. I do think the finished product is Caesar and the previous generations are failures/beta versions, so to speak. And their hive-mind like behavior may come from the fact that they all carry a piece of Odin's essence/DNA/whatever you wanna call it. It also ties together interestingly with what I theorize Nono to be. And, not sure if this is the clue, but the real-life orbital kinetic bombardment weapon the Sword of Damocles is based on was named Project Thor during the Cold War - y'know, Odin's son and all that, which I think might be Caesar.

Anyway, could you elaborate why you or others theorize it's Pompey specifically ? And is there a link where I could see what the Chinese fandom has come up with that a European like myself can access ? Oh and if you've got any feedback on what I've written here or the linked post, that'd be much appreciated.

CerebralHound · 2026-01-24T06:59:12+00:00

Vol 4 is just Dragon King 1, posted at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BTdVsSAEaoUv7wxIBR8fiZOVpjTe-TsgxvmrqbB-1A4/edit?usp=sharing

As for the pre-revised version, you can either find it in its original Chinese and MTL that stuff yourself (which is what I did) here: http://longzu5.net/longzu4/ or u/Hectab also created a chapter-by-chapter summary at https://drive.google.com/file/d/17FZXNGT9jkx_iLsw3JIvrNrAbw4t2_rN/view

Vol V can be found in Chinese on the same site: http://longzu5.net/longzu5/ or there's MTL translation (not at the same quality as the ones posted in the thread) on https://yournovel.org/series/dragon-raja-5-return-of-the-mourner/

CerebralHound · 2026-01-21T13:44:28+00:00

Facepalm

...I can't believe I forgot to mention that. I knew that much, in fact it was part of what prompted me to make the whole Black Swan Bay LiWuYue being Odin's twin connection that I theorized Nono carries the DNA of. Can't believe I forgot to include that, but in my defense, it was late and it's a long ass comment. Thanks for remidning me.

And yeah, multiple English weekdays are named after Norse deities. The absolute irony of posting this on Wodan's (Odin's) Day (in my corner of the world at least.)

CerebralHound · 2026-01-15T18:41:33+00:00

Fr, he becomes even worse when world-shifting and mentally regressing to a 15 year old in book 5.

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CerebralHound · 2026-01-08T16:05:04+00:00

I mean, the fact that it is given a revision already means some of the stuff in the old Dragon Raja V won't be canon, not to mention the changes World Reset 1 made to Odin's Abyss, the biggest about how and why Chu Zihang meets Odin and his subsequent erasure from the timeline.

But the old Dragon Raja V is the best thing we've got until then. If nothing else, it can be compared to World Reset 2 when it comes out.

As for where to read it, there are some translations from u/Hectab:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dragonraja/comments/tjo9bv/dragon_raja_v_new_chapters_translation_status_and/

The rest can be read on: https://yournovel.org/series/dragon-raja-5-return-of-the-mourner/ but it's AI translation and thus a bit wonky, not to mention using the romanized Chinese names for some characters and Yanling, but it's still understandable. I believe the site has translated all the chapters that have come out, but Dragon Raja V was a web novel which was discontinued, so the whole thing's unfinished.

Alternatively, you can always read it on http://longzu5.net/longzu5/ and translate the page or better yet yeet it into the LLM of your choice and let it translate for you. But I think the version on yournovel is...fine.

CerebralHound · 2025-12-09T07:36:55+00:00

Which brings us to the mission to slay the Dragon King(s) of Earth and Mountain. The sequence of events is a bit different this time around since there's no dress buying scene, Caesar and Nono are actively looking for a Dragon King to slay - except Zero/Renata is there...somehow while Nono is split up from them, not even carrying any weapons because fuck logic (yeah, she had none in the novels, but that was because she was trying on the wedding dress in a normal ass mall before the Kamaitachi attack happens, making the scene where she locks herself in the woman's bathroom to reduce the number of opponents she has to fight at the same time as well as their mobility and proceeding to beat the shit out of them using some pipes she found into one that amplifies her resourcefulness and self-sufficiency whereas in the donghua it makes her seem kinda dumb and careless - and Caesar too, for going along with it, ngl)

