Common Name: Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon
Alternative Names: Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid
Score: 8/10, 5/5
Length: 13 Episodes
Genre: Comedy, Slice of Life, Magic, Ecchi, Romance
Summary: For the majority of her life Kobayashi has been something of a loner: quiet, stoic, and a bit of a nerd. She's never been good at forming real relationships with people and doesn't go out of her way to pursue companionship. All of that changes, though, when she drunkenly stumbles upon an injured dragon named Tohru. Rather than trembling in fear of this impossible and deadly creature, she somehow managed to save Tohru and went so far as to offer the homeless dragon a place to stay so long as she doesn't mind being the programmer's personal maid. Of course, letting a dragon or two her home might cause some problems in the future, but Kobayashi won't say the thought bothers her all that much since having Tohru around means she's not alone anymore.
Review: For a such a hilarious and well put together comedy, I can't help but find it a little jarring how much Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon has to say about family and forming long-term relationships with fundamentally different people. Sure, it makes a lot of sense that a comedy show would talk about family; pretty much every kind of fictional media says something about at one point or another. Family is just one of those "safe" topics that will always serve as a solid foundation for any kind of show because it's something the vast majority of people can relate to. More than that, though, it's a topic that can carry a lot of weight and has the ability to be both a positive and negative. It is probably one of the easiest ways to trigger a wide range of emotions within an audience, depending on how the family unit is used. Let's take for example the heartfelt joy and satisfaction that comes from watching a show where a family is trying to put itself back together after a family member has gotten sick or recently passed away. Shows like Udon no Kuni no Kiniro Kemari (Poco's Udon World) and Amaama to Inazuma (Sweetness & Lightning), which are recent favorites of mine, hit as hard as they do because the loss of a family member is something a lot of people can empathize with or, at the very least, understand on some level. Once that personal connection is established, it's not hard to get someone invested in an empathetic roller coaster where the smallest moments of growth and little tragedies can mean the world. On the opposite end of the spectrum, we can see the inherent threat that comes with the introduction of a family because putting these typically innocent individuals in harm's way is one of the best ways to pluck at an audience's heartstrings. Look no further than that fact that fans of the original Fullmetal Alchemist are STILL broken up over the deaths of Hughes and Nina. To be fair though, said fans had to live through all that again if they watched FMA: Brotherhood (a title that already implies the value of family). Even when the theme of family isn't present at the forefront of a show, it's not hard to find it in most every show, for better or worse. What's particularly interesting about Maid Dragon though is that it tackles this already emotionally-charged topic from an angle I've honestly never seen before.
Not the angle I was referring to, but whatever.
For a show that is filled with pastel colors and a simplistic, but cutesy art style, it's kinda weird to claim that this show has a lot to say. Perhaps the moe genre has just made it impossible for me to reconcile that a show can be both "simplistically cute" and "thoughtful," but I can't deny that this show has a crazy amount of depth to it despite its appearance. Heck, one of the main reasons this review has taken me so long is that I felt the need to go back and watch the series again just to make sure I wasn't hyping up something that wasn't actually there. So, to get to the point, let's take this show's cast of characters as examples of this depth I'm talking about. The titular Miss Kobayashi is stoic, quiet, and a bit of a nerd. Most of her life is spent at a programming job that drains her both physically and emotionally to the point that she has fallen into a cycle of modernist discontent--working and stressing until you eventually crack and give in to some personal vice to alleviate that stress just so you can get up the next day and get back to work. While that certainly sounds plenty complex on its own, the show just uses this background information to establish that Kobayashi is meant to be representative of the modern, working citizen. The depth and truth of her character, though, lies in that fact that all these little quirks and things that make her seem like a nonentity are just symptomatic of the kind of person she is. At her core, Kobayashi is a socially awkward introvert who has never really grasped how to make friends or form relationships with other people and thus isn't inclined to pursue either of those things. Of course, having the tendency to shut people out doesn't necessarily stop her from being a kind and decent person. Quite the contrary, in fact. While she might not actively want to form relationships with other people, Kobayashi is presented as a bleeding heart philanthropist who either can't or won't turn away someone in need, even if doing so would mean leaving herself open to the wants, needs, and influence of someone who is her polar opposite. I'm not convinced that kind of vulnerability is a bad thing though.
It's probably really telling that I relate to Kobayashi on several levels.
Of course, this bleeding heart philanthropy brings us to the titular "dragon maid" of the series, Tohru (or Tooru in the literal Japanese), a dragon that Miss Kobayashi stumbles upon, saves, and then invites home after a night of drinking herself stupid. Since that day, Tohru has taken up space in Kobayashi's home as an energetic, possessive, and sex-obsessed maid who brings equal amounts joy and suffering to Kobayashi's life. To reiterate though, Tohru is also a dragon--a mythical creature from another world that can use magic and has enough power to bring about Armageddon. What this also means is that she's the show's main source of comedy, since the concept of a noble dragon becoming a maid and integrating into human society is situational comedic gold. As you've probably guessed by now though, Tohru's life isn't all that easy either.
While I wouldn't go so far as to say her personality and hang-ups are as complex as Kobayashi's, they do make up the majority of this show's serious subject matter. For example, Tohru is a dragon--a mythical creature from another world that can use magic and has enough power to bring about Armageddon--or, to put it in simpler terms: She doesn't belong in our world. No matter how much Tohru loves Kobayashi, there's no way for her to escape the fact that they are not the same. Not only that, but there will also come a day when Kobayashi won't be around anymore, and as far as either of them knows, there's nothing Tohru can do to stop that. Consider that: a proud and noble dragon powerful enough to end all of humanity on a whim can't do anything to preserve the life of the one human she cares about. Understandably, that fact terrifies and frustrates Tohru to no end. How she deals with that problem and the ever-constant dread it brings is what brings in that depth of character I've been talking about.
