Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid may be the most pleasantly surprising anime I've ever watched. What I initially ignored as a fanservice show because "maids be cute yo" with a dragon component for no apparent reason has turned out to be an absolute delight, and the best romantic anime I've ever seen.
Kobayashi, a quiet and reserved IT worker wakes up hung over one morning. Upon exiting her apartment, she meets a massive dragon, who transforms into a girl in a maid outfit, introduces herself as Tohru and expects to be allowed to work for her due to an agreement the two made the previous night whilst Kobayashi was drunk.
This seems like a traditional set up for a show of this kind: a straight-man protagonist is saddled with a wacky, usually supernatural hanger-on that they get into all sorts of comedic hijinks with. As such, I was surprised by how little of this there was in Ms Kobayashi's Dragon Maid. There are definitely amusing shenanigans that go on, but after the first couple of episodes, they take a back seat to simply observing the daily lives of Kobayashi and Tohru, as well as young dragonling Kanna, whom they adopt, and a decently-sized supporting cast of colorful characters composed of similar dragon-human pairings.
The main draw of the show comes precisely in what the most time is spent on: the relationship between Kobayashi, Tohru and Kanna. I'm going to go straight for the throat here: Kobayashi and Tohru are a couple, and Kanna is essentially their adopted daughter. It's never made explicit in the show (Tohru does explicitly say she's romantically attracted to Kobayashi, but the reverse is only ever implied, if incredibly heavily), but it's there as clear as day. I'm not a fan of shipping, or making relationships that aren't textually explicit "head-canon" (in fact I'm mostly very opposed to the idea, since this thinking usually misses the point), but Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid makes its romance as blatantly clear as possible without confessions of love or kisses, and is very obviously centered around it. If you don't read Kobayashi and Tohru as essentially being in a relationship, the whole show is a pointless exercise in boredom with basically nothing of interest happening, the very bottom of the moeblob barrel.
In my mind, there's five clear stages to a relationship. There's the period before the relationship is there. There's the formative stage, where the parties involved realize there's an attraction and get together. There's the relationship stage, when people are just in a relationship. In most relationships, there's two stages after that: the breaking apart stage, and all the time after the relationship.
There's stories to be told about all of these: say longing to find someone special in the before stage, the traditional romance story in the formative stage, exploring relationship dynamics in the relationship stage, character exploration in the breaking apart stage, and possible grief in the after stage. Despite this, almost every romance story is about the formative stage. I can see why: it's the story with the most obvious arc (meeting, realization, hesitation, consummation), and the one that art has told the most stories about, making it more likely to inspire more similar stories. There's a decent amount in the breaking stage, and the after stage as well. The before stage and the stable relationship stages, obviously being the hardest to make a compelling story about, get next to no love.
Part of what makes Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid special is that it's a story about the stable relationship stage. After the first two episodes, dedicated to introducing the characters, Kobayashi and Tohru are just together. They're just happily in love with each other, and functionally together. Instead of exploring how a relationship is formed, or what happens when a relationship breaks apart, Ms Kobayashi's Dragon Maid explores how relationships work, and how the people within them genuinely improve each other's life.
This might sound very saccharine, and it honestly kind of is. The entire show is a feel-good, colorful pleasant little romp. That said, despite being one of the sweetest shows I've ever watched, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid is surprisingly grounded, understanding that people genuinely need to make sacrifices for their loved ones. Medium sized-spoilers in the rest of the paragraph, since I'm talking about an example of this. One of my favorite episodes revolves around Kobayashi having to do overtime at work in order to be able to be at Kanna's sports day at school, which Kanna is very enthusiastic about her attending. She wonders throughout the episode whether she wants to do this: Kobayashi doesn't really like the idea of going to the festival, and she doesn't want to do overtime, being overworked enough. Kanna, understanding this, ends up telling her it's fine if she doesn't go. This makes up her mind: Kobayashi doesn't want to go, but she should go, and go she does. She ends up having a good time, but that's not the point. The point is that she was willing to give Kanna what was needed.
