I'm usually not a huge fan of
slice-of-life anime such as this. Cute girls doing cute things can
only hold its luster for so long before I begin to lose interest. At
the start of Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, however, I knew this one would
be different. Different in that, unlike some other anime of this
genre I've seen, this one takes its bizarre concept and stays fairly
grounded – for the most part. It definitely surprised me with how
clever it was, despite it only getting me to laugh aloud a few times. This isn't a gut-busting, heart-palpitating comedy. It's more
subtle than that but was able to keep me engaged throughout the
entire journey. And its setup, though strange, definitely hooked me.
Kobayashi is just an ordinary adult
woman living an ordinary adult life. She gets up, makes herself
breakfast, goes to work, comes home, has a few drinks, and goes to
bed. A very simple, yet boring, life. One night, however, she has a
few more than a few drinks and ends up wandering up onto the mountain
where she ends up saving a dragon named Tohru. The following morning,
Kobayashi having lost all memory of the events of the night prior, is
greeted by Tohru at the door of her small apartment. Apparently,
Tohru has agreed to be Kobayashi's maid as penance for saving her.
Then life with a dragon-maid starts!
Eventually new human and dragon
characters get added to the roster. A young wide-eyed dragon-girl
named Kanna; a video-game addict and recluse dragon named Fafnir; a
very, shall I say, well-endowed and wise dragon named Lucoa; and the
inconsequential-to-the-plot-but-still-best-girl dragon Elma. Along
with some other human characters they go about their days trying to
live among and adapt to humans.
As was
previously stated, Kobayashi's Dragon Maid is a slice-of-life anime
first and foremost. There is no grand narrative nor some epic evil to
overcome. Instead the episodes are dedicated to Tohru and Kobayashi
trying to prepare Kanna for school or Tohru attempting to prepare
dinner for Kobayashi. We're not dealing with serious stuff here. With
that being said, however, I did really end up feeling for these
characters. Slice-of-life shows in particular tend to be popular for
their love of the mundane but Kobayashi's Dragon Maid tends to take
the mundane and add some kind of twist. For example, there is a
running joke in the anime where Tohru tries to feed Kobayashi her
tail (spoiler, she never succeeds). Or a dodge-ball match with a
bunch of bullies getting out of hand when Tohru and her friends crush them
with their superior dragon-strength.
This
leads me to my first problem with the anime. It never follows through
to the end. I was hoping by the end of the show one of these running
jokes or “isms” that the characters have would get resolved and,
though we are left with an emotional final episode, it never broke
through to me like I thought it would. During the last episode I was
hoping that Kobayashi would finally take a bite of her dragon-maid's
tail or something to that effect. Don't get me wrong, the ending was
still satisfying but it didn't quite get me to where I would have
wanted.
One
other minor issue I had was with the critically underutilized Elma.
Obviously-best-girl Elma doesn't appear until episode eight and after
that she only gets a few scene transition jokes to herself. She never
becomes a truly vital part of the group which pains me to my very
core. Hopefully a second season will fix that. I'll just have to be
patient.
Truly,
I wasn't expecting much of the music from this show but it is a
delight through and through. Its opening is visually confusing and
off-the-wall but the song is bouncy and definitely got me pumped for
the upcoming episode and all of its music is able to keep a grin.
It's also very uncommon that I commend Japanese voice acting (simply
because I'm not too informed on the industry) but Kobayashi's Dragon
Maid's voice performances are consistently great. The animation is
also very good. The character designs are all very distinct and the
color choice is fantastic. What really amazed me was the actions
scenes, few and far between as they may be. Though it is just the dragons' way of 'playing' it is still astounding to look at.
Kobayashi's
Dragon Maid truly surprised me. Its characters are all very
well-developed (with exception of Elma) and, though the ending of
the series didn't quite do it for me, I will still look back on it fondly. Despite the problems, it still had a lot more heart than any other anime that I've seen in a long time.
Kobayashi's
Dragon Maid is a fantastic
time from start to finish.
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