So, you want a “Feel good fanservice” sort of piece – something like Helpful Fox Senko-san – but want it to be a little more high energy, like a traditional comedy. An odd wish, but there’s just the show to grant it: Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid!
The concept is about what you’d expect
from the title. An overworked office worker, Kobayashi, finds
herself the subject of the attentions of Tohru, a dragon, who assumes
human form in order to serve as Kobayashi’s maid. Hijinx ensue,
especially because Tohru may be unclear on concepts like how humans
live and what maids are, while being a dragon with titanic
destructive power.
In a sense, this is all Kobayashi’s
fault. Impossibly drunk, she managed to stumble into the forest the
previous night, happening upon Tohru. She made an introduction,
shared some extra drink, and raved about maids for a while before
incidentally saving Tohru’s life by pulling a magic sword from where
it had become lodged in Tohru’s body. The sword was charged with
divine power and should have smote anyone who touched it, but because
Kobayashi was too drunk and disillusioned to care one iota about
gods, the power didn’t work on her.
By the next day when Tohru arrives,
Kobayashi has forgotten the entire incident, but it comes back
slowly.
Overall, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid
is a very episodic comedy. It’s not focused on telling a linear
story, even though the characters do progress over time, so much as
it is interested in telling jokes. Because of that, my normal
approach of going through events beat-by-beat with a fine-toothed
comb isn’t really relevant here. Instead, I’m going to go over our
comedic dragons (yes, we meed more than one) in roughly the order in
which we address them.
First, of course, is Tohru. Her main
joke is that she’s an overpowered dragon and tends to solve problems
with dragon brute force (like shooting fire breath into the sky and
incinerating the rain clouds when a rainy day threatens to stop her
from drying the laundry) rather than the way any rational human would
solve the issue. Because she’s the main dragon and has a lot more
lifting to do, she gets a few extra jokes: she constantly tries to
feed Kobayashi her tail meat (she grows her tail back with trivial
ease) thinking it’s romantic, and that disgusts Kobayashi. She also
has a weirdly magnetic personality, and quickly makes friends with
everyone in the shopping district, resulting in some odd and pleasant
exchanges. You may notice I alluded to but did not list as a joke
her affection for Kobayashi. That’s because it’s not treated as a
joke – she has a very earnest, non-psychotic (mostly non-psychotic)
love for the woman who saved her life, weird as it may be. Moving
on.
Kanna is our next, a little loli dragon
who looks up to Tohru and ends up living with Tohru and Kobayashi.
Her primary joke is that she’s a sleepy character, and says and does
almost everything in a slow and deadpan way. She also is funny/cute
when she eats things. Later, Kanna is enrolled in elementary school
and makes a couple friends there, getting an extra joke or two from
each of them.
Fafnir is a sour dragon who takes the
human appearance of a slim, genteel man in a gothic sort of suit. He
likes curses, destruction, and video games. The last consideration
sees him rooming with Kobayashi’s co-worker and drinking partner,
Takiya, who is himself an otaku who shoots the breeze with Kobayashi
about topics like maids. Fafnir actually gets some development as
well (otherwise reserved for the leads) when we explore what his
feelings about humans are really like.
Lucoa is another dragon, formerly
divine, who Tohru sees as wise. Her main joke is that in human form,
she has huge boobs. She ends up rooming with a little wizard kid
after intercepting his attempts to summon a demon, answering the call
herself. This results in said kid considering her a succubus, and
given how many times he’s nearly smothered in the massive boobs for a
quick laugh, can you blame him?
Lastly, we’re introduced to Elma, a
dragon from a faction that means she’s a rival to Tohru (Elma is a
dragon of Order while Tohru is a dragon of Chaos). She’s stuck on
Earth, and ends up being a co-worker for Kobayashi. As much as she
may want to fight Tohru, she’s also an airhead with decision
paralysis and a massive weakness for food (sweets in particular).
Episode by episode we meet the dragons
and they go about their daily lives, which have a good few more epic
battles than most daily lives, not that said battles tend to have
much weight to them – they’re more the equivalent of going out and
playing in the park for these characters. Well, other than
Kobayashi, who’s often a little close to the action for her own
comfort.
While the plot is extremely light, we
do actually steadily get world building and… it’s kind of good. We
learn about the fantasy world that Tohru and the other dragons are
from bit by bit, as well as more of what Tohru’s life has been like.
It often feels like there’s a very legitimate fantasy story lurking
just beneath the surface of the ‘silly dragon maid show’ but it stays
lurking because all the characters we care about are the ones who
wanted out of that kind of life.
The climax of the show (or season, I should say; a second is on the way) involves that legitimate story intruding. Actually, it’s a lot like the climax of Actually, I Am; Tohru’s father comes to get her, and after the main magical lead gets hauled off by dad, the relative normal has to go and talk some sense into an irate father who is also a godlike powerful magical entity in order to get a semblance of the ‘new normal’ and the abducted character back.
The difference is that there are quite
a few more words here, and they’re better constructed, and quite a
lot less in the way of comedic hijinx. This is probably in part
because Tohru’s father, a giant black dragon known as the Emperor of
Demise, is a little farther beyond regular human than even a giant
who’s also a vampire. Another part is that Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon
Maid is, for all its comedy, still more about the relationships
between the characters, and because of that actually had to develop
them. As such, Kobayashi has a decent amount to say about Tohru, and
how her father should respect her wishes. Impressed by the
willingness of this little human to talk down something that could
kill her in an instant, the Emperor of Demise lets Tohru go, and we
end with the story of Kobayashi and her Dragon Maid continuing for
the foreseeable future.
As far as my reaction to the series as a whole goes… it’s an odd one. It didn’t quite click while I was watching it. The comedy is too high energy for it to really be a ‘comfy’ show like Senko-san, but the comfy scenes are too omnipresent for it to really be a zany comedy like Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle. But, over time, I’ve found myself thinking of it quite fondly not for how it serves any particular mix, but as its own thing. Tohru, Kobayashi, and Fafnir (yes, Fafnir) were very memorable characters with some actual depth to them, and were pleasant enough to watch. Kanna, most of the other humans, and Lucoa could sometimes be hard to watch, but also did do good things for the comedy dynamics. And Elma, once she was introduced, was actually a joy since she worked as a foil for both Tohru and Kobayashi as a dragon office lady. They’re good characters. The comedy was fairly hit or miss, but none of the misses were particularly galling or very long while the hits left more of an impact. It may not be a ‘comfy’ show, but it is a comfort show, with just enough mayhem to keep you engaged while you’re watching.
All in all, and I know I’m probably
going to ruffle some feathers with this, I think it’s a C+ sort of
affair. That’s not a bad thing, but I really do have to be metered
in my recommendation. And hey, at least there’s enough tail meat on
this dragon to be worth an actual letter grade, rather than having to
let it ride on Pass/Fail.