English Dub Review: Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid “Sports Festival! (There’s No Twist or Anything)”

Because you can always trust the guy who wrote the episode title.

Spoilers Below

Kanna’s school is having a Sports Festival! Relay races, tug of war, dodgeball, so many competitions! It’s homeroom class versus class, and each grade is participating. Kanna’s getting pumped for it! Well, I mean, I assume she’s getting pumped. She’s so deadpan. But it’s cute deadpan. Cutepan? Yup, it works. #Cutepan spread it around. See, in the description of the activities, she’s getting flashbacks to her favorite rampaging-dragon games. Like, throwing fireballs for dodgeball. Ah, the precious times of youth. It’s customary for parents to attend the festival, and cheer their little ones on. Kanna comes up and asks Kobayashi. No can do, that’s the day before her big deadline. She has too much work to do.

Depressed, Kanna goes the closest to a childish pout as we’ve ever seen. I say closest. She’s still pretty reasonable, TBH, but that’s only because she’s cutepan. Kobayashi doesn’t quite get why it’s so important that she goes. Tohru explains. You see, the Kamuis (Kanna’s parents) have a hands-off policy when it comes to parenting. When it comes to dragons, that means rolling the egg out of the lair before she hatches and starts swiping one of your hills of gold and jewels. Kanna really wanted their attention but used all sorts of pranks to get it. That is what got the little tyke banished into our crummy reality. Since then, Kobayashi has been more of a mother to the little dragon than her real mother ever was.

After conferring with her classmates, Kanna comes to Kobayashi, and releases her from the burden of coming. It’s really just important that she works together with her classmates, right? Oh, now that hits Kobayashi. Guilty, guilty, guilty. So, the programmer turns to Tohru and informs her that she will be coming home later the next few nights. She burns the midnight oil, tearing into her work with abandon. Takiya, kind man that he is, stays with her and lends whatever help he can. Next, drinking night is on her. All this work together, She completes her project ahead of the deadline, and frees herself up to cheer Kanna on in her athletic endeavors.

First, is the three-legged race. Kanna is paired up with her best friend, Riko. The big-browed brunette, however, is just a little too excited to be all tied up and rubbing against Kanna. She loses all coordination, and the two fail their class for the event. Next is a treasure hunt, and we get so see Shouta in the fifth grade. He picks up his note, takes one look at it and runs over to retrieve… Lucoa? The judge, seeing the dragon-lady bounce as she runs, accepts this entry, and Shouta wins. What was the subject? “World Class”. Oh. I don’t know, I would have pegged those girls as more of “Globetrotters”. All the same, his classmates congratulate him on his “Older Sister”. So, Kanna’s grade is now up to do jump rope! Oh, they’ve been practicing. With ease, the entire homeroom jumps the rope sixty times! Much longer than the other classes.

Back to Shouta, as his group does Kibasen, or Cavalry Battles. Shouta gets up on the shoulders of his three friends. From that perch, he knocks all the enemy riders from their perch. This isn’t at all hard. For some reason, all the other teams were really distracted… By Lucoa cheering on her “Shouta Baby”. And jumping up and down. And jiggling. Yeah, his classmates can’t get enough of the elder dragon. Kanna’s team is now facing down the challenge of Tug-Of-War. At first, it’s neck and neck, but Riko gets an accidental brush from Kanna. She convulses in a toe-curling frenzy, pulling the rope back to their side in the process. Wow. That’s the power of love, I guess. Better queue a sports montage, just to speed things along.

In the final event, the relay race! Class 2 is doing really well, just barely keeping ahead of Class 1. Riko is the second to last, and she really puts some distance between herself and the pack. But, what’s this? She drops the baton! Having to go back for it costs her the lead, putting her significantly behind. Could this be? Would Riko ruin yet another event for Kanna, and even worse, be the reason her class didn’t win the day? Tearfully, she apologizes to Kanna as she hands off the baton.

“I’ve got this”, Kanna replies. Now, we’re all expecting Kanna to take off the limiters and the weighted clothing, and barrel towards the finish with a sonic boom at her back. Nope. She runs at a very human speed, completely suppressing her draconic powers, but still taking the win. Their team is victorious! Not only does she get a very swank medal and a free juice from Kobayashi (complete with praise), but she’s taken off with Tohru and Lucoa to parts uninhabited to celebrate and really let her power fly unrestrained. It was a good day. And guess what? No twists! I guess we can trust the episode title guy after all!

So, this episode was a bit more slice-of-life-y. I don’t mind those, really. They’re funny and better at making these characters feel real. Riko and Lucoa were just over the top, and that was kinda funny I admit. Also, we are treated to little scenes in the middle where we see Elma in the middle of a series of dilemmas. You see, she has a very tough time making choices when presented with a large menu. Sweet bread? Ice cream? Toothpaste? She has the hardest time making up her mind! Now, Elma here is miss Rachel Glass’ first named character to voice act. As I said in the last episode, I felt she needed more time to settle into the character. This episode was great for that. Never once did Elma speak out loud, and Rachel’s performance was an internal dialogue. Nothing to sync. Just say the lines and emote. I felt like she’s picking up Elma pretty good in this episode, and look forward to hearing more of miss Glass in the future. She’s very cute. As a note, I’d like to thank Raebo911 for finding Rachel’s name for me.

Animation was just peachy. There were plenty of your typical anime shortcuts during the sports scenes, but the relay did give the feel of little kids running the race, so I’m fine. There was one shot early on where Kanna shouts something while upset. It was really well animated, and it made the shout more impactful. Altogether, this episode gets eight medals out of ten.