Kobayashi-san Chi no Maidragon S

[neflight86]

1912

* Based on a seinen manga written and illustrated by Cool Kyoushinja.

A strange turn of events leads the Dragon, Tooru, to work as Miss Kobayashi's maid. She occasionally (that's a lie, she often) causes trouble for her beloved Miss Kobayashi while blending into human society and splendidly (that's a lie, only mediocrely) carrying out her maid duties. Her fellow dragons, Kanna, Lucoa, Fafnir, and Elma all find their own places to fit in as well and enjoy interspecies interactions with the humans. Yet while they're all enjoying that laid-back and occasionally turbulent left, the threat of a new Dragon swoops down upon Miss Kobayashi.

Source: crunchyroll

Genre(s): Fantasy, Comedy, Slice of life, Action

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Weird enough, I couldn't find a thread for the first season, so here we go. As mentioned in the seasonal impressions thread, the animation is crazy expressive and consistent. Kobayashi is a sweeter character than I remember her being, with how she helped out at the maid cafe. The chaos dragon has some... odd proportions that make her obvious fanservice kind of off-putting, but her 'curse' on Koboyashi at the end of the episode elicited a chuckle.

[Ryllharu]

Yeah...the first series aired in 2017 when the forums were almost effectively dead. The summary-level discussion is actually in one of the Season Preview threads MFauli tends to originate.

I legitimately question dragons' ability to understand humanoid anatomy.

Especially the Chaos faction who have almost no contact with humans outside of combat. Ilulu thought Kobayshi was a man, and while she might be flat and not particularly feminine, she's definitely not a man. Tohru discussed why she keeps her tail before, though I don't remember it clearly. They all keep their horns except Fafnir (or he doesn't have any?). There's been a few other examples in dialog from Tohru.

In contrast, Elma actually does seem to get it and mingles among the humans pretty easily.

Ilulu uses her boobs as her flame sacs, pretty obviously. Tohru doesn't.

I really like that the series is continuing to emphasize the power difference in Tohru not through her destructive potential, but that she can casually generate portals between the other worlds when only literal god tier dragons, basically just Quetzalcoatl, have the same abilities.

[neflight86]

2

Fun that Kobayashi got to experience the joy of having a tail for a while. Toru is really quite forward in the weirdest ways? Was she always this aggressive, sexually?

Ball hands was a fun gag. Apparently, just about any dragon can come to earth when they feel like it.

[Ryllharu]

I guess Ilulu is actually huge, far more massive than the others, so she's shrinking down as much as she possibly could.

[David75]

Yes, I remember Thoru has always been that aggressive, she just toned down a little bit, but couldn't pass that opportunity having Kobayashi as a male :D

[Buffalobiian]

Episode 04 would have to be my favourite episode so far.

It was just great from start to finish.

[neflight86]

Agreed. Just about everything was fun and heartwarming in equal measure.

[MFauli]

Finally started this season. Goddamn, that new dragon girl is ugly. Red head, chubby, loli, short, ridiculous boobs. Half her body is boobs.

Honestly, what exactly is the author's intention with boobs in this series? All the dragon girls have large boobs. Is it some bs a la "the stronger a dragon, the bigger the boobs"?

[Ryllharu]

You realize the dragons can control their human appearances to some extent?

Tohru is a D-cup because 'D stands for Dragon.' She's an idiot.

Lucoa is huge and curvy because she's one of the largest dragons in the series. She's the huge one in the background of the OP when they're all dragon form. She doesn't wear a bra because distracting and teasing Shouta and other men is her hobby. She has a bit more control because she's still a god, even if she's been demoted.

Based on Tohru's dialog about Ilulu's boob size, Ilulu is also a fairly enormous dragon in her normal form, and her obnoxiously sized boobs are "probably the smallest she can manage," in her transformation. We haven't seen her dragon form, but I would expect it to be close to Lucoa's size.

Kanna is kind of pudgy because that's the intended appeal of her design, very childlike. Also why she eats bugs and small animals.

[MFauli]

So boobs are inherently related to a dragon's size, huh?

What about Fafnir? Massive dick?

[Ryllharu]

Eps 5

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This was a really touching, bittersweet, and introspective episode. This episode is why I like Maid Dragon and other high-quality slice of life series so much. The bad ones are repetitive gags and over time feel like a slog to finish the season when the novelty wears off.

This blend of comedy and contemplation is what makes good slice of life great. Maid Dragon (and KyoAni) excel at it to the point where dialog isn't needed to convey the emotions they're going for.

[Buffalobiian]

Elma seems so much smarter back then than now.

Sure she writes good code, but here she has no dignity while she stuffs her face.

[Ryllharu]

She clearly was dumber naïve then, and Tohru and Kobayashi (all the chaos dragons actually) have both made her more wise to the world.

