Manga / Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid

Chu-chu yeah!^note L-to-R: Elma, Tohru, Lucoa, and Kanna. Not pictured: Kobayashi.

Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid (Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon 小林さんちのメイドラゴン) is a Slice of Life Urban Fantasy manga by Cool-Kyou Shinsha. It began serialization in the Seinen magazine Monthly Action in 2013.

Kobayashi was just a hard-working, otaku software programmer living in Tokyo until one night when she got as drunk as a skunk. In her soused-up stupor, she climbed a mountain, came across a wounded dragon named Tohru, and pulled a giant, divine sword out of her, saving her life. Before going home, Kobayashi told Tohru she could come live with her if she wanted. When she wakes up the next day, remembering nothing, she rushes off to work and runs into Tohru outside her apartment door. Having heard Kobayashi's drunken rants about maids, Tohru magically transforms into a mostly-human girl in a maid outfit, and declares that she will now devote her life to being Kobayashi's maid. Knowing nothing about maids or human society, of course.

In 2016, it was licensed by Seven Seas Entertainment and began release in North America in October of the same year.

The populatity of the work would spawn several 4-Koma style Spin-Offs focusing on secondary characters:

• Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: Kanna's Daily Life drawn by Kimura Mitsuhiro in December 2016
• Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: Elma's Office Lady Diary drawn by Kazama Ayami in August 2017
• Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon: Lucoa wa Boku no xx Desu (Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: Lucoa is my xx) drawn by Utamaro in January 2019
• Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: Fafnir the Recluse drawn by Nobuyoshi Zamurai in November 2020

All the spin-offs except Lucoa's were also licensed by Seven Seas Entertainment.

A 13-episode anime adaptation produced by Kyoto Animation ran during the winter 2017 anime season. It was directed by Yasuhiro Takemoto, with Yuka Yamada serving as series composer, Miku Kadowaki serving as character designer, and Nobuaki Maruki serving as chief animation director. A second season was announced in February 2019 under the title Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid S^note The "S" stands for "Super Supreme Second Life Start". While the future of the next season was up in the air for a while, in light of several of the show's key staff members (including director Yasuhiro Takemoto) being among the many victims of the 2019 arson attack on Kyoto Animation, it eventually premiered in July 2021, now being directed by Tatsuya Ishihara, with Takemoto being posthumously credited as Series Director. An ONA series titled Minidora (Mini Dragon) was released in April 2021 in the lead-up to season 2. Both seasons are available for worldwide streaming on Crunchyroll with subtitles, and with an English Dub on FUNimation here. A Latin American dub was also released.

A Vertical Scrolling Shooter game titled Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: Burst Forth!! Choro-gon☆Breath released on Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch on March 24, 2022 in Japan, with English language support; the game was licensed by Aksys Games and released in North America on August 25, 2022.

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This work contains examples of the following tropes:

