Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid Season 1 [SUB] (2017) Review

 Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid Season 1 [SUB] (2017) 6.5/10

Don’t watch this. I’m being serious. Do not watch this. This show looks innocent but it’s disgusting and I’m here to tell you why. Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid is a 13 episode anime that aired from January 11 - April 6, 2017 with a one episode OVA that aired on September 20, 2017. The season was produced by Kyoto Animation, of Clannad and K-On! fame. So I’ve heard mixed things on this show. “It’s so good! It’s a great SoL anime with a mixture of fantasy elements.” “This show is pedo bait and if you enjoyed it, you’re a pedophile too.” Yeah, this show is a mixed bag of weirdness. I have a lot to talk about, so let’s begin.

Our story follows office worker Kobayashi on her way home from the bar. She’s drunk off her ass and misses her stop on the train. She ends up in the mountains and stumbles upon a dragon with a sword in her. The dragon is on her death bed and tells Kobayashi to go away, wanting to die in peace. Kobayashi takes the sword out and saves the dragon. The dragon says its name is Tohru and wishes to repay her debt to Kobayashi. Kobayashi is obsessed with maids and tells Tohru to be her maid. Thus begins the duo’s life together as master and maid. Tohru falls in love with Kobayashi, but Kobayashi only sees her as a friend. As the two live together, another dragon comes into their lives, wanting Tohru back. This dragon is a little girl named Kanna. Kanna eventually joins them and they form a little family. This will cause other dragons to enter the human world and begin to live among the humans.

So this sounds all happy and innocent right? Well, it starts off like that. It starts off as this fantastical Slice of Life anime with a hint of yuri romance between Tohru and Kobayashi. Right when the show introduces the side character Saikawa is when this show goes off the deep end. So Kanna begins going to school as a third grader. On her first day, she meets this girl named Saikawa who intends to “bully” Kanna. Kanna, completely oblivious to what’s happening, charms her way into Saikawa’s heart. Saikawa forms a crush on Kanna and that's when it starts to get weird. Okay first off, a third grader should not even be thinking of emotions like this. They should be thinking of play dates and shit like that, not “how can I form a romantic relationship with this person”. I can understand if they were in middle school or at least sixth grade, but they’re not. They are in third grade. The second thing is the infamous Twister scene. So Saikawa invites Kanna over to her house for a play date. Kanna wants to play a game and spots Twister. The two begin playing and it gets very fucking awkward. When I first watched this scene, I didn’t really think of it as weird or unsettling, but after getting insight from a couple of other people, they said that this is fucking weird and I agree. A simple game of Twister shouldn’t be giving off this amount of sexual tension, especially between two third graders. This is disgusting and wrong on so many levels. Oh, and it gets worse. Later that episode, the two start playing a video game. Kanna sits on Saikawa’s lap and Saikawa starts to have a meltdown. She starts talking about relationships and one thing leads to another and Kanna is now ON TOP of Saikawa! Before shit gets worse, Tohru busts through the door, seeking shelter from Kobayashi and Georgie’s obsession with maids. Tohru doesn’t stop this though. Kanna just gets up and goes. WHAT THE FUCK!?

My second issue with the show is Lucoa. If you have heard of this show, then I’m positive you know who I’m talking about. The extra thicc bitch with the G cup titties. She starts off cool but once the show introduces the character Shouta is when it gets weird. Shouta is a sixth grade boy that comes from a family of mages. He does a ritual to call up a demon and Lucoa comes instead. For personal reasons, she decides to stay with Shouta and prove that she is not a demon, but a dragon instead. To do this, through her own thought process, she decides to go ara ara on Shouta and starts to get REALLY FUCKING CLOSE to the poor kid. Constantly shoving her tits in his face and all of that. The fact that the creators named him “Shouta”, they knew exactly what they were doing (if you don’t know, just google “Shota”). This is just as disgusting and just as wrong as the Kanna/Saikawa thing.

In the OVA, Tohru tries to drug Kobayashi, wanting to “take her body” aka rape her. The OVA is a Valentine’s Day/hot springs episode. You can tell where this is going. Thankfully the love potion didn’t work, but wtf bro. Now that I think about it, this breaks Tohru’s character. She respects Kobayashi too much to pull a stunt like that. The episode also hinted at some shit with Kanna and Kobayashi, but Kobayashi was able to get a hold of herself before it went that way, which I’m extremely thankful for. The second half of the episode is the hot springs part. Thankfully, this was just typical fan service and nothing more.

So outside of all of this disgusting bullshit, the show is good. I really enjoyed the cast of characters. I have mad respect for Kobayashi as she has to deal with computer coding at work and is a very level headed person. Tohru is a great character too. However I feel like the show needed to develop her more than being a maid with magical powers and having a crush on Kobayashi. Kanna is probably my favorite character next to Kobayashi and Fafnir. She is really adorable and her voice is perfect for her. She also has a somewhat sad backstory, which helps with her character. I just hate how the show treats her with Saikawa. It’s super creepy. Fafnir is another dragon that came to this world and lives with Kobayashi’s coworker Takiyu. He’s a gaming addict and still hates humans, but slowly warms up to them. He’s also a mild tsundere. Elma is another dragon that comes to this world. She is introduced late into the season, so we don’t get much of her, which is a shame. She has a very strong introduction and easily became one of my favorites. That is, until she’s tossed to the sideline. She has this feud with Tohru because they are from rival dragon factions. She’s a klutz and tries to be intimidating, but just fails at it. She latches onto the cuisines of Earth very quickly and wants more. Her entire character then becomes “is thicc and eats food”. I was hoping the show would give her more character and screen time, but sadly that’s not the case. I was hoping for more interactions between her and Kobayashi since they work at the same place.

My favorite episode is probably the Comic Con episode. I don’t know why. It’s probably just my nerdiness going off and I miss going to conventions. I do have to point this out tho. The pacing for the episodes could be a bit better. The first episode kinda just throws you into this world without any proper set up (it doesn’t tell you the difference between the human world and the dragon world, the exact details of Kobayashi and Tohru’s first meeting, and a couple of other things). One episode will sometimes feel like 2-3 episodes put together and they were just cramming manga volumes together.

The art style and animation for the show is probably the show’s greatest aspect. The show looks great. I love the character designs for everyone (except Lucoa). The animation is really good too. Kyoto Animation knocked it out of the park with this. I hope the rest of their works look this good.

The music is great too. An actual, memorable OST is rare to find, so I applaud the show for this. The OP and EDs are great as well. Fits the weirdness and cutesiness of the show perfectly.

So I watched this in JP dub and the voice acting is great too. My favorite voices are: Mutsumi Tamura (Kobayashi), Yuuki Kuwahara (Tohru), Maria Naganawa (Kanna), Minami Takahashi (Lucoa), and Yuuki Takada (Elma). Special shoutout to Kanna’s voice. I don’t know what Naganawa does to make her voice sound the way it does, but it is the most adorable voice ever. Her voice acting for Kanna is what made her so likable.

Overall, the bad aspects overshadow what makes this a very enjoyable show. Because of the pedophiliac scenes and situations, I can not recommend this. If you are interested in the good parts, then please be wary of how creepy this show gets. I will not be watching season 2 for obvious reasons.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time

This is Zorgak, signing off.