Like most people do when faced with an ongoing problem, Tohru has two choices available to her: either accept fate and cherish what little time the two of them will have together or try to ignore it and let the dread and powerlessness eat away at her until she eventually breaks down. I say she has these two options because there really isn't a way for Tohru to fight the inevitable in this case. Being the stubborn and selfish dragon she is though, Tohru settles for both and that is probably the most human thing she does over the course of this show. To elaborate, Tohru normally lives her life as Kobayashi's bubbly and bizarre maid who could and would end the world if that's what Kobayashi wanted. But every now and then something sets off the trigger for Tohru's anxiety. Sometimes that something is the simple a reminder that her kind lives for centuries, unlike humans. Sometimes it's the fact that she and her kind normally kill humans as a matter of principle. Sometimes just being around Kobayashi is enough for her to fall apart. In any of these situations though, Tohru is left in a state of utter helplessness until the moment of weakness passes. Then things go back to the way they were before because Tohru refuses to give up on Kobayashi the same way she gave up on her home world, her fellow dragons, and the war that is still raging there. While that might mean each and every day is a battle for Tohru, at least she can say she's living a life she won't regret because each and every day she spends with Kobayashi is another day she'll treasure for the rest of her incredibly long life.
Now if only there was a way to fix her rampant libido.
While I'll admit the concept of cherishing the time you spend with something isn't exactly novel, it's usually a conclusion characters only reach after their parting has already occurred, when that point of no return has already been crossed. Never have I seen a show reach that conclusion while the relationship is being formed, but it honestly makes a lot of sense. With such a massive barrier between them, there's no real way that Maid Dragon could have avoided this issue without cheapening the whole experience in the process. What's great, though, is that it addresses this idea of forming a relationship in spite of insurmountable hardships both reasonably and responsibly without bogging everything down in the process. More than that, it tackles a number of other similarly important issues along the way. Most notably among these other is the trail of finding a place to belong in a world that actively shuns difference and the abnormal despite not fitting what might be considered normal, and that is where all the other dragons in this show come in to play.
What, did you think there was only one dragon struggling to belong in this show?
Guess again, friendo.
I talked previously about how this show addressed the concept of family, and this is where that point finds it's home. While Tohru struggles with personal struggles over the course of this show, the rest of the cast can be summarized under the same plot arc--finding a place where they belong--a place to call home. What "home" means is different for each of these other characters though. For the winged goddess Quetzalcoatl (Lucoa for short) that means a place where she can watch over Tohru and have fun at the same time, which she finds in the home of a young magician. For the cursed dragon Fafnir, home is a place where no one forces themselves into his life and he can get comfortable at his own pace, which he finds in the apartment of Kobayashi's otaku co-worker. Tohru's rival, the water dragon Elma, finds her place in a very different way. Rather than finding a person who is willing to open up their home to her, she simply finds satisfaction enough in the many culinary delights this world has to offer. Lastly, the young dragon Kanna finds her place in no less than three different ways. One is through forming an attachment with her human classmates, ever cautious that over-exceeding or being too different might encourage them to push her away. After all, school is a place that values normalcy and was designed to mold young children into "proper" or "correct" citizens in our society. Second is the friendship she forms with one of her classmates, Saikawa Riko, who serves as both a form of entertainment and a means of finding that same kind of attachment to this world Tohru has through her relationship with Kobayashi. Last, but far from least, is the connection she shares with Kobayashi. In much the same way that Tohru seeks affection from Kobayashi, Kanna seeks attention, approval, and love. This puts Kobayashi in a position akin to both husband (due to her tomboyish, or more accurately non-feminine, nature) and mother in her home.
The thing is though, in all of these situations there was a chance that something could have gone wrong. Lucoa could have been cast out as a demon. Fafnir could have been shunned for being generally disagreeable and aggressive towards people. Kanna could have been labeled an outcast by her human peers, or worse, Kobayashi might not have been willing to take on the burden of being Kanna's foster mother. All of these kinds of tragedies happen all the time in the real world, regardless of whether the people involved don't belong, and the show does go out of its way to make that point clear every now and then. It's just a fact that the world is a cruel place, rarely inclined to help those in need of a place to call their own, but this is ultimately a fairly light-hearted show. That means everyone finds the home of their dreams, and Kanna gets the family she's never had in spite of the fact that they are all very different people.
To be fair, they make for a pretty convincing family.
At the end of the day, I can't help but admit that I absolutely adore this show. On top of being a hilarious, well-paced, and variety-filled comedy show, it's probably one of the deepest and insightful comedies I've seen in a long time. It speaks to a variety of social and personal issues that would catch the attention of almost anyone who has experienced from of the same troubles Kobayashi and Tohru go through, let alone anyone who is just willing to lend a sympathetic ear. But the best part of this show is the fact that it balances all of these aspects pretty well. The comedy doesn't get old too fast and the drama doesn't become overbearing, two things that could end an otherwise solid show on their own. That means we get something of an extreme slice-of-life comedy built upon the humor of absurd characters living relatively normal lives, which only serves to make the experience all the more relatable and endearing. There were a few moments where the show trips over itself, but I'm inclined to forgive a few of those mistakes since this adaptation added tons of new and hilarious bits to the already solid source material. Not only that, but the animation was solid throughout and the music set the tone well, not that I'd be inclined to listen to it on its own anytime soon. So, I'll send this one off as a show that I'd highly recommend to almost anyone.