The beginning of the end.
Impression
Tooru is the cutest and the best. She’s so perfect it hurts. I’m sorry, I know I must sound like a broken record by now. But I can’t help it! As promised, Maid Dragon raised the bar for its penultimate week, and the long-awaited flashback as to how Tooru and Kobayashi met was finally revealed this episode. And yes, you heard that right. Penultimate week. Now I can postpone killing myself until next Wednesday.
It’s really interesting to finally have this flashback shown in full, especially now that we’ve gotten very used to the current Tooru. I’d actually totally forgotten that her first meeting with Kobayashi was hinted at, way back near the start of the season. Seeing the former Tooru (i.e. an actual ferocious dragon and not a chorogon who speaks like a cute girl) made for a really nice contrast. It’s actually quite amazing how much Kobayashi has changed her. Think of the way she spoke to the Saikawa lookalike and the way she currently speaks to even random humans like the people in the shopping district. In general, I suspect that it might be worth revisiting some of the old scenes where Tooru talks about her life in her home world. The additional context, after this episode and possibly the next one too, might make it easier to understand her body language and some of the stuff she says. And of course, I have a feeling that this entire episode will end up being a pre-cursor to next week’s finale. Not only has it shown how much Tooru has changed, it’s brought up issues like how she’s made her own free choice to live as Kobayashi’s maid, much like not!Saikawa did. It’s quite obvious that the new dragon next week (possibly her father or someone from the chaos faction) is here to bring her back to their home world, and Tooru won’t want to leave at all.
Even though we’ve now seen how they first met, I’m still not that clear on why Tooru fell in love with Kobayashi. It’s can’t have too much to do with her pulling the sword out. And not!Saikawa was similarly friendly with and unafraid of her despite the fact that she was a huge, threatening dragon. It’s probably to do with how Kobayashi offered her a place to stay and to be with her. Tooru was really touched by that. Tooru was all alone and wounded, and Kobayashi selflessly helped her in her time of need. The two actually get along surprisingly well as just friends. I wonder what their relationship would have been like if she wasn’t Kobayashi’s maid. Something like what Takiya and Fafnir have, except without all that tsun? By the way, I’ve just realised that Elma’s all alone. She’s literally the only dragon not to have been paired off with a human. In almost all of her scenes, like in this episode’s, she’s by herself. I feel really bad for her now. Here’s an Elma.
The best gag this week was that moment when Tooru wanted Kanna to leave the kotatsu so she could sit beside Kobayashi, and Kanna just refuses instantly. My sides almost split. A close second was Lucoa spending the episode dressing properly after she finally realised that few too many people were complaining about her Lucoas. You know, if there’s any dragon who would actually hold villages on ransom in exchange for their young virgins, it would probably be Lucoa. Young virgin boys, that is. Also possibly Kanna, where young virgin girls looking like Saikawa are concerned.
