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Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid premiered a little over five years ago. When it comes to this fantasy slice-of-life, a million users have logged it onto their MyAnimeList accounts as of today, has found one of its side characters famous within meme culture, and even a second season that ran last year. However, is it still worth watching today?
Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid follows the daily life of Kobayashi, a female office worker with a boring, ordinary life alone in her apartment. The most interesting thing that happens to her is when she drinks with her coworker Makoto Takiya, and they go on long, aggressive discussions about the history and culture of maids. One night during a drunken walk in the woods, she discovers a dragon and after discovering she can turn into a human form, invites her to live in her apartment; this begins the newly wacky and fantastical daily life of Kobayashi and her dragon maid, Tohru. The anime has won both the Best Comedy Award and the Best Ending Award at the 2018 Crunchyroll Anime Awards the year after its release. But does this mean it's still worth watching today, or should the 13-episode season be left in the past?
Memorable Characters
This anime is the epitome of the found family trope done well. This is especially true when looking at how well the diverse palate of personalities of these characters works together. Everyone has different quirks, flaws, and morals, yet they always end up closer together by the end of it.
First, we can look at Kobayashi herself. She, unlike many protagonists, is completely ordinary. She has an office job, a normal apartment, and a normal life. Because she is so attuned to the ordinary human world, however, she is an indispensable fountain of knowledge for the dragons who are beginning to make her apartment their home. She is sarcastic, often indifferent to everything her new dragon friends find fascinating, and keeps most of her thoughts to herself.
On the other hand, there is Tohru. She is a dragon that can transform into a human, keeping only her tail, horns, and powers from her dragon form. She is energetic, curious, and as chaotic as a member of the Chaos faction of dragons can be. She is utterly obsessed with Kobayashi and is convinced she is her savior, promising to devote the rest of her life to her new, incredibly annoyed master. She blasts her opinions and her powers out loud without any regard for how humans might react.
Aside from our protagonists, there is an even wilder set of characters. Kanna is a rarely emoting dragon who appears as and wants to live as a child. Lucoa is a perky dragon who is completely oblivious to how humans perceive her as overly sexual. Fafnir is a gloomy dragon who thinks all humans should be eradicated, but after coming to earth becomes obsessed with video games and otaku culture. All of these dragons spend most of their series in human form, yet completely misunderstand to how humans operate. As a result, this creates a lot of the situational comedy the anime is known for.
The World-Building
An often-overlooked feature of Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid is the world-building of the dragon realm within the series. Throughout the comedic escapades of Kobayashi and the dragons who have assembled around her, they sprinkle in little bits of dragon realm lore that become important during the last two episode's emotional climax as well as the inter-dragon politics of the second season.
There are three factions, with two having active beliefs and one being a neutral faction. The Chaos faction wants to eradicate humans and kill the gods. Tohru and Fafnir are both part of this faction, although Tohru displays a change of heart early in the first season. The Harmony faction, however, wants to protect humans and worship the gods. Elma harmony faction. The neutral faction is simply called the Spectator faction, and doesn't interact with either. Lucoa is the only confirmed member of this faction so far.
All of these pre-determined factions dictate how the dragons view each other and interact with their world, but this is especially true with Tohru, whose father is the Emperor of Demise within the Chaos faction. The daughter of the Emperor of Demise leaving the chaos faction looks incredibly bad on him and without spoiling anything it can be said that it causes the main conflict during the final episodes of the season.
Kobayashi's Heartwarming Wisdom
Throughout the series, Kobayashi dispenses wisdom of the human world onto the dragons. However, she also shows her emotionally intelligent side often, despite claiming to be someone with social awkwardness with no people skills.
Ironically, much like the protagonist Tohru in Fruits Basket, Kobayashi ends nearly every episode with life lessons that speak to not just the situation within the episode, but the lives of the viewers as well. Philosophical quips such as “Knowing you’re different is only the beginning. If you accept these differences you’ll be able to get past them and grow even closer", and "Most people don’t try to become adults, they just reach a point where they can’t stay children any longer" read almost like classic literature quotes.
She often acts as the therapist to her eclectic hoard of dragons, however, her wisdom can apply to her audience's lives as well. The wisdom of Kobayashi within her titular show is one of the more aspects surprising of the anime, which at first seems like a run-of-the-mill comedy slice-of-life anime with busty dragons and otaku culture parody.
Aside from that, however, is what Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid really is: a romp through an intricate balance between the human and dragon realms, with thoughtful advice and unique characters sprinkled throughout. The thirteen episodes encapsulate all of this in a brightly-colored world that is fun to return to, even five years later.
Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid can be streamed on Funimation, Crunchyroll, and VRV.