Oozora Reiji
Voiced by: Romi Park (Japanese), Brad Swaile (English)
Our hero for the first half of the story, an Ordinary High-School Student who just wants to be special. At first, it seems he's just as abysmal at Dragon Drive as he is at everything else, but then the tiny, weak dragon named Chibi turns out to be the legendary Senkokura.
- Amusing Injuries: In every eye catch, he is on the wrong end of a dragon's elemental breath. Ash Face, Harmless Freezing, you name it.
- Big Damn Heroes: In the final battle of the anime.
- Butt-Monkey: Big time. He outgrows it in the manga eventually.
- Idiot Hero: To the max.
- I Just Want to Be Special
- Infinity +1 Sword: Shinsaber in the anime.
- Lightning Bruiser: Chibi once he transforms into his true form, Senkokura.
- Made of Iron: He can and does take a lot of punishment, and seems none the worse for wear.
- Magikarp Power: Chibi is tiny and often refuses to even attempt fighting. And then he turns into an enormous Lightning Bruiser when his true power is unlocked.
- Ordinary High-School Student: He doesn't miss the ordinary after he drops it.
- Took a Level in Badass: Many levels, after his Training from Hell.
- Xanatos Gambit: His plan to defeat a local Villain with Good Publicity. The village is threatened by a dragon, and they leave gifts to appease it. It's actually the villain's pet, and he's using the gifts to pay off his gambling debts. Reiji and Himuro discover this, but no one believes them because they're outsiders who accidentally broke the dragon's shrine. The villagers want to sacrifice them to appease the dragon. The gambit: "We'll defeat the dragon for you. If we fail, then the dragon gets its sacrifice. If we succeed, your village is safe from the dragon without sacrifices".
Yukino Maiko
Voiced by: Yuko Sasamoto (Japanese), Brittney Irvin (English)
Reiji's best friend since they were young children. She introduces him to Dragon Drive. Her partner is Gorao, a dragon with a lion-type aesthetic.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Downplayed, and much more evident in the anime than in the manga.
- King of Beasts: Her dragon's aesthetic.
- Make Me Wanna Shout: Her dragon's standard form of attack is a roar that creates shockwaves, in keeping with his lion theme.
- Tsundere: Again, downplayed. She's nice to Reiji for the most part, just occasionally gives him grief about failing to follow through on promises and abandoning projects.
- Twin Tails
- Victorious Childhood Friend
Hagiwara Daisuke
Voiced by: Michael Shitanda (Japanese), Samuel Vincent (English)
A boy in Reiji's class with a huge crush on Maiko. He's incredibly jealous of Reiji's friendship with her. His partner is Kanpa, a blue dragon whose standard form of attack is his icy breath.
- An Ice Dragon: Kanpa.
- Green-Eyed Monster: He's very envious of Reiji's close friendship with Maiko.
- Knight in Sour Armor: Hagiwara is a good guy overall, but sometimes he grumps about helping Reiji.
- The Worf Effect: Subjected to this a few times.
Himuro Hikaru
A high-school dropout introduced as the undefeated champion of Dragon Drive. He hasn't been to the center in months because he got bored with the lack of challenge, but he comes in after Agent L sends him video of Reiji. He starts off using a white dragon named Kokao that specializes in light-based attacks. Later, he finds a serpentine blue dragon known as Kanopus, which he keeps for the remainder of the series.
At the end of the first arc, Himuro stays in Ri-kyuu instead of returning to Earth with the others. He's seen again after the Time Skip, hardened into a stoic warrior.
- Aloof Ally: After his Heel–Face Turn.
- Always Someone Better: He absolutely infuriates Sumishiba for this reason. Ichiro has always worked his ass off to be the best, but he can't surpass Hikaru, who isn't even trying.
- Anti-Hero: He's vicious even after he turns, and while he eventually reaches civility with the heroes, he's never friendly.
- Ax-Crazy: For most of the anime, and the first half of the manga.
