maandag 17 april 2017

(Average) Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid

Series in one sentence:
Monstrous, potbellied dragons are actually cute human beings and have a 99% chance of being homosexual or a kiddy fiddler.

Series in more sentences:

A lethally wounded dragon flees to the modern human world after having fought a battle at her own home, but gets found and saved by a drunk woman late at night. 

Even though she's forced to listen to her nonsense afterwards, the dragon finds herself charmed by her saviour and shows up at her door the next morning, humanized and dressed as a maid, ready to serve; like her mistress proclaimed she wanted during her drunken ramble.
 


Well. It makes sense in the realm of the show? It truly was awkward, but I kept watching. Maybe it was the expectation that the portrayed relationships would grow into more meaningful ones, and someone would kiss someone at the end of the season. Sadly enough, I got nothing. The only relationship worth mentioning was between these two underage girls, and when keeping in mind the scenes they shared, I will go to jail for that comment.

Just what was this anime.


The relationship between Kobayashi and the dragon was lacklustre, which is a sin when you present these two as the main characters of the show. There was only one relationship more pointless than theirs; which was the one between the demon lord and Kobayashi's nerdy colleague. 

Playing online RPGs together sometimes is not a relationship, damn you. Though, the one between the walking breasts and the gender-confused child with the unimportant wizard background was pretty pointless as well.
 

The dragon was obviously crazy about her mistress, but Kobayashi never returned these feelings or clarified in helpful detail whatever it is she thinks of her otherworldly maid. She's an emotionless character, which is a trait I'm fine with, but in a story like this one, I would've liked to have seen more acknowledgement for the obsessive love directed at her. The way that dragon was busting her ass and got nothing in return was rather sad. Why she's in love with Kobayashi also confuses me, as the person she fell for is only present when the woman's wasted. She is quite boring and distant, otherwise.
Even so,
I liked Kobayashi fine enough when the series was still running, but she
is what made the ending atrocious and Ima spoil it for you for the sake of this argument I started;


After the dragon gets taken away by her judgemental father, Kobayashi utters no meaningful response and keeps going on about her days, until she's allowed to have a stand-off with said father, where then she insults her loyal slave dragon by dubbing her a maid that she should own. Nothing else. And the dragon is somehow moved by this. How romantic and not exploitative at all.
It was clear by her treatment of her during the entirety of the series that she sees her as nothing but a maid, but it's disappointing that there was no grand conclusion that made her realize that she was anything else. Perhaps that's difficult to do when you're a heterosexual woman, but I truly don't know what Kobayashi is or isn't, and this anime proved to be so pointless, I still don't know.

There are some really good jokes, but I think the story as a whole will leave you unsatisfied.



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