Yona of the Dawn

Yona of the Dawn, called Akatsuki no Yona in Japan, is a fantasy adventure anime from Studio Pierrot. It ran for 24 episodes from October 2014 to March 2015, and Kazuhiro Yoneda directed it. The show is based on a manga by Mizuho Kusanagi, which started in the magazine Hana to Yume in 2009. Hana to Yume is a shoujo magazine, which means its comics are made mainly for teen girls. The manga ran for sixteen years. It ended in December 2025 with 48 books, and more than 16 million copies are in print.

The story takes place in Kouka, a made-up kingdom that looks and feels like old East Asia. There are palaces, tribes, generals, and long roads through mountains and poor villages. Kouka has an old legend at its heart. People say that long ago a red dragon god named Hiryuu came down to earth and became the first king. Four warriors helped him, and each one carried the power of a dragon inside his body. Most people in the palace think of this as a simple old tale.

Yona is the only princess and the daughter of King Il, a soft and peaceful ruler who hates weapons and war. She lives a safe, easy life inside the castle walls. She worries about small things, like her messy red hair. She has two people close to her. One is Hak, her strong and teasing bodyguard, who grew up with her. The other is her gentle cousin Soo-won (also written Su-won), whom she secretly loves. On the night she turns sixteen, her whole world falls apart. Soo-won kills King Il and takes the throne. Yona escapes with Hak, and the sheltered princess suddenly becomes a fugitive, which means a person on the run.

From here the show turns into a road story. A priest tells Yona that she should look for the four dragon warriors from the legend. The group grows step by step. First comes Yun, a sharp young orphan who knows medicine and cooking and often acts like the team's tired parent. Then the travelers begin to find the dragons, including Ki-Ja, Shin-Ah, and Jae-Ha. Each one has lived a hard and lonely life because of his strange power. Yona also decides she will not just be protected any more. She asks to learn how to fight, and she slowly trains with the bow.

The heart of the series is how Yona grows up. On the road, she sees hungry towns, unfair local leaders, and danger from nearby countries. She learns that her kind father's rule left many real problems behind. The show mixes this serious story with a lot of comedy. The boys argue, joke, and fuss over food, and Hak loves to annoy everyone. Over time the group becomes a true family that chose each other. There is also a slow, quiet romance, and the politics around the throne are not as simple as good against evil.

The anime covers only the early part of the long manga. When it ended, a lot of story was still left to tell. Three extra OVA episodes followed in 2015 and 2016. An OVA is a bonus episode sold on disc, and these came with special editions of the manga. In December 2025, on the same day the manga ended, the magazine announced a sequel anime. That news gave fans hope that Yona's journey would finally continue on screen.