- Badass Longcoat: He wears a long leather jacket in the second half.
- Big Damn Heroes: He shows up just as Reiji is about to get eaten, and takes out the menacing dragon with his own new partner. He gets another one in the anime, when Reiji is fighting and losing against one of the Shishinryu.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: His first dragon, Kokao, has laser blades that invoke the look.
- Blindfolded Vision: After the Time Skip. No actual blindfold, but he never opens his eyes.
- Blocking Stops All Damage: Surprisingly averted when he shields Kanopus from Dynamo Spark II. The conflict card does stop the attack, but Hikaru's right arm is badly injured and he suspects that it might be beyond repair if he has to use another card.
- Blood Knight: Good god, yes.Toki: Hikaru's just a crazy battle freak!
- Brilliant, but Lazy: He was at the top of his class before he got bored with school and dropped out. And he's the best Dragon Drive player anyone has ever seen, but Victory Is Boring so he hasn't showed up in months.
- Broken Ace: He's introduced as perfect, the matchless champion of Dragon Drive, but he loses it when Reiji manages to catch him off-guard and nearly defeats him. He has No Social Skills, no idea how to communicate without fighting, and actually breaks down into Manly Tears at one point in the manga when Reiji refuses his challenge.
- Covered with Scars: After the Time Skip, he has countless scars on his arms and a few on his face. Ri-kyuu has not been kind to him.
- Dark Is Not Evil: His second dragon, which he keeps after his Heel–Face Turn, is a "dark" type.
- Die or Fly: Hysteric Rose traps him in a little pocket dimension with hundreds of dragon ghosts, after it has been established that Hikaru is terrified of ghosts to the point of actually fainting earlier in the arc. He has to push through the phobia to break out.
- The Dreaded: To the villains after the Time Skip. RI-IN agents are terrified when they realize who they're dealing with.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Played with. He has very obvious scars on his face and hands after the Time Skip. Considering he's a fairly dark Anti-Hero, they're not as jarring as they could be on a less ambiguously heroic character.
- Heel–Face Turn: Really, he's never on anyone's side but his own, but he does stop being actively antagonistic.
- I Choose to Stay: He's never fit in his own world, so he stays in Ri-kyuu at the end of the first arc instead of returning to Earth with the others.
- Light 'em Up: Kokao, his first dragon.
- Light Is Not Good: His first dragon is white and uses light-based attacks.
- Lonely at the Top: Heavily implied in the manga, explored further in the anime. He has always been alone, and when he started playing Dragon Drive, people avoided him because he was so dominant at the game. He's so socially inept that he doesn't understand why Reiji has people around him regardless of wins and losses (the reason is that friendship exists).
- Loners Are Freaks:
- He even gets a speech about it in the anime. He literally does not understand the concept of friends, and wants to figure out what the difference is between Reiji and him by fighting.
- It's even worse when he's spent ten years alone in Ri-kyuu. Reiji tells the others that Hikaru has been there too long and will be useless to them.
- Next Tier Power-Up: His second dragon, Kanopus, is significantly more powerful than Kokao.
- No Social Skills: He does not understand the concept of friendship.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: He acts like this regarding Reiji.
- The Perils of Being the Best: No one even enters games when he shows up at the Dragon Drive Center, Victory Is Boring, and no one tries to interact with him outside of games either because he's so strong and intimidating.
- Perpetual Frowner
- The Un-Smile: Reiji thinks it is incredibly creepy when he tries to laugh.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Before his Heel–Face Turn. He's only following Toki because it gets him into Ri-kyuu, which will allow him to fight Reiji again.
- The Rival: Reiji's.
- Slasher Smile: The only expression we get out of him except for bored indifference.
- The Stoic: He starts off this way in the first arc, but it quickly becomes clear that he's an Ax-Crazy Blood Knight underneath the reserve. He's more consistent about the stoicism after the time skip.
- Tall, Dark, and Snarky
- Took a Level in Badass: He was already badass, but after the time skip he takes it much further.