Tohru's point has always been that the humans of their world are prone to evil. They will find ways to seize power. They will claim the power dragons (an external force) give them, either by slaughtering Chaos dragons for fame (with Tohru and Ilulu's case) or by bribing Harmony dragons and using them for protection, with Elma here (and Luoca too, I believe). They were bribing her with human food, and judging by Elma's reaction to Earth's food, not particularly great food either. Elma's intentions were good, but the humans who she thought she was helping were taking advantage of her.

The obvious comparison, is that Earth has the same problem, just not in Japan at the working-people level.

Tohru did open her eyes to what they were doing, because Elma never tried to directly help humans by living among them after that. If I remember season 1 correctly, Fafnir has taught Tohru the same lesson that Tohru taught Elma.

It's just that none can resist the pure heart of Kobayashi.

But the real highlight this episode is Ilulu achieving her dream of playing with children all day and making them happy.

[DarthEnderX]

Finally started this season. Goddamn, that new dragon girl is ugly. Red head, chubby, loli, short, ridiculous boobs. Half her body is boobs.Yeah, Lucoa and Ilulu are so comically oversized it actually makes them less attractive.

[shinta|hikari]

Absolutely disgusting.

[Kraco]

Honestly, what exactly is the author's intention with boobs in this series? All the dragon girls have large boobs. Is it some bs a la "the stronger a dragon, the bigger the boobs"?

If you look at the original author's works, especially individual art, it's quite clear he's a fan of big boobs, to the point of disproportionate ones. However, he's talented enough to be able to draw other types as well and also doesn't allow his personal tastes to dictate everything in his series. He does have quite a few manga series, after all. I feel like he decided to be more honest to his tastes with this particular series. It's unfortunate, but it is what it is. At least it's not every single adult female character; it could be worse.

[Ryllharu]

If you look at the original author's works, especially individual art, it's quite clear he's a fan of big boobs, to the point of disproportionate ones. However, he's talented enough to be able to draw other types as well and also doesn't allow his personal tastes to dictate everything in his series.
Hopefully KyoAni will go for Demon Mother: My Son is so Cute, I Just Can't Help Myself! after Maid Dragon. They've got the skillset to do the balance of heartwarming slice of life and super intense inhuman action sequences!

[neflight86]

7

I don't envy the author having to sustain the slice of life elements for as long as possible without an overarching narrative to keep things light, but the whole 'ruminating on dragons see the world differently than humans' has pretty much run its course and gotten old by now. I hope there is some more interesting dynamics at play in the coming episodes.

Vulgar woman; Fafnir simply hasn't tapped into his niche market yet...

[neflight86]

9

Shouldn't this fight/conflict have been dealt with sometime in the first season? Why is her uneasiness and distrust with humans now a problem, after trying to rally with them for labor reform?

[Buffalobiian]

9

Shouldn't this fight/conflict have been dealt with sometime in the first season? Why is her uneasiness and distrust with humans now a problem, after trying to rally with them for labor reform?

It's not a problem. She just wanted Tohru to be friends with her again.

[neflight86]

Huh. I thought they have been 'frienemys' this whole time though? Even in the flashbacks, they acted more like stoic comrades than besties. I never saw them acting more friendly than in the present time, or did I miss something?

[Ryllharu]

It's a bit inconsistent, but probably because the source material was written that way, with a soft retcon in between the material of seasons 1 and 2.

It was a simple Chaos vs Harmony faction thing at first, but then it got muddy with Kanna who was simply exiled to the human world. After Kobayashi confronts Tohru's father, the story shifts more towards humanizing the dragons and also showing how complex they are when they now live in a peaceful world.

The best way to interpret this is that Tohru has always been a bit of a rogue outsider among Chaos dragons because she's so much more powerful than most others, and also has always wanted some degree of companionship (much like Ilulu).

Elma, while being a Harmony dragon, was constantly taken advantage of because she's easily bribed and also lonely. The two met frequently enough that they became very close.

Then Tohru is "killed" by the humans, but actually fled dimensions, where she was saved by Kobayashi. A vocal hater of humans became enamored and obsessed with one.

Elma just felt abandoned. She wanted to drag her back to their world under the pretense that Tohru will cause trouble here, but it turned out (soft retcon) that Elma just wanted to monopolize the smoldering and guarded version of Tohru. She was irritated that Tohru keeps making more friends while generally avoiding Elma.

Since most of the dragons on earth are Chaos dragons (Lucoa being neutral), Elma became the outsider among the collective group.



My biggest takeaway this episode was how cool Shouta is getting thanks to his growing confidence in his magic. I guess his dad's concept of how helpful Lucoa is comes down to the fact that Shouta is becoming desensitized to normal levels of unexpected things due to Lucoa constantly harassing him with her body for fun. He stays cool under normal levels of pressure and quicker and quicker to react to chaotic events that used to put him into a tizzy.

[Buffalobiian]

I can't remember when Shouta knew about the rest of the dragons. He very specifically slept Saikawa but not Kanna.

[Ryllharu]

How can he not know? He hangs out at Kobayashi's house, crying about Lucoa's behavior, he plays games with Mikiya and Fafnir.

Pretty much as soon as he figured out Lucoa was not in fact, a succubus. But it was a gradual thing.

