Review of Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid S

Kyoto Animation. What does that mean to you? Personally, I think that name is in association with a studio that has freedom in their work, or in particular, originality and creativity, even within adaptations that aren’t their own materials. The treatment The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya received is one of the reasons I favour it. Their identity in Hyouka rather gave me mixed receptions, and that’s one amongst the evidences that Kyoto Animation isn’t perfect. However, it’s genuine to say that I’m still in favour of their unoriginal works, and why shouldn't I? Returning to Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon, the first season was such aphenomenom. With just a little adjustment in comparison to the source, they had done wonder. The animation was fun to watch, quite lovely, and above all else, the anime clearly had progression. With such mindset from the prequel, I had expected its successor to maintain that flow for a while, and let the introduction of a new character be the twist leading to the end, though we wouldn’t have to make drastic changes. It would be just temporarily taking Iruru out of the equation, letting others develop their own relationships beforehand, and setting the latter half as the stage for the newbie to shine. In reality, the adaptation was just more or less the same as its parental content, and if I had to describe the progress in this season, it would be sitting on a rollercoaster that has a long and winding ascending, whose fall isn’t exactly equivalent to the ride it took. More visually, Phineas and Ferb’s at a fair. Iruru made her debut, but within that plentiful of the crew, her blending in wasn’t highlighted, either. The others, they had their moments, but their growth was just a bunch of scattered pieces, particularly the ship of Tohru x Elma. Oh well, as an entertainer, it sold, and in term of adapting, Kyoto Animation took all the right moves, so that is just my nonsensical opinion about their creative department, not to mention the available set of cards was certainly harder to align, and Kyoto Animation was not Yugi Mutou, either.

Sounding and artistry are always the impression of the studio, since we got plenty of plots, and the characters and animation were lively as hell. The soundtrack, nevertheless, is not catchy as that of the predecessor.

I found this particular season amusing, but I also don’t prefer how things were going. Along with the big disappointment of Violet Evergarden The Movie, I believe the creative team has yet recovered from that disastrous incident and the loss of Naoko Yamada and Yasuhiro Takemoto. Hope they will do better in the future, as Kyoto Animation is always a studio of my preference.