It's this back-and-forth approach, where both ends of the relationship are willing to compromise more in favor of the other because of just how damn much they both care, that make the relationships feel real. This dynamic in particular is central to the relationship between Tohru and Kobayashi. They're both willing to sacrifice their own comfort for the other, and are rewarded with the same amount of care and loyalty in return. The show manages to walk a very tight rope here: stray too much towards the "they care for each other" angle, and it turns into unbearably saccharine dreck. Emphasize what they're sacrificing for each other too much, and you end up telling a depressing story about two people who allegedly care for each other making their partner's life worse. Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid manages to make it clear that these people are willing to do this for each other because they love each other, and that there's very little pressure (usually none at all) put on them to behave this way: this is entirely their choice.
This wouldn't mean anything if I didn't like the characters, and Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid manages to put in punch where it counts. The main trio are all great. Whilst Tohru initially comes across as the annoying energetic type, it quickly becomes clear there is more to her than this. She's quietly giving in almost every way, more than willing to put in effort to make others happy. Being the only one here that is literally said to be in love, Tohru is also allowed a very open adoration of Kobayashi that just makes me happy. The way she genuinely seems to look up to her in every way, and the many subtle ways in which it becomes apparent that Tohru is happier whenever Kobayashi is around are incredibly heart-warming. There's a purity in her relationship with Kobayashi, a sort of naive, full-hearted awe and adoration. In the later parts of the show, Tohru has some pretty serious internal conflict over her relationship with Kobayashi, specifically in how she must deal with dragon's lifespans being much longer than humans. It's not particularly deep or even novel, but it gives her character a nice extra bit of depth, and builds up well to the show's emotional climax.
Kanna is equally great. She's a lot more archetypal than either of the other two, but she works, damn it. She's a pretty textbook deadpan child, but I'll remind the reader that this is a character archetype that seems to obtain almost universal love in the fandom. Kanna is exemplary of why this is. She's got a fantastic character design, her little quips are often genuinely funny, and how little she talks allows her to combine child-like innocence with an odd brand of wisdom. That said, the most important aspect of her character is her relationship with her two mother figures, which is, like any relationship between the main trio, near perfect. Having spent considerably more time around Tohru, their relationship is more relaxed, with the two of them regularly chilling and playing together. It's nice, intimate, and comfortable.
Her relationship with Kobayashi is less comfortable, if just as loving. Due to Kobayashi's busy work schedule making her unable to spend much time at home, Kanna finds herself really craving her attention, and being very happy when she receives it. At the same time, being a clever little dragonling, she understands that Kobayashi is busy and doing her best to support her and Tohru, and will often go out of her way to quietly accommodate her, and not put too much pressure on her. Kobayashi will in turn often notice this, and go out of her way to make room for Kanna in return. It's a simple and somewhat repetitive dynamic, but it's used so sparingly and with such masterful touch that a lot of the show's emotional high points come from moments like this.
The side cast isn't a major focus of the show, but it's pretty appropriate. Almost every "dragon" could be reasonably interpreted as being somewhere on the LGBT spectrum (aside from Elma, I would argue), but these are very much obscure side-traits. They're a colorful enough bunch, and there's a couple nice relationships they participate in (particularly Tohru's almost sisterly relationship with Lucoa, which I thought was woefully underused), but they're almost entirely defined by one personality trait, and only ever show up to participate in comedic scenes. Aside from Lucoa (whose main gag of "she has ridiculously large tits and that's funny" basically never works), they're amusing enough, and the show knows to use them in moderation, usually in very short scenes to act as a buffer between scenes with the main cast.
