English Dub Review: Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid “The Strongest Maid in History, Tohru! (Well, She is a Dragon)”

Gotta love dragons.

Dragons are a respected member of the cryptozoological community. Their size, their power, the ageless wisdom all sitting on top of a mound of treasure. Their teeth are swords, their claws are spears, and their wings are hurricanes… And then there’s Tohru. I mean, yeah, Tohru is all those things, I guess, but… Let’s start at the beginning.

Kobayashi is an office worker. You know, the kind that works at a desk but you have no idea what they do? She lives alone in a tiny apartment and gets sloshed all the time. On one of her benders, she wanders into a forest and meets a green dragon named Tohru. Somehow, in her drunken stupor, she rescues said dragon.

The next morning, she wakes up to a private version of The Desolation of Smaug trailer, her front door filled with Tohru’s face. The great green one shrinks down into a cutesy, busty maid who has devoted herself to serving Kobayashi until her dying day. Of course, what does a dragon know of modern day Japanese culture? Or telephones. Or the internet. Queue the much-loved “Fish-Out-Of-Water” story. Throw in a dash of love triangle, as Tohru reads Kobayashi’s workmate as a rival and hates his guts. Did I mention that? Tohru isn’t just willing to serve, but to service, friends. Prepare yourself for yuri-tease.

This is a rather passable comedy. Beyond the rather trite tropes cited above, the writing takes advantage of Tohru’s dragon traits to make moments that are delightfully surprising and chuckle worthy. Dragonfire used to clean a room? Acid saliva for laundry? Would-be robbers driven off by a door full of dragon? This is just a small sampling. I did enjoy the writing and plot of the episode, but I felt the typical sexuality of what feels to be heading towards an Ah! My Goddess!-style harem anime was too overt. Beyond the obligatory bust-size jokes (“D Is For Dragon!”) and sudden nudity without showing anything, Tohru is brazenly open about her sexuality. There was no innuendo, no lead up, just outright stating that she was going to give her body to Kobayashi. Which brings up something else I find interesting. I’ve seen my share of harem animes, including out-of-this-world girl animes. What I find novel is that the central character is female, while the surrounding harem appears to be of mixed genders (from the cover art). Kobayashi stating unequivocally that she isn’t a into girls throws that for a loop. The plot feels like it’s leading one way, but little details suggest something else. I hope it will actually go somewhere, as relying on the “Fish-Out-Of-Water” gag will only take you so far. References to other dragons and flashbacks to dragon-slayers promise a few twists and turns that I’d be interested in seeing.

The art is not shabby. Lines are clean, color is clear. It wasn’t the focus of the production, but it wasn’t bad on the eyes. Animation was pretty much baseline, as telling a comedy of this nature rarely requires anything stellar. What I did enjoy was how they conveyed a sense of scale. Whenever Tohru returned to her true form, she felt big and powerful. Though much smaller, she gave me much of the same feeling as Shenlong from Dragonball, only amplified by the fact that her face looked just like him. She isn’t necessarily murderous (all the time), but you get the feeling she has the power to make your life a very unpleasant place if it were her whim. I liked that.

I feel the weakest point in this anime is the dub. The voice actors are well cast, and their voices fit the characters properly, but some scenes left me in a place where I was unable to understand any of what they were saying. This went double for Leah Clark’s performance as Kobayashi. In one scene, she begins shouting back and forth with her coworker about maids, and I couldn’t make out much of a word between them. Yeah, they’re drunk, but it was actually their shout-voice that made them impossible to hear, even through their impossibly proper diction for having a buzz. At other points, Kobayashi was so bland and monotone, I had trouble understanding her.

In summation, it’s funny. It hits many of the notes of modern anime tropes, but does so with its own style. The animation is solid, the voice acting could use a little touching up. Other than that, it isn’t anything that special, just… surprising and funny. I’m thinking of giving this series another couple of episodes before I pass final judgment on it, as it seems like it has an actual plot on the horizon somewhere. You don’t just keep citing Ragnarok and Fafnir for the heck of it, people! Something is going on. I give this anime seven dragon hoards out of ten.