Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S is the second season, with 12 episodes and an OVA. It follows Kobayashi, working as a programmer in an office. Tohru is her maid, whose real identity is that of a dragon. Tohru is strong and possesses magic. In the first season, several other dragons had arrived and started living in the human world. This season continues the slice of life and doesn’t bring anything different or new to the anime. The first few episodes deal with the arrival of yet another dragon, Ilulu, who is slightly different in that she is aggressive against humans but eventually gets pacified by Kobayashi anyway.
After Ilulu joins the cast and family, things return to normal and it’s just the characters learning about the human world and experiencing new things. It is a comedy so there will be times where Kobayashi, being the somewhat reclusive person that she is, doesn’t quite know some of the things Tohru and Kanna is asking about. The writing and developers are predictable, it’s the characters that somewhat help alleviate this.
The anime does not have any stakes at play. Every so often, one of the dragons might react violently or get angry but it is mostly played for laughs. This season, we get to learn a lot more about the backstories of several of the characters, such as how Tohru and Elma met and became the enemies that they are now. Similarly, we see how Tohru and Fanir’s first explosive meeting was like, which was hard to fathom before consider Fafnir’s usual short temper. It’s a bit sweet seeing how innocent some of the characters could be, such as Ilulu and her quest to find a job that gives her satisfaction and fulfilment. It turns out that she is a nice dragon on the inside. Kanna remains the cute elementary girl that can really do no wrong.
Despite the first season focusing mostly on Kobayashi and Tohru, given the introduction of so many characters, each episode has various segments that each focus on a different character. This is either a good thing in that it adds a bit of variety, or a bad thing if you haven’t really grown attached to many of the characters. You might feel that the anime keeps going back to some characters that you may not like.
The events of each episode feel inconsequential, even for a slice of life anime. No matter what happens, there is generally no urgency in anything. The dragons that have come here, even when they might have been dangerous at first, will soon mellow and get used to human life. They will start to question their previous way of life. Then again, just when you think that the characters are normal, they would do something that reminds you that they are great magical beings. They can transform, use magic, and do all kind of things but are still so innocent. They have the same problems that humans do on the inside which is what makes them much more relatable.
The second half of the season has some better events where the comedy works better and as a result, is funnier. When Elma tries to fight for better working conditions, or when she looks after three children, it blends in normal worries with their dragon specific issues, to create something more interesting than normal. The dragons usually have some sort of anti-presence magic going on but whenever they accidentally slip up, due to a strong emotion that they’re feeling, it can be funny when they must wipe the memories of the humans that have seen them.
As there is no major plot, the season kind of just ends. It tries to close it off with a heartwarming gathering of all of the characters in an outing but still fizzles out. It doesn’t help that the OVA continues as if it is just another episode. The animators have once again resisted the temptation to do a fan service episode. The season does have its own share of fan service, but it isn’t too much or too frequence, it’s just mainly frequent comments and shots of the characters’ various chest sizes.
Overall, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S is more of the same. This is good or bad depending on whether you liked the first season or not. That said, the season provides a lot more context for each of the characters, so that we understand their motives a lot more. The characters, jokes and gags felt more natural this time around as the anime has managed to find its feet and strike a good balance between its various elements.