- Victory Is Boring: The reason he hasn't shown up at the DD Center in months — no one can challenge him.
- When All You Have Is a Hammer…: His solution to pretty much every problem is "kill it".
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He's terrified of ghosts in the manga, to the level of actually fainting at one point. Later in the same arc, he gets trapped in a little pocket dimension with hundreds of dragon ghosts and is forced to get over it to break out.
- Your Eyes Can Deceive You: He says something along these lines to the Raikoo users when one of them asks how he can tell what's going on when his eyes are always shut.
Sumishiba Ichiro
Voiced by: Issei Miyazaki (Japanese), Bill Switzer (English)
The second-ranked Dragon Drive player in the manga (champion of the "B-Block" in the anime). Sumishiba is a ruthless player and always claims that he will win the game "in ten minutes". He always had extremely high expectations placed on him by his mother, and became obsessed with being the best at everything he did. This leads to extreme frustration directed at Himuro, who is barely trying and still way out of Sumishiba's league.
- Anti-Hero: After his Heel–Face Turn
- Dramatic Irony: He reveals in his fight with Himuro that he is a "pawnbringer", a player capable of operating multiple dragons at once. After Hikaru obliterates his three dragons in seconds, Sumishiba calls a fourth that has been hiding in the shadows to ambush and kill Hikaru's dragon, Kokao. It appears that Sumishiba has won, and he gloats that the number one player is the one who can think two steps ahead... and then Kokao vanishes, because the destroyed dragon was one of the illusions that he can create. The real dragon then appears behind Sumishiba's and skewers it. The number one player has to think three steps ahead, it seems.
- Hard Work Hardly Works: He has drilled, trained, and worked his ass off trying to be the best, both at school and in Dragon Drive. He can't even approach Himuro in either, which is maddening for him.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Much like Hikaru, he only follows Toki and RI-ON's objectives because he needs to get into Rikyu for his own purposes.
- Reformed, but Rejected: When he offers his assistance to the heroes, they want nothing to do with him until he risks his life to protect Meguru.
- Tall, Dark, and Snarky
- Unknown Rival: He's obsessed with defeating Hikaru, who barely acknowledges that he exists.
Silver
A former dragon buster who turned her life around after befriending the legendary dragon Kobakukono. She has been protecting Kono's successor, Koko, ever since Kobakukono was captured and killed by Hysteric Rose.
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: Her swords are sharp enough to cut through dragon bone.
- Action Girl: It comes with the territory as a former dragon buster. She's a regular human with regular swords who can fight enormous dragons and win.
- Adapted Out: She does not appear in the anime.
- Badass Normal: Silver doesn't even have a dragon, but she's still one of the most formidable combatants in the manga.
- Covered with Scars: Protecting Koko means that she has put herself between him and very dangerous people on a regular basis. Reiji notices her scars the first time they meet.
- Determinator: She will protect Koko, and lets absolutely nothing deter her. When Reiji meets her, she's covered in wounds and scars, but she never considers backing down no matter how badly injured she is.
- Dual Wielding: She fights with a pair of narrow blades, and she's very effective with them.
- Heartbroken Badass: A platonic example; Kobakukono helped her turn her life around, and his death absolutely shattered her. She only kept going out of determination to protect Kono's successor.
- It's Personal: She absolutely hates Hysteric Rose and wants to kill her for blackmailing and killing Kono.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: When Reiji meets her for the first time, she's wary to the point of hostility. The jerk behavior doesn't last long once Koko decides that Reiji is a friend.
- Muscles Are Meaningless: A petite and thin young woman who can hold her own against dragons, using nothing but a pair of regular swords. Sure, why not.
- My Greatest Failure: The fact that Kono was forced to sacrifice himself to save the dragons under his protection still haunts her, even though she had no way of stopping it.
- Vague Age: It's never specified. She's probably somewhere in her late teens or early twenties based on her appearance.