The observant viewer (or one with half a brain cell) will have realized I missed out Kobayashi herself here, and that's because I wanted to be done with everyone else before I began gushing over how great this character is. Kobayashi is a middle-aged, tired IT worker who lives in an apartment with clothes thrown around all over the place, mostly eats takeout, and often gets drunk. This is precisely the kind of character that would normally be portrayed in a negative light. The usual direction this character is taken is that they hate their job, feel stuck in a rut, and turn to alcohol to dull the pain. Instead, Kobayashi is portrayed in a way that is a lot more representative of the great majority of human beings in real life. She doesn't hate her job, nor does she particularly love it. Because of her strong work ethic by the time she gets home she's just too tired to put away her clothes or cook. Most shocking of all, her drinking isn't a problem, it's simply a way she likes to occasionally cool down and spend time with her friends, even if she does sometimes get drunk enough to wander into the woods, meet a dragon, and forget about it the next morning.
It's amazing how rare this is. In fiction, characters who aren't in love with their job are stuck in a dead-end job they hate. If their house is messy, it's a sign of their deteriorating lifestyle, and anyone who ever gets actually drunk is clearly an alcoholic who needs help. Kobayashi manages to just be a regular person despite (or even because) of all these traits. She's not incredibly happy with it, but her life isn't in a state of disrepair, nor does she hate it by any means. Kobayashi is leading a completly healthy, normal life. This isn't a story of Tohru showing up and fixing someone's shitty life, it's a story about how Tohru elevates Kobayashi's perfectly fine life.
This has a massive amount of fantastic ramifications throughout the show. Kobayashi's life feels surprisingly grounded, which helps us believe in the world presented to us. It also means no one is "the weak one" in the relationship. Usually, this story would've had Tohru pulling Kobayashi out of her rut. This way, when Kobayashi helped Tohru, it would've felt like she's overcoming her weakness, and made the event about the fact that Kobayashi is able to do this at all rather than her choice to do it. It also would've made the delightful dynamic between her and Tohru feel awkward: Kobayashi, to use a term that I've never liked, is decidedly the one who wears the pants in the relationship. She's the one that goes out and earns a living while Tohru stays at home, looking after the house and Kanna, and the one that the bulk of the decision-making falls on.
It's a very traditional dynamic, one that I know excessively progressive people would disagree with being presented positively on principle, but it works fantastically because of all the effort the show goes to to demonstrate that it's both consensual on both sides and that it just works for these two. Despite the very clear distribution of responsibility, it's demonstrated that both Kobayashi and Tohru are more than content to have the relationship work this way, and that it makes them both happy to care for and support their significant other in the way they do. The show also goes out of its way to make sure that neither Kobayashi and Tohru think they're owed any of what the other is giving them: they're both obviously incredibly grateful that the other is as giving as they are, which only makes them more willing to keep giving themselves.
Kobayashi herself is the only character that grows significantly, as the show is mostly just focused on providing us with snippets out of her and Tohru's daily life. Her arc is an incredibly subtle one, taking a very removed back seat to the rest of the story. For the first few episodes, it revolves around her feelings towards Tohru and Kanna changing from "friends" to "wife and daughter", later changing to be a gradual realization of the myriad small ways that her newfound family has changed her from a normal woman to a very happy one.
As much as both Tohru and Kobayashi are happy in their relationship, there is some friction. The way they show and expect to be shown affection differs, and their attitudes toward certain things are drastically opposed. For most of the show these are small, niggling little things that don't really matter. However, they do build up, combining with Tohru's aforementioned internal lifespan-difference related conflict, and it results in an uncharacteristically dramatic climax to the show. It's still very low-key and calm compared to what one would expect from most romance, but it's deeply effective and stands out a lot precisely because the rest of the show is so bereft of any sweeping emotional moments. The climax to Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid is a fantastic one. It lets us see different sides of all our main characters, pulls at the heartstrings just enough to be resonant without ruining the otherwise upbeat atmosphere and ends the show on a deeply satisfying, near perfect, note.
