Story & Character: Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid S doesn't take long to get going and, right away, introduces us a new dragon to our cast, Ilulu. She's very aware to how Tooru is living with a human and does everything in her power to get in the way. Past this, much of the story then takes time to show us how all of the supporting cast from the first season are doing. Everyone gets a fair bit of a screen time and they mix up who appears in each arc quite a bit. I really liked how they went about this because it's never focused on one particular character too much. One character may be focused on in a couple episodes back to back, but maybe we see three others interacting within the same few episodes. It's really well done and how character-focused stories really should about their story structure.
We see a very healthy amount of screen time given to each of our characters, whether they are dragon or human. Even Tooru's father and Mr. Magatsuchi get some screen time, which I certainly wasn't expecting. Our characters, human and dragon alike, continue to develop, with Tooru and Kobayashi obviously being the focus in the first few and final few episodes. Watching the dragons, in particular, learn more and more about human world adds so much to their character, such as Elma wanting to improve Kobayashi's working conditions and Fafnir wanting to give his works another try. Lucoa wasn't a character I was terribly enamored with in the first season, and I'd say she gets less screen time here. Ilulu is the main new addition to this series and past the first few episodes, she's not too heavily involved in the story. I mostly liked where they took her character, and she's yet another dragon who wants to learn more about the human world. What pushes this is her backstory, which was really nicely laid out to us.
The finale to this series is absolute perfection. I'm a bit of a sucker for series that involve the particular setting that they went for before the final scene, and they clearly take their time with this, which I really appreciated. There are times when the series gets a little too silly and heavy on fan-service, especially when Ilulu gets involved and might be my real only criticism that I have for the story itself. (Story: 9/10, Characters 9/10)
Art: It still amazes me at the kind of detail a series that isn't action-focused has on it's action scenes. It's extremely impressive, though maybe I shouldn't be with Kyoto Animation's reputation being on the rise, as of late. Even the main poster looks amazing, possibly the prettiest I've seen on MAL to date. It really goes to show going the extra mile is worth it. (10/10)
Sound: The OST is fine though I wouldn't say many of the tracks stood out. I wasn't really a fan of either the OP or ED. Voice cast were, once again, very strong with Sarah Wiedenheft (Tooru) still being the standout. Newcomer Kristi Rothrock (Ilulu) was a welcomed addition, someone whose work I'm actually really unfamiliar with. Macy Anne Johnson (Shouta) replaced Alison Viktorin after the latter's retirement, but this was a seamless transition. (9/10)
Overall Enjoyment: Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid S is a successful sequel to the well-liked Dragon Maid season that came before it. It's characters are fantastic and watching them adjust to the world of the humans is a joy to watch. It's really hard for me to pinpoint if I liked the first or second season more because they both had such a strong showing. However, that's not necessarily a bad thing! As wacky as the plot for Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid S sounds, give it, and it's prequel a try if you haven't seen it! (9/10)