Tropes 0-B

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The video games that the characters play in the anime are rendered in 3D, which works quite well because it makes them look like real video games.
• 6 Is 9: Happens in Kanna's Daily Life when Kanna's class is changing seating arrangements, and the students drew numbers to determine where they'd be placed. Saikawa, hoping to sit next to Kanna (who drew Seat 5) reacts in horror when she assumes she drew Seat 9, only to learn that she was holding it upside-down and actually drew Seat 6.
• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • Kobayashi asks Tohru and Kanna to play 'on her level.'
    Tohru: My back!! My back!!
    Kanna: I'm so tired I'm gonna die.
    Kobayashi: That's just mean. It totally is me, though.
  • In chapter 107, when Tohru and Elma have a discussion on marriage and what it means to each of them, Tohru feels she is practically married to Kobayashi by living together.
    Elma: Just living together ... huh. (Proudly and with glee) If that's the case then I'm married to all the people in this small city in this small country.
    Tohru: What's with that twisted logic? You're breaking the bigamy law.
    Elma: The punishment for bigamy is just a two year sentence. That's nothing.
    Tohru is silent before smiling and joining Elma in a laugh.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: In the manga, Ilulu's doll that her human friends gave her is never even hinted at until long after her Heel–Face Turn. In the anime, it's seen multiple times beforehand in flashbacks as early as the season 2 premier.
• Adaptational Modesty:
  • In the anime, (episode 3), the Imagine Spot scene where Kanna and Tohru licked each other clean was pixellated out, in the manga (chapter 11), it wasn't (even though genitals and nipples weren't shown).
  • In the anime, Kanna and Tohru had their clothes on when they meditated to gain (even more) superpowers (episode 5), in the manga (chapter 18), they hadn't (again, their nipples and genitals were covered by hair).
  • In the second episode of Dragon Maid S, when Kobayashi wakes up to see Kanna sleeping with her during the period where Ilulu turns her into a man, Kanna is seen in her usual yellow nightgown. In the manga (chapter 37), she is shown completely naked (again, no genital or nipples were shown).
  • When Taketo first gives Ilulu her work uniform, she starts getting changed right in the middle of the store before he freaks out. In the manga, she's shown from the front with nothing but bandages covering her nipples, while the anime shows her from behind.
  • When Kanna first arrived in New York City in the manga, her panties were visible during the establishing shot of the Statue of Liberty. In the anime version of the scene, Kanna's dress fully covers her underwear.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: All of the female dragons were given multicolored hair in the anime.
• Adaptation Expansion: The anime adds many things.
  • Episode 1 adds a scene to explain how Tohru knows what maids are supposed to look like. Long story short, she saw two girls advertising a maid cafe during her flight to Kobayashi's house.
  • Episode 3 kicks off with Kobayashi deciding to move house because there's not enough room for her, Tohru and Kanna.
  • Episode 4 sees the Kobayashi household buying school supplies for Kanna.
  • Episode 6 concludes with a look at Makoto and Fafnir's home life. Also, we actually get to see Kobayashi's and Georgie's conversations involving maids.
  • In Episode 7, the first half's Beach Episode features much more than the manga. Lucoa and Shouta also come with the group, and a sunblock-applying session, brief swimming race, watermelon smashing game, and Lucoa's swimsuit antics are all added.
  • The first half of Episode 9 shows Kobayashi working extra hours so she can get the day off to go to the sports festival at Kanna's school (it was Parents' Day in the manga). The second half is original to the anime, showing the sports festival itself.
  • Episode 10 is an anime original, featuring the cast putting on their own take on The Little Match Girl for an old folks' home at Christmas.
  • Episode 11 features an extended version of chapter 3 of Kanna's Daily Life when everyone goes to a shrine for New Year's. It also has several anime original segments of Kobayashi, Tohru, and Kanna staying under a kotatsu.
  • Episode 12 begins with an extended version of chapter 12, featuring Tohru doing the housework and shopping before making omurice.
  • Episode 13 is based off of chapters 19 & 20, except Tohru's father takes her home, she escapes to find Kobayashi, and he comes to take her back again. It ends with the Kobayashi household on a visit to Kobayashi's family home.
  • The OVA added extra scenes for the Valentine's Day segment focusing on the rest of the cast and more activities during the hot spring's trip.
  • Episode 4 of season 2 has Ilulu come along on the amusement park trip. In the manga, she chose to stay home because she wanted to sleep. The anime version also adds a couple more scenes involving Kanna and Saikawa (along with Ilulu) while adding the idea of Georgie taking pictures of them as she works at different sections of the park.