Despite how long I've waffled on about it, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid is a very simple show. It presents us with a few simple characters and has them interact, content in the knowledge that they'll make the audience happy. The reason I've felt the need to say so much about it is that I think it's incredibly easy to dismiss this as being an unremarkable achievement. Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid really doesn't have much to say, but what it does have is near perfect craftsmanship. I've spent enough time in the online anime community to know this show will be dismissed by many as just another damn moeblob show, pointless fluff that doesn't do anything more than entertain. This'll doubtless be the assessment of many people who don't even watch the show, - it was mine for a decently long time, and I feel ashamed for that - but it'll also be the conclusion an unfortunately high proportion of those that actually watch the show come to.
This isn't a show with much to say, but it does have something to say. Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid is a show about how people who genuinely, deeply love each other can improve each other's lives, and is simply content to let the audience bask in the glow of these people's happiness. The warm, happy feeling that people in the online anime community are entirely too quick to dismiss is the result of a masterfully crafted romance, exploring a part of the genre that isn't touched upon nearly often enough. It's a product of interesting character dynamics, that just happen to overwhelmingly produce contentment in the incredibly well-defined, nuanced characters rather than drama. The fact that Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid makes you happy rather than sad isn't a point against it. What could be a point against this show is its lack of depth, which I think I've proven is not a good argument.
Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid main couple of characters are both nuanced, not in their internal growth, but in their relationship with each other. Even as the show was ending, I was noticing new things about the way their dynamic worked, about how they showed in the smallest little details just how much they cared for one another. It's a relationship without real complications: there's not much drama, it's formed very quickly and effortlessly, and there's no real threat of it ending. This does not make this an unnuanced, uninteresting relationship. I would, in fact, argue, this is one of the most nuanced relationships in all of anime. It's a true master-class on how simple, well-defined characters are interesting to watch bounce of each other by the simple fact of them being incredibly well-defined.
10/10
Hands down the best anime romance I've seen, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid is a show that is a joy to watch due largely to its masterful character writing. It's rooted in an absolutely delightful untraditional take on a romance, opting for exploring what makes a good relationship work rather than the usual melodramatic stylings of the genre. The worst thing about it is how a community that is too easily dismissive of anything that falls outside certain groupthink-dictated boundaries, and is unwilling to turn a critical eye on the minutiae of good writing, will almost certainly not give it the respect it's due.
Kobayashi, a quiet and reserved IT worker wakes up hung over one morning. Upon exiting her apartment, she meets a massive dragon, who transforms into a girl in a maid outfit, introduces herself as Tohru and expects to be allowed to work for her due to an agreement the two made the previous night whilst Kobayashi was drunk.
This seems like a traditional set up for a show of this kind: a straight-man protagonist is saddled with a wacky, usually supernatural hanger-on that they get into all sorts of comedic hijinks with. As such, I was surprised by how little of this there was in Ms Kobayashi's Dragon Maid. There are definitely amusing shenanigans that go on, but after the first couple of episodes, they take a back seat to simply observing the daily lives of Kobayashi and Tohru, as well as young dragonling Kanna, whom they adopt, and a decently-sized supporting cast of colorful characters composed of similar dragon-human pairings.
The main draw of the show comes precisely in what the most time is spent on: the relationship between Kobayashi, Tohru and Kanna. I'm going to go straight for the throat here: Kobayashi and Tohru are a couple, and Kanna is essentially their adopted daughter. It's never made explicit in the show (Tohru does explicitly say she's romantically attracted to Kobayashi, but the reverse is only ever implied, if incredibly heavily), but it's there as clear as day. I'm not a fan of shipping, or making relationships that aren't textually explicit "head-canon" (in fact I'm mostly very opposed to the idea, since this thinking usually misses the point), but Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid makes its romance as blatantly clear as possible without confessions of love or kisses, and is very obviously centered around it. If you don't read Kobayashi and Tohru as essentially being in a relationship, the whole show is a pointless exercise in boredom with basically nothing of interest happening, the very bottom of the moeblob barrel.
In my mind, there's five clear stages to a relationship. There's the period before the relationship is there. There's the formative stage, where the parties involved realize there's an attraction and get together. There's the relationship stage, when people are just in a relationship. In most relationships, there's two stages after that: the breaking apart stage, and all the time after the relationship.
