English Dub Review: Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid “Kanna Goes to School (Not That She Needs To)”

Preschool supplies, childhood popularity, dodgeball duels, and dragons. One of these things is not like the others.

Spoilers Below

Settled into the new apartment, Kobayashi & Co. get to see all new sights when they look out the window. This includes preschoolers walking to and from class. Kanna, whose human form resembles preschool girl, looks at them enviously. She wants to join in and make friends, so Kobayashi signs her up as if she were the woman’s daughter. That dragon is probably much older than her, though. This means, of course, the newly minted Kanna Kobayashi must get her hands on school supplies. Heading into the closest stationary store might give Kobayashi a case of nostalgia (all the stuff there is the same she used), but Kanna is not pleased with the offerings. She wants something… “cute”.

Another store has everything Kanna could need, and kawaii as a button. She doesn’t know what any of this stuff is, and Tohru’s obsession with torture implements doesn’t make things easier. Stamps are not for branding slaves. The backpack is just red, not cursed and soaked in human blood. Hijinx and hard erasers later, and we’re down to uniforms. Explaining the idea of school uniforms starts to delve into human nature, and our fear of things not like us. It doesn’t make sense, even to Kobayashi, but it is true. It is also linked to why we slay dragons on sight.

That, however, is not a problem during Kanna’s first day at school. The kids are all in awe of her intelligence, athleticism, and adorability. She makes a best friend in Riko Saikawa, a girl with a big and shiny forehead and a bit of an aggressive personality. The two hit it off when Riko comes after her… then promptly falls victim for her childlike wiles. After school, however, Riko’s confrontational nature gets both girls in trouble. Some teenage boys nearly hit her with their dodge ball, and she tells them off, challenging them to a dodge ball game for control of the playground. Kanna asks Tohru, Fafnir, and Lucoa for assistance.

Which is where things go horribly wrong. Four dragons and a preschooler versus five teens. Nobody dies, but oh, are egos bruised, battered, and deep fried. After the teenagers go off to lick their wounds, the dragons… challenge each other. Chunks are taken out of the play/battleground as super-charged dodge balls whizz around and terrorize everyone present. The battle is epic, and none of the combatants truly win. They lay there, exhausted, promising to fix the playground and neuralize the witnesses.

This episode was just what the Kanna ordered: Cute. Other than the slips into depressing human psychology, it was just fun and adorable. We are introduced to new settings and characters that the dragons are interacting with, but I’m feeling very little character growth in this episode. The dodge ball duel at the end is the same level of animation as the “dragon playtime” we saw in episode 2, and the English dubbing is the same par set by the rest of the series. I still feel like this is a relaxing show to chuckle to, but until there is some real character growth soon, I fear it may become a snooze-fest. Based on this episode alone, though, I give it eight cursed backpacks soaked red in the blood of humanity out of ten.