  • Episode 6 of season 2 has an anime original segment where Kanna and Saikawa taking a trip down the riverbank on a dare from one of their classmates, though it does borrow several story beats from the camping trip in chapter 59 like Elma showing up in full dragon form.
  • Episode 8 of season 2 has an anime original segment of Shouta trying to make a talismen as a gift for Father's Day.
  • Episode 10 of season 2 has an anime original segment of Kobayashi and Kanna spending the day together over summer break, though it does draw influence from several chapters of Kanna's spin-off.
  • Episode 12 of season 2 adds several new scenes to the Festival Episode like Kanna and Ilulu spending time with Saikawa and Takeo respectively as well as the Kobayashi household shopping for yutaka beforehand.
  • The season 2 OVA takes the basic framework of Chloe's visit in Kanna's Daily Life and features appearances by the entire cast, as opposed to it just focusing on Kanna, Chloe, and Saikawa.
• Adaptational Sexuality: In the Japanese dub, Koboyashi does not confirm or deny her sexuality. In the English dub, she bluntly tells Tohru that she is straight.
• Adaptation Explanation Extrication:
  • In the manga, Tohru used magic to make the necessary paperwork for Kanna to go to school. The anime cut out this scene, instead opting for a sequence of the two of them and Kobayashi going out to buy school supplies, with Fafnir and Tohru's house-hunting in the next episode explaining how dragons deal with paperwork.
  • In The Stinger for the dodgeball chapter, Tohru explained that she put a shell of magic around the ball to keep it from breaking while they were playing. The anime cut this out, leading to a minor case of Fridge Logic for the viewer.
  • In the manga, the Hot Springs Episode comes after Ilulu's attack on Tohru, with Takiya specifically suggesting the trip because he knew something heavy had happened and wanted to give the others a vacation to ease their minds, as well as maintaining the sense of community between the group. Since Ilulu didn't show up in the first season of the anime, the OVA simply removes that part and has Takiya use the community explanation.
• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole:
  • Due to the chapters being adapted out of order, Lucoa and Fafnir checking up on Tohru during the dodgeball chapter loses most of its meaning. In the manga, it happened right after the whole debacle with Tohru's father, but it happened beforehand in the anime.
  • When Tohru's father takes her back home in the season 1 finale, Kobayashi makes no effort to ask the other dragons (outside of Kanna) for help despite having grown close to them over the course of the season. In the manga the event takes place much earlier (the end of the second volume), when Fafnir and Lucoa had only barely been introduced, while Elma had not yet even appeared.
  • Due to the change of how Kanna gets her hands on the chocolate that Tohru made, the anime adaptation of the Valentine's Day chapter leaves out the crucial plot point of how the Love Potion had no effect when consumed by a dragon (in the manga, Kobayashi is unaware of this, and ends up eating some of the chocolate when offered by Kanna because she assumed that if Kanna's eating it without any odd effects, it would be safe for her to eat as well).
  • In the manga, Kobayashi first learning about Tohru and Elma's past friendship and Ilulu meeting Saikawa were Synchronous Episodes. The anime places the former two episodes after the latter, so Kobayashi's comment about running into Elma seems to come out of nowhere.
  • Tohru is shown trying to teach both Kanna and Ilulu how to use the perception blocking spell in the anime despite an anime-original line while Ilulu was job hunting establishing that she had already learned it on her own.
  • It's unclear how Kanna managed to fly everywhere without being seen in dragon form in the anime during her trip to New York (which includes landing on Liberty Island in broad daylight), especially since she doesn't start learning perception blocking until the following episode. The manga lacks this issue since the two events happen in reverse order there.
• Alien Non-Interference Clause: Played with. The other world is far less advanced than Earth, but dragons are forbidden from killing humans on Earth since it could risk having the harmony/chaos war spill over and cause unfathomable destruction. Exactly how stringent various dragons treat this rule varies, with some looking down on others for living on Earth at all, some who are willing to bend the rules in a "hurt, but not kill" way, and some who just ignore it altogether.
• The Alleged Computer: After Fafnir's computer (a hand-me-down from Takiya) goes kaput after several months of 24/7 gaming, he decides to build a new one. However, he decides to build it entirely with parts that were usable but didn't sell well due to issues specific to each part, creating a formidable gaming rig that's also cursed by the built-up hatred dwelling in its parts. It's also sentient.