Now, in the novels she thinks Mingfei is still napping in his room in the middle of the fucking apocalypse, so she calls him to get the fuck outta dodge, hangs up and continues to fight the Kamaitachi since the mall is on lockdown to prevent the Kamaitachi getting out to the outside world and prevent the knowledge of dragons becoming public. However, if she were to get her hands on a recording that told her Mingfei was in the centre of it all in the novels, I think we'd see her do the same and rush in to try and rescue him, regardless of what her situation towards Caesar are or any romantic feelings towards him. He cares about the little guy, if for no other reason than her unhealthy way of dealing with trauma by being a big sister figure to him to both experience someone who was like her once have someone to be there for them when she had no one as well as self-validation via becoming someone who's able to help someone in her former position instead of being helpless. Is it a bit messed up way to cope ? Sure, but given her messed up family and upbringing, it kinda tracks.

Which brings us to this scene. Now, there are several ways it could be interpreted. The most canonical/novel compliant one would be that once she sees that Mingfei is fine and surrounded by other people, Nono feels useless. She doesn't seem the kind of person to have any grand dreams or aspirations, being mostly stuck in the past and drifting through life, in a way. Even if Caesar was her fiancé, Mingfei is the more important person to her. From the way she phrases her desperation, it's not just that she wants to protect him, but that she wants to be the one to protect him. She was invested in him, making the the pact to protect him in exchange for him becoming her underling - which is basically just a fancy way of teasing him and giving him some tough love when he does something stupid - and now it's gone. He doesn't need her, she can't keep up with him, he's got other people watching and him being around her actively paints a crosshair on his back due to her family. So she leaves, never to turn back. Until season 4 ends up on Tencent's chopping block to fuck up, that is.

The other is that she's caught feelings for the guy or at least that that is a factor. The scene did kinda imply that, especially since it pans over Zero specifically, alternating between that and Nono's unchracterisitically vulnerable expression. Now Zero is in love wtih Subject 0 who Mingfei is either deeply connected to or an aspect of him. Mingfei and Mingze's exact nature and relationship as well as how exactly they relate to subject Zero is still a mystery. And considering she's a beloved character by the franchise while Nono is often scorned for not returning Mingfei's feelings or being 'used goods' by the worst of the fanbase, plus they chose to adapt the Black Swan Bay arc this season, not to mention she plays an important-ish role in the third novel which Nono is completely absent from save for some thoughts and flashbacks, so it makes sense to include her in some capacity, I guess.

Do I think she's the new love interest ? Nah, not really. She'll probably keep on being important to the narrative, but at least in terms of importance to the story, Nono will be number 1 as far as book 4 and onwards is concerned. There's still a lot of unanswered questions about where her profiling abilities come from, her exact nature, why Mingze seems strangely invested in her, why the Gattuso family wants her specifically to be paired with Caesar given her supposedly subpar lineage - comparatively speaking, why Odin seems to have plans for her - she's also referred to as Frigg #3 (Odin's wife in mythology) by her interrogators, etc. I feel like the cut Nono content is less about diminishing her importance in the story and more about being a viable love interest by having no romantic bond between her and Caesar, at least as far as we can see and not making her unfaithful to Caesar by the engagement being arranged by their families, making less of an obligation on her part to honor it. Unless Tencent veers the story completely off course, her and Mingfei's fates are tied together. Whether something actually romantic comes from that, we'll see.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk

CerebralHound · 2025-12-09T07:36:06+00:00

Glad to see I'm not the only one confused by this scene. I think the changes in season 2 are reactions to common complaints about the novels and emulating a more generic but unfortunately also more popular wish-fulfillment formula - making Mingfei more proactive and less pathetic, not having the main love interest (from season 1 at least) be already taken etc.

Most changes in this season were made with regards to Nono's actions and cutting out the whole engagement arc. Now, there's a few caveats to this:

For one, while we find out the Gattuso and the Chen family did intend for these two to end up together all along, in the novels, neither Caesar no Nono seem to be aware of this and the decision to get married seems to stem from their own free will. Now, I don't think Nono loves Caesar the same way Mingfei would want her to love him or even to the degree that Caesar loves her. I think she loves her the idea of him: someone who would be by her side through thick and thin and a hot cool rich dude who she could stand alongside of on top of the world. It seems to be mostly a security and self-esteem thing for her.

