Last Seen: Episode 10
Summary: As Kobayashi sets off for another day at work, she opens her apartment door only to be met by an unusually frightening sight: The head of a dragon, staring at her from across the balcony. The dragon immediately transforms into a cute and energetic young girl dressed in a maid outfit, and introduces herself. The stoic programmer had come across the dragon the previous night on a drunken-stupor excursion to the mountains, and since the mythical beast had nowhere else to go, Kobayashi had offered the creature a place to stay in her home, and now Tohru has arrived as promised. Kobayashi immediately refutes it as impossible, but as she watches Tohru leave, her guilt, and a glance at the clock, convince her to allow her to stay...and rush her to work with the speed of a Dragon!
First Impression: At first, it seemed a simple comedy. It quickly becomes so much more.
My Opinion: As it turns out, this is actually the work of the same author behind "I can't Understand What my Husband is Saying". (I have relevant in-site links for once! Neat!).
As a quick summary, that show was the first ever short-form anime I had ever actually completed, and I love it so much. I believe I found this factoid out around about episode 3 or 4 of Dragon Maid, but I had already hooked myself on this show by that point. It just made for a lovely bit of trivia by then.
I have enjoyed this show so much, that I've actually re-watched all of the available episodes while I was waiting for 10 to release. Let me make a long story short by saying that with the way that my memory works, I never re-watch shows without at least a measure of years since the last watch, and even then it's usually only to show it to someone else, or because I learned something and want to see it for myself.
[Aside]
For example, Steins;Gate. That's a show I re-watched when at the end I noticed all of the amazing foreshadowing it had spiced that first episode with. It was amazing.
[Aside end]
That I re-watched a show while it is still airing is a glowing mark of quality.
What's appealing about this show? For starters, let me polish off the tin that probably looks rusty and dusty to most common anime viewers:
This is not a Moe show. It is not a fan-service show. It has a strong comedic tone. Most importantly of all, it is a light-hearted emotional comedy with a beautifully mature setting and tone, all throughout it. The characters are charming, the world is meaningful, and the story is heart-warming, and it all has a plot hiding behind it. Does it have Moe elements? Fan-service events? Over the top comedic happenings? Absolutely, but they're not the burning pillar in center stage. As a matter of fact, they're not even annoying or obnoxious. They happen because it's cute, or because it's funny, and then the show moves on without shining a god-damned neon-spotlight all over it.
As a matter of fact, while I was trying to confirm that this released in January for this blogs tags, I came across an article written about this show, and it sums up my opinion perfectly. Credit to the writer, who I now Quote:
"It could have been so easy for Dragon Maid to treat Kobayashi and Tohru's relationship as a fanservice-laden romp with minimal plot and character progression. And yet with each new episode, we see Tohru's one-sided adoration of Kobayashi evolve into something that, while Kobayashi doesn't explicitly accept as romantic, is still incredibly reminiscent of a parenting dynamic over their new dragon daughter, Kanna.
Kobayashi herself acknowledges that she's become the husband to Tohru's wife, and it's when the two fall into these "ordinary" roles that the series begins to shine. The snippy back and forth between characters makes them feel not like fantastical creatures imposing on a computer programmer, but a family unit we can relate to and laugh alongside with. Kobayashi and Tohru acting like a married couple is treated so matter-of-factly because their relationship isn't the entire point of the show. Unlike other anime that either pin a romantic or sexual relationship as their central conflict or one-note gag, Dragon Maid treats this like every other mundane aspect that makes up its slice-of-life style. The show's strength comes from how it normalizes relationships and finds humor in their mundanity, especially considering that dragons are involved."
On another note, I liked the show so much I picked up its manga, and after humming and hawing for awhile over it, continued reading even when I had caught up to where the anime was. I have some news to report thanks to that: This show will end well. The manga is still in progress of being translated to english, so that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how the anime is pacing itself. They've shuffled a few events around, and appear to be drawing a lot of content from a spin-off manga about Kanna (that I haven't read at all yet), and it appears that they're doing this to a purpose. They're either going to end the show on a quiet happy note, leaving it as a completely feel-good thought provoking show, or they're going to build up a climax that will succinctly end the current story, while hinting at the much larger plot that is building beneath the surface, that they've so far been subtly avoiding in the anime.
The fact that a short-form anime like "I can't understand" got two seasons is extremely promising combined with the methods the animation studio is currently using.
I dunno, I just thought this seemed like something positive to report on, given how pessimistic I usually am about endings and sequels.
Short story: Watch this. Watch it so hard, you watch it twice.
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