There's stories to be told about all of these: say longing to find someone special in the before stage, the traditional romance story in the formative stage, exploring relationship dynamics in the relationship stage, character exploration in the breaking apart stage, and possible grief in the after stage. Despite this, almost every romance story is about the formative stage. I can see why: it's the story with the most obvious arc (meeting, realization, hesitation, consummation), and the one that art has told the most stories about, making it more likely to inspire more similar stories. There's a decent amount in the breaking stage, and the after stage as well. The before stage and the stable relationship stages, obviously being the hardest to make a compelling story about, get next to no love.
Part of what makes Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid special is that it's a story about the stable relationship stage. After the first two episodes, dedicated to introducing the characters, Kobayashi and Tohru are just together. They're just happily in love with each other, and functionally together. Instead of exploring how a relationship is formed, or what happens when a relationship breaks apart, Ms Kobayashi's Dragon Maid explores how relationships work, and how the people within them genuinely improve each other's life.
This might sound very saccharine, and it honestly kind of is. The entire show is a feel-good, colorful pleasant little romp. That said, despite being one of the sweetest shows I've ever watched, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid is surprisingly grounded, understanding that people genuinely need to make sacrifices for their loved ones. Medium sized-spoilers in the rest of the paragraph, since I'm talking about an example of this. One of my favorite episodes revolves around Kobayashi having to do overtime at work in order to be able to be at Kanna's sports day at school, which Kanna is very enthusiastic about her attending. She wonders throughout the episode whether she wants to do this: Kobayashi doesn't really like the idea of going to the festival, and she doesn't want to do overtime, being overworked enough. Kanna, understanding this, ends up telling her it's fine if she doesn't go. This makes up her mind: Kobayashi doesn't want to go, but she should go, and go she does. She ends up having a good time, but that's not the point. The point is that she was willing to give Kanna what was needed.
It's this back-and-forth approach, where both ends of the relationship are willing to compromise more in favor of the other because of just how damn much they both care, that make the relationships feel real. This dynamic in particular is central to the relationship between Tohru and Kobayashi. They're both willing to sacrifice their own comfort for the other, and are rewarded with the same amount of care and loyalty in return. The show manages to walk a very tight rope here: stray too much towards the "they care for each other" angle, and it turns into unbearably saccharine dreck. Emphasize what they're sacrificing for each other too much, and you end up telling a depressing story about two people who allegedly care for each other making their partner's life worse. Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid manages to make it clear that these people are willing to do this for each other because they love each other, and that there's very little pressure (usually none at all) put on them to behave this way: this is entirely their choice.
This wouldn't mean anything if I didn't like the characters, and Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid manages to put in punch where it counts. The main trio are all great. Whilst Tohru initially comes across as the annoying energetic type, it quickly becomes clear there is more to her than this. She's quietly giving in almost every way, more than willing to put in effort to make others happy. Being the only one here that is literally said to be in love, Tohru is also allowed a very open adoration of Kobayashi that just makes me happy. The way she genuinely seems to look up to her in every way, and the many subtle ways in which it becomes apparent that Tohru is happier whenever Kobayashi is around are incredibly heart-warming. There's a purity in her relationship with Kobayashi, a sort of naive, full-hearted awe and adoration. In the later parts of the show, Tohru has some pretty serious internal conflict over her relationship with Kobayashi, specifically in how she must deal with dragon's lifespans being much longer than humans. It's not particularly deep or even novel, but it gives her character a nice extra bit of depth, and builds up well to the show's emotional climax.
Kanna is equally great. She's a lot more archetypal than either of the other two, but she works, damn it. She's a pretty textbook deadpan child, but I'll remind the reader that this is a character archetype that seems to obtain almost universal love in the fandom. Kanna is exemplary of why this is. She's got a fantastic character design, her little quips are often genuinely funny, and how little she talks allows her to combine child-like innocence with an odd brand of wisdom. That said, the most important aspect of her character is her relationship with her two mother figures, which is, like any relationship between the main trio, near perfect. Having spent considerably more time around Tohru, their relationship is more relaxed, with the two of them regularly chilling and playing together. It's nice, intimate, and comfortable.