• Altar Diplomacy: Despite what they name would have you believe, the Harmony faction is not a single unified organization but rather a loose collection of political entities. As a result, they often take part in Arranged Marriages to maintain peaceful alliances with one another.
• Always in Class One: Averted in the anime (the manga never specifies what class they're in). Kanna and Saikawa are in class 3-2 and Shouta is in Class 5-3.
• Amusement Park: Kobayashi, Tohru, and Kanna go to one in chapter 50 (Ilulu chose to stay home because she was really tired in the manga, but comes along in the anime).
• Animation Bump: While the anime adaptation is generally well-animated thanks to the efforts of Kyoto Animation, fight scenes tend to become especially fluid in execution.
• Armor-Piercing Question: The Bandit does this to Tohru by accident when she asks her what the freedom of being a dragon is like. Tohru had never considered herself free and had never even wondered what she would do if she was.
• Armor-Piercing Response:
  • Kobayashi gives Elma one when she calls her rude for interrupting her conversation with Tohru. Pointing out that she destroyed her apartment with her entrance and should learn the rules of a world before trying to protect it.
  • In Elma's spin-off in chapter 36, Tohru comments about how she makes a rice dish that is well-balanced in flavors as well as nutrition. Elma comments with how much effort Tohru is putting into this well-balanced meal, she is surprised as that feels more like what a Harmony Dragon would do, not a Chaos. The narrator notes that Tohru's identity got shaken from this realization.
• Artistic License – Geography: Kanna's brief trip to America suggests that Cool-kyou Shinsha has a tenuous grasp of American geography. She accidentally lands in New York City, which is already a stretch (after flying away from Japan, she was looking for any city to land in, which would make her much more likely to wind up in a West-coast city like San Francisco or Seattle). But after befriending a wealthy girl named Chloe, Kanna finds out that Chloe is actually a runaway from Minnesota, which is a full 1,200 miles away from NYC! This would be an 18-hour drive, and there's no telling how a 12-year old runaway managed to make the trip on her own.
• Artistic License – Paleontology: Episode 6 shows a Quetzalcoatlus to associate with Quetzalcoatl/Lucoa, as the animal was named after the Aztec deity she's based on. Said Quetzalcoatlus is shrinkwrapped (the outlines of the bones are faintly visible), seemingly naked (although the art style makes it hard to tell), and has digitigrade feet and transparent wing membranes, but at it has the right proportions and anatomical features (pteroid bone, wings supported by fourth finger, etc.).
• Ascended Extra: In the anime, three of Kanna and Saikawa's classmates initially start off as background characters in the show's first season before being named and having more prominent roles in Dragon Maid S.
• Ascended Meme: The first two DVD shorts have Kanna and Tohru (1st short) and Lucoa (2nd short) arrested for public indecency. That is, someone lewded the dragon lolis.
• Background Magic Field: It's mentioned during Kanna's introduction that Earth is lacking in ambient mana (unlike the other world). While Tohru and Lucoa are able to produce their own, the other dragons have to convert other forms of energy (like electricity from outlets or fire from gas stoves) in order to recharge themselves.^note They can use the excess that Tohru and Lucoa produce, but it tastes terrible.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • In a chapter of Kanna's Daily Life where Kanna, after learning Ilulu's Gender Bender spell, accidentally casts it on Saikawa, one panel has a exterior shot of a restroom with Saikawa screaming inside, suggesting that she has noticed a "thing" that she's not supposed to have. Instead, the scream was due to her breaking one of the stall doors as she was opening it (with the spell, due to Kanna's inexperience, giving her some masculine traits rather than changing her anatomy).
  • In Chapter 100, during Tohru and Elma's contest on who can get a male Kobayashi to beat her heart faster, both of them eventually try to do this by going all nude... only for them to transform into their dragon forms.
• Bait-and-Switch Lesbians: Many readers of the manga expected a focus on the blossoming romance between Kobayashi and Tohru. Alas, most of the story focuses on the makeshift dragon family surrounding Kobayashi, with Kobayashi consistently rebuffing Tohru's advances.
• Beach Episode:
  • Kobayashi, Tohru and Kanna visit the beach in Chapter 16/the first half of Episode 7. Shouta and Lucoa join them in the anime. While the anime version adds some traditional beach antics and fanservice, it's mostly an introspective discussion about family and adulthood.
  • Another trip to the beach happens in Chapter 100. The big differences between this one is that not only do Elma and Ilulu also join in (along with Shouta and Lucoa in the manga version), but also thanks to an accident, Kobayashi is spending the day as a man.
