Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S is Kyoto Animation’s big return to television after the horrific fire of 2019, along with the pandemic, so it feels right for them to come back with something as cheerful and heartwarming – and also horny on main – as Dragon Maid.

Dragon Maid S mainly adds a couple of new characters – mainly another dragon, Illulu, and a new human character, Taketo Aida, whose grandparents run the candy store where Illulu ends up working part-time. Otherwise, perhaps as something of a unique thing for second seasons of shows like this – the focus of the series remains on the characters we’ve already come to know over the first season.

Instead, we get a whole lot of attention to Tohru, Elma, and their lives in the other world. How the two related to their factions, to humans, and to each other. Ultimately, the series gets into how Tohru came to our world to be found by Kobayashi in the first place. It’s all very sweet, very well written, and very heartwarming story.

Which leads to the problems of the season. we still have Lucoa still perving on Shota. and on top of that we have Illulu having an even larger bust size than Lucoa. Add on top of that a (thankfully brief) poorly executed storyline where Illulu gives Kobayashi male genitals for a day (with Tohru getting hyper-thirsty in response) making for a tricky recommendation of the series, if the issues with Lucoa from season one soured you on this series.

Otherwise, I enjoyed it. The chemistry among the cast members is still great, and seeing more about Tohru’s backstory, and in particular telling the story of her baby-dragonhood in the other world is really strongly written, particularly how all of that builds up to her meeting with Tohru. It’s just that those early bits with Lucoa, combined with problems with Illulu’s absurdly over the top bust size, ends up making the series something it is impossible for me to recommend without an asterisk.

Still, I look forward to what the next full series from KyoAni is, and I hope it’s more of an unquestioned recommendation.

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S is available to stream from Crunchyroll.

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