Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid

Episode 4

This episode of Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid has helped me make sense of my tortured middle school past – clearly I went to school (and played dodgeball with) dragons in human disguise. That's the focus of the second half of this particularly funny (and sweet) episode: Kanna-chan's pursuit of an elementary school education includes the delights of gym class, where the game of choice is dodgeball. Needless to say, Tohru approves as she spies on her charge. In her eyes, it's an amazing game where humans learn how to pick off the weak.

Naturally, Kanna is an amazingly good player, which leads to the debacle in the second half of the episode. Kanna has befriended Saikawa, a girl whose mouth has a tendency to start speaking before her common sense kicks in, and when she discovers that older kids have taken over her favorite out-of-the-way playground, she immediately starts insulting them and challenges them to a dodgeball duel over playground rights. A few of the big boys look like they would have backed down if she hadn't gone just a little too far with her taunting, so now two kindergartners have a scheduled face-off with a bunch of big middle schoolers or high schoolers.

Saikawa immediately begins to panic, but fortunately for her, Fafnir and Lucoa are visiting Chez Kobayashi, and the dragons quickly agree to play on her team. As you might guess, not much of a fight ensues, although to be totally fair, Lucoa's flowing breasts (screw physics!) are more deadly than her skill at lobbing a ball. Of course, once the humans are defeated, it's time for some dragon-on-dragon dodgeball, which kind of makes the whole saving-the-playground thing moot. It's not only a very funny fifteen minutes, but it also feels like tongue-in-cheek commentary on dodgeball as a playground game, acknowledging its violence through the dragons' exaggerated play.

Of course, before we can get to this point, Kanna has to actually enroll in school, filling out the episode's first half. Tohru misreads the younger dragon's longing as an urge to begin wiping out humanity starting with children her own age, but Kobayashi is more perceptive and offers to enroll Kanna in school. This leads them on a shopping trip for school supplies, which is as much a lesson for Miss Kobayashi as it is preparing Kanna to learn. As a childless woman, Kobayashi hasn't had to buy school supplies since she needed them herself, so she's unaware of the modern appetite for bling and cuteness. (Tohru, meanwhile, is unaware that a red backpack is not a cursed item soaked in human blood.) Thus their voyage of discovery becomes a treasure hunt, as Kanna looks for the sparkliest and prettiest school supplies she can find, and Kobayashi watches Kanna's face to figure out which things she really wants. There's also some very funny explanations of ordinary office supplies, such as a rubber stamp being a slave brand (Tohru wants to be branded right there in the store) and a stapler as a torture device based on a dragon's mouth.

This segment also allows us to revel in a sweetness that we perhaps didn't expect. There's a real air of family to the shopping expedition, as well as in simply helping Kanna enroll in school, where she goes by the family name “Kobayashi.” Tohru and Miss Kobayashi watch over her with expressions of parental doting on their faces, and Kobayashi notices when Kanna begins to worry that her supplies are too expensive, putting back a backpack charm she wanted rather than ask Kobayashi to spend even a little more money. After Kanna's first day at school, Kobayashi presents her with the charm as a gift in a truly heartwarming moment.

It's impressive that the show can manage to be both laugh-out-loud funny and touchingly sweet in the same episode. This has become an increasingly strong series by delivering a little more than you expect every week.

Rating: A-

Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.