• "Begone" Bribe: When Elma first invades the apartment, Tohru gets her to go away by offering her a bag full of creampuffs.
• Behemoth Battle: While most dragon fights involve one or both parties in human form, Tohru and Elma's falling out in the backstory had them both fighting in full dragon form, with the battle reducing an entire city to rubble and the final clash resulting in a Pillar of Light so large that it was visible from space.
• Big Applesauce: Chapter 62 involves Kanna spending a day in New York City after running away from home.
• Big, Thin, Short Trio: Kimun, Damocles and Telne form one in Chapter 84, with Kimun being the big one, Damocles being the thin one and Telne being the short one.
• Black Blood: Downplayed. The blood from the wound that Tohru had when she first met Kobayashi was black, but the blood sent flying when Kobayashi pulled out the sword was dark red. Truth in Television, as blood turns a green-black color when it dries, implying that Tohru had that sword stuck in her for a while.
• Bland-Name Product:
  • In the anime, Kobayashi has a checkerboard patterned game system that's labeled as "180". Another one of her systems is labeled "GS5".
  • Fafnir's private arcade in Kanna's Daily Life has cabinets for Sidewalk Warrior II, Codius, Spooks 'n Spirits and Pac Guy.
  • Chapter 70 features a toy store called TOY"S" PLUS (with the P in PLUS backwards).
  • Chapter 59 has Elma enjoy Priky (Pocky) and Maji biscuits (Meiji).
  • Some of the books shown in chapter 52 of Kanna's Daily Life include Erugon and Porry Hatter.
  • In chapter 79 Tohru and Ilulu go to a ANI QRO (UNI QLO) store.
• The Blind Leading the Blind:
  • When Kanna first moves into Kobayashi's apartment, Tohru takes her into town to teach her the "common sense" of Earth. While she does get a few details right, most of what she tells her is Entertainingly Wrong.
  • In one chapter of Elma's Office Lady Diary, Elma tries going shopping for trendy, work appropriate clothing. Naturally, the people she gets to help her are Lucoa, and Ilulu.
• The Body Parts That Must Not Be Named: When Kobayashi has her gender bent, she and Tohru (who are normally fine discussing sexual things) refer to her penis as "that", "one of those", or (in unofficial translations) a "thingy".
• Book Ends: Both the first and last episodes of the anime begin with a western style dragon flying over the city.
• Boring, but Practical: In chapter 34 of Elma's Office Lady Diary Tohru has made Kanna and Saikawa matching outfits for their trip to the zoo. The reasons are two girls dressed identically will help find one if one is missing by having a reference to show people, or because they are in matching outfits they will be more easily remembered if their chaperone is separated from them and needs to find them.
• Both Order and Chaos are Dangerous: Within the "Order" faction are dragons who go out of their ways to cause strife among the humans, such as by demanding Human Sacrifices to solve problems they could easily amend, others who abuse human laws to make themselves revered as gods, some who just want the excuse to lawfully kill Chaos dragons, and some who are borderline Lawful Stupid. Dragons in the "Chaos" faction include Knights Templar who think that Humans Are the Real Monsters who kill their friends and family, many who object to humans labelling dragons as Always Chaotic Evil, Social Darwinists who think that dragons are never morally fallible as long as they can kill anyone who tries to stop them, and many who are simply Chaotic Evil or Chaotic Stupid.
• Brain Freeze: In both the anime and Kanna's Daily Life, Kanna experiences it with someone else while eating cold food. In the anime, she and Kobayashi both experience it when they eat their parfait. Kobayashi expresses her surprise to learn that even dragons can experience it. In Kanna's Daily Life, she and Ilulu experience it when having shaved ice.
• Breath Weapon: All of the main six dragons in the series have been shown using theirs. However only Tohru and Elma have been shown using theirs in both dragon form and human form, the other four (Kanna, Fafnir, Lucoa and Ilulu) have only been shown using theirs in one of their two forms (dragon form for Kanna & Lucoa and human form for Fafnir & Ilulu).
• Brick Joke: In chapter 7 of ''Elma's Office Lady Diary", Kobayashi suggets that Elma get a pair of sunglasses for her first "Death March". It's not until the end of the end of the chapter that she finds out that they're to protect her eyes from sunlight once she finally leaves the office after working non-stop for three days.
• Broad Strokes: Kanna's Daily Life is supposedly in canon with the main series, but it borrows several elements from the anime, such as the art style and the layout of Kobayashi's apartment. Chapter 19 in particular contains several references to episode 6.
• Buffet Buffoonery: Elma ends up getting banned from a buffet in her spin-off after eating over 100 plates of food in the 2 hour time limit.
• Bug Catching: Kanna is seen hunting for bugs as part of her summer homework in episode 7, though she doesn't ever bother using a net.