Her relationship with Kobayashi is less comfortable, if just as loving. Due to Kobayashi's busy work schedule making her unable to spend much time at home, Kanna finds herself really craving her attention, and being very happy when she receives it. At the same time, being a clever little dragonling, she understands that Kobayashi is busy and doing her best to support her and Tohru, and will often go out of her way to quietly accommodate her, and not put too much pressure on her. Kobayashi will in turn often notice this, and go out of her way to make room for Kanna in return. It's a simple and somewhat repetitive dynamic, but it's used so sparingly and with such masterful touch that a lot of the show's emotional high points come from moments like this.
The side cast isn't a major focus of the show, but it's pretty appropriate. Almost every "dragon" could be reasonably interpreted as being somewhere on the LGBT spectrum (aside from Elma, I would argue), but these are very much obscure side-traits. They're a colorful enough bunch, and there's a couple nice relationships they participate in (particularly Tohru's almost sisterly relationship with Lucoa, which I thought was woefully underused), but they're almost entirely defined by one personality trait, and only ever show up to participate in comedic scenes. Aside from Lucoa (whose main gag of "she has ridiculously large tits and that's funny" basically never works), they're amusing enough, and the show knows to use them in moderation, usually in very short scenes to act as a buffer between scenes with the main cast.
The observant viewer (or one with half a brain cell) will have realized I missed out Kobayashi herself here, and that's because I wanted to be done with everyone else before I began gushing over how great this character is. Kobayashi is a middle-aged, tired IT worker who lives in an apartment with clothes thrown around all over the place, mostly eats takeout, and often gets drunk. This is precisely the kind of character that would normally be portrayed in a negative light. The usual direction this character is taken is that they hate their job, feel stuck in a rut, and turn to alcohol to dull the pain. Instead, Kobayashi is portrayed in a way that is a lot more representative of the great majority of human beings in real life. She doesn't hate her job, nor does she particularly love it. Because of her strong work ethic by the time she gets home she's just too tired to put away her clothes or cook. Most shocking of all, her drinking isn't a problem, it's simply a way she likes to occasionally cool down and spend time with her friends, even if she does sometimes get drunk enough to wander into the woods, meet a dragon, and forget about it the next morning.
It's amazing how rare this is. In fiction, characters who aren't in love with their job are stuck in a dead-end job they hate. If their house is messy, it's a sign of their deteriorating lifestyle, and anyone who ever gets actually drunk is clearly an alcoholic who needs help. Kobayashi manages to just be a regular person despite (or even because) of all these traits. She's not incredibly happy with it, but her life isn't in a state of disrepair, nor does she hate it by any means. Kobayashi is leading a completly healthy, normal life. This isn't a story of Tohru showing up and fixing someone's shitty life, it's a story about how Tohru elevates Kobayashi's perfectly fine life.
This has a massive amount of fantastic ramifications throughout the show. Kobayashi's life feels surprisingly grounded, which helps us believe in the world presented to us. It also means no one is "the weak one" in the relationship. Usually, this story would've had Tohru pulling Kobayashi out of her rut. This way, when Kobayashi helped Tohru, it would've felt like she's overcoming her weakness, and made the event about the fact that Kobayashi is able to do this at all rather than her choice to do it. It also would've made the delightful dynamic between her and Tohru feel awkward: Kobayashi, to use a term that I've never liked, is decidedly the one who wears the pants in the relationship. She's the one that goes out and earns a living while Tohru stays at home, looking after the house and Kanna, and the one that the bulk of the decision-making falls on.