That's why this episode has been pretty cool. You can see him finally coming into his own as a mage, instead of the quivering nervous child with low confidence in his magic when Kobayashi was first introduced to him.

[Buffalobiian]

Pretty much as soon as he figured out Lucoa was not in fact, a succubus. But it was a gradual thing.

Uhh.. so pretty much "yeah, we don't know when"

As far as I know, there was never a firm transition point where "I summoned a Succubus" became "oh, you 5 are dragons".

[Ryllharu]

It happened, but I don't want to rewatch all of season 1 to figure out when it did.

[Buffalobiian]

It happened, but I don't want to rewatch all of season 1 to figure out when it did.

You're right. I got bored and went back through S1. Episode 06 was where this happened. Turns out I'd forgotten a lot of what happened in S1.

S02E10

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No way that a Kanna-centric episode won't be warm and fuzzy. And, well, it seems Kanna's tail is also a socket xD.

That said, slightly unrealistic bit:

1) wet but dried its wings near immediately and flew away.. in the rain.
2) Kanna didn't eat the bug.

[Kraco]

And, well, it seems Kanna's tail is also a socket xD.


Laptops today sometimes don't have a charger port anymore at all. They are charged through a USB-C port. I guess Kanna also works like that.

[Ryllharu]

I thought Kanna used to plug herself into the wall. She's growing up and can now power appliances herself!

[Buffalobiian]

Episode 11

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Heavy...

[Ryllharu]

Eps 12
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That was a surprising and yet also not surprising turn!

Elma had the best yukata though.

[Buffalobiian]

One of my favourite parts was how even Saikawa has grown to withstand her joyous outbursts without KOing.

The slightly sad part was Kanna encouraging her to live long. :'(

Yukata-wise, yeah Elma's frilly sleeves are pretty good. I guess that beats sleeveless by a little bit.

[neflight86]

I appreciate what it did, but it was one of the weaker episodes, given the whole season. Just some non-flirtation and a low-key group gathering without any 'new' information. It was a sleepy soft-out, and given the length of time between seasons, it was appropriate.

[DarthEnderX]

Honestly, after binging all of season 1, s2 was pretty boring.

And I think that's just how slice of life comedies are for me. Very rarely are they consistently funny. Most of the time they're just...nice, but then they have a few really great funny moments in them.

But those moments, are not worth the time I spend watching an entire season of an anime. I can get everything I'd actually enjoy out of a show like this, by watching a highlight video on youtube.

It's like when everyone was raving about Hinamatsuri. Saying how great and funny it was, and after watching the whole thing it was like, "Yeah...nah. You have the broken leg scene, the "I'm dead?!" scene, the schoolgirl tending bar, the "made you look" game, and then that badass kung fu sequence in the epilogue." Those are basically the only good parts of that show, and it's like 5 minutes of the show, total, and I saw them all on youtube. I didn't have to spend 4 hours of my life being mostly kinda bored.

[Ryllharu]

With Hinamatsuri, the highlight was Anzu's arc across the whole season, as that is what the adaptation covers.

Slice of life isn't for everyone, and you don't need to make any excuses for not liking it.

Maid Dragon S2 excels less on plot and more on animation, imo. KyoAni declaring their return and honoring their lost colleagues (many who worked on the first season), by putting out a consistently quality series with a level of animation detail that should put every other studio on alert. The details this season are impeccable, even coming from a studio known for adding on enough detail to their background characters that hardcore KyoAni fans give them all nicknames (over my head, but they've been doing it since K-ON). KyoAni quality has been high for quite a while, but they're really setting the bar high with this one.

[DarthEnderX]

Slice of life isn't for everyone, and you don't need to make any excuses for not liking it.But I already did!

[Buffalobiian]

Slice of life for me is about characters doing mostly relaxing and sometimes funny things - some funnier than others. Warm fuzzy feelings probably next.

Non-Non Biyori would have to be my favourite slice of life.
Natsume's Book of Friends was good too, if you can call it that.
Minami-Ke was good on/off.

^ That's talking about longer running series, short series I tend to forget but can also be good for their run.

Kobayashi is up in the high ranks too for me.

[Ryllharu]

ARIA is always going to take the top spot for me (though I love Non Non Biyori too). ARIA is an introspective, coming of age (both teens and adults retiring) story that never throws the message they're trying to convey into the viewers' face. They experience it the same time the main cast does. And it gives time for those events to breathe. It combined every element of what animation can do nearly flawlessly.

My only slight to Maid Dragon S is that it was a bit too overt at times in explaining the message of the episodes. But it was still more depth and sentimentality than I expected from a largely gag-driven series.

[Buffalobiian]

S2 - Ep 13

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Random ep out of nowhere.

The Zoom call at the end was a nice touch that ended the ep on a happy note.

[Ryllharu]

There were some cute callbacks to S1 events as well.

I always love the episodes where the dragons openly confirm that Kobayashi is top dog in their social group. She's earned it (against Tohru's father and Shouta's father as well), and without any special powers at all.