Tropes C-D

• Call-Back:
  • When Kanna goes to the park with Saikawa in the manga, she refers to the seesaw as a catapult, the same way that Tohru did on their first day together after Kanna moved in with Kobayashi. In the anime, after Kobayashi explains seesaws are actually something kids play on, the dragons get the idea that you use it by having someone jumping up and down on each end, sending the person on the other end flying, so when Kanna goes to the park with Saikawa, she instead refers to the seesaw as "the thing you fly with".
  • While Tohru is teaching Kanna about how the human world works in episode 2, they see a guy talking on a cellphone and saying "that's wicked" over and over again. Tohru says that they're magic words to get you through most conversations. Kanna repeats this every time one of her classmates tries to show her something in episode 4.
  • In episode 12, Tohru does the same cleaning song that she did in episode 3.
  • In chapter 43, Tohru is asked to join a neighborhood watch committee because of her actions stopping the purse snatcher back in chapter 5.
  • The medicine that Tohru gave to Kobayashi in chapter 42 returns in chapter 35 of Kanna's Daily Life, with Kanna spending a day sporting cat ears after mistaking it for a supplement drink. Kanna also hides her cat ears when she goes outside by wearing the hat from the outfit that Tohru wore at the end of chapter 4.
  • During the OVA, Takiya and Fafnir repeat the dance routine they were practicing in episode 6 while playing ping pong.
  • When being driven to their new apartment in episode 3, Kanna says "so this is a car" in reference to her desire to ride in one back when Tohru was first "teaching" her about human society.
  • When Chloe comes to visit in Kanna's Daily Life, Kanna mentions having seen the Statue of Liberty.
  • Fafnir mentions that he judged the cooking competition when Tohru helps him and Elma prepare bentos in chapter 10 of Elma's Office Lady Diary.
  • When Elma and Ilulu offer shaved ice at the candy store in Elma's Office Lady Diary, Elma uses ice from the South Pole after Ilulu mentioned how she had some of it in the shaved ice chapter of Kanna's Daily Life.
  • During the anime version of the camping trip, Saikawa references having seen Elma's dragon form before during their walk down the river.
  • When Kobayashi and Kanna end up getting caught in the rain in episode 10 of season 2, Kanna sings an extended version of her rain song from episode 6 of season 1.
• The Cameo: Several from other Cool-kyou Shinsha works.
  • Miki is shown to own a crepe stand in chapter 7, has a photo in Tohru's cookbook in chapter 10, and is on the friends list of Takiya's handheld in chapter 54.
  • Several references are made to Ojojojo, the most obvious of which being that Kobayashi works for the company that Haru founded at the end of that series.^note Haru did not directly found Kobayashi's particular department, but rather it already existed and was bought out by her A photo of Haru appears on the newspaper that Kobayashi was reading in chapter 13, plus she and Aki would later both be mentioned (indirectly) by Takiya in chapter 55. Gramps can be seen watching Kanna skateboard in chapter 62. Haru shows up properly in chapter 83 (though her eyes are never shown) to address Elma's new work proposal, and then finally has her full face visible in chapter 122 in a flashback to when a drunken Kobayashi ran into her and Tsurezure at a bar.
  • The Horiuchi Butchery from RaButa appears in chapter 25. Tohru also mentioned that she learned about Christmas from Mr Horiuchi (either Harundo or his father).
  • Frau from Peach Boy Riverside makes appearances in various forms of merchandise, ranging from a keychain Kanna got from Kobayashi after her first day of school to a stuffed animal hot water bottle cover that the Kobayashis pick up when they buy a new kotatsu in Kanna's Daily Life. The actual Frau also shows up at Comiket.
  • Cool-kyou Shinsha's hentai Author Avatar can also be seen standing right behind Frau at Comiket.
  • Houka from Metsuko ni Yoroshiku can be seen as a member of the "Dragon Busters" in chapter 43 of the manga