It's a very traditional dynamic, one that I know excessively progressive people would disagree with being presented positively on principle, but it works fantastically because of all the effort the show goes to to demonstrate that it's both consensual on both sides and that it just works for these two. Despite the very clear distribution of responsibility, it's demonstrated that both Kobayashi and Tohru are more than content to have the relationship work this way, and that it makes them both happy to care for and support their significant other in the way they do. The show also goes out of its way to make sure that neither Kobayashi and Tohru think they're owed any of what the other is giving them: they're both obviously incredibly grateful that the other is as giving as they are, which only makes them more willing to keep giving themselves.
Kobayashi herself is the only character that grows significantly, as the show is mostly just focused on providing us with snippets out of her and Tohru's daily life. Her arc is an incredibly subtle one, taking a very removed back seat to the rest of the story. For the first few episodes, it revolves around her feelings towards Tohru and Kanna changing from "friends" to "wife and daughter", later changing to be a gradual realization of the myriad small ways that her newfound family has changed her from a normal woman to a very happy one.
As much as both Tohru and Kobayashi are happy in their relationship, there is some friction. The way they show and expect to be shown affection differs, and their attitudes toward certain things are drastically opposed. For most of the show these are small, niggling little things that don't really matter. However, they do build up, combining with Tohru's aforementioned internal lifespan-difference related conflict, and it results in an uncharacteristically dramatic climax to the show. It's still very low-key and calm compared to what one would expect from most romance, but it's deeply effective and stands out a lot precisely because the rest of the show is so bereft of any sweeping emotional moments. The climax to Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid is a fantastic one. It lets us see different sides of all our main characters, pulls at the heartstrings just enough to be resonant without ruining the otherwise upbeat atmosphere and ends the show on a deeply satisfying, near perfect, note.
Despite how long I've waffled on about it, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid is a very simple show. It presents us with a few simple characters and has them interact, content in the knowledge that they'll make the audience happy. The reason I've felt the need to say so much about it is that I think it's incredibly easy to dismiss this as being an unremarkable achievement. Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid really doesn't have much to say, but what it does have is near perfect craftsmanship. I've spent enough time in the online anime community to know this show will be dismissed by many as just another damn moeblob show, pointless fluff that doesn't do anything more than entertain. This'll doubtless be the assessment of many people who don't even watch the show, - it was mine for a decently long time, and I feel ashamed for that - but it'll also be the conclusion an unfortunately high proportion of those that actually watch the show come to.
This isn't a show with much to say, but it does have something to say. Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid is a show about how people who genuinely, deeply love each other can improve each other's lives, and is simply content to let the audience bask in the glow of these people's happiness. The warm, happy feeling that people in the online anime community are entirely too quick to dismiss is the result of a masterfully crafted romance, exploring a part of the genre that isn't touched upon nearly often enough. It's a product of interesting character dynamics, that just happen to overwhelmingly produce contentment in the incredibly well-defined, nuanced characters rather than drama. The fact that Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid makes you happy rather than sad isn't a point against it. What could be a point against this show is its lack of depth, which I think I've proven is not a good argument.
Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid main couple of characters are both nuanced, not in their internal growth, but in their relationship with each other. Even as the show was ending, I was noticing new things about the way their dynamic worked, about how they showed in the smallest little details just how much they cared for one another. It's a relationship without real complications: there's not much drama, it's formed very quickly and effortlessly, and there's no real threat of it ending. This does not make this an unnuanced, uninteresting relationship. I would, in fact, argue, this is one of the most nuanced relationships in all of anime. It's a true master-class on how simple, well-defined characters are interesting to watch bounce of each other by the simple fact of them being incredibly well-defined.
10/10
Hands down the best anime romance I've seen, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid is a show that is a joy to watch due largely to its masterful character writing. It's rooted in an absolutely delightful untraditional take on a romance, opting for exploring what makes a good relationship work rather than the usual melodramatic stylings of the genre. The worst thing about it is how a community that is too easily dismissive of anything that falls outside certain groupthink-dictated boundaries, and is unwilling to turn a critical eye on the minutiae of good writing, will almost certainly not give it the respect it's due.