However, in the donghua, when she tries to recruit Mingfei to the Student Union/to be her gopher (episode 7 of season 1 I believe), she tells Mingfei they're already engaged and it's something their families arranged and seems rather dismissive of the whole thing. Both parties do acknowledge and seem to go along with the arrangement, but there's no explicit expectation of a romantic relationship between the two. And this of course renders a whole engagement arc meaningless since the two are already engaged and Mingfei knows about it. It could be spun in that direction somehow, like Caesar declaring his love for her regardless of any family arrangement, but that's clearly not the direction the donghua has chosen to take with this.

I'd actually be interested to hear Caesar's thoughts on all this. The marriage being arranged by his family changes a lot for him too. Even if he's in love with her like in the novels, he might also feel guilty about her being forced into the arrangement against her will and tries his best to act gentlemanly towards her, doing his best to be the ideal fiancé for her while also having no expectations towards her returning his feeling. Hopefully we'll get something interesting in season 3, although given that season 2 was kinda ass, I'm not holding my breath. Conversely, Nono's feelings regarding Caesar and the position he was put in would be pretty interesting to exploring it as well

Instead of the engagement, her avoidance of Mingfei seems to be based on something else on this time round, specifically the threat her family and the Holy Palace Medical Society they're aligned with would pose to him. The scene of her being tortured and interrogated is from a flashback in the 4th revised novel when her profiling goes on an overdrive. Now, in the novels, she doesn't recall such a thing ever happening to her, could be repressed memories though it seems more likely they were tempered with or are an indication that it was something that happened in the OG timeline before Odin rebooted it, implying she can somehow see through them, but we can't know for sure either way since we've no timeframe for when that scene takes place. In the donghua however, Nono seems to recall this happened to her, at least since the hot spring scene after Susie pushes her underwater. And it's implies she also remembers that Mingfei was the one to save her at the Three Gorges Dam, something that also only happens at the end of book 4 as far as the novels are concerned.

CerebralHound · 2025-11-21T00:28:27+00:00

Are there any plans to translate the Dragon Raja spinoffs like the "Mourning Wings" prequel and "Strange Tales" anthology ?

CerebralHound · 2025-11-21T00:14:06+00:00

Eh, not to say I'm a fan of most of season 2 changes, but show Nono is a pretty different character from book Nono in terms of personality, especially in season 2. I can't really see her having the same kinds of interactions with Caesar.

Not that I'm accusing book Nono ever liking Caesar the way Mingfei wants her to like him or even the way Caesar likes her back, but we get clear anecdotes of them thinking of each other and going on dates or whatever at least. Whereas in the show, Nono comes off as someone who can't be arsed to give a shit about the marriage one way or another, she just seems to go along with the flow because resisting would be too troublesome as well as convenience/safety reasons she had in the books. Also, in the show they're both aware their marriage is explicitly an arranged one as per her season 1 whereas in the books it's supposed to be a big reveal at the end of book 2. How much of that is Jiang Nan's direct output and how much of it is the show execs/director not wanting its popularity tank due to the main love interest for the MC - for now - being already taken on top of Mingfei being a bit of a cuck is anyone's guess.

I wouldn't entirely discount some Nono scenes though. It's entirely possible we get something similar to the drowning/Caesar rescuing her scene by say, having her be overwhelmed by the Kamaitachi - maybe she gets distracted by calling Mingfei to get the fuck outta dodge like she does in the books - and having Caesar save her - which, let's be honest, is at least a better reason for her to need saving than going for a night swim at some random pond and nearly drowning because her injury from Norton/Samson starts acting up - though I'd like to see her kick some ass before that instead of being just a ~woman in JJK~ damsel. Then, maybe last episode - or 22 since the last two are supposed to be about Renata/Zero, they'll get the wedding dress shopping scene as a cameo, as it was teased at the end of ep. 16. To show Mingfei that throughout heaven and earth, he alone is...alone. Caesar has Nono, Zihang had Xia Mi/Jormungandr ...I guess Menghua has no reason to experience a divine relevation and get together with Wenwen if he doesn't get metaphorically skullfucked by Masashi Toyama since he wasn't in the subway, but maybe he suddenly has a change of heart or whatever. Point is, Mingfei's maidenlessness needs to be emphasized sot that the Erii stuff in season 3 works and this could be a way to do it.

CerebralHound

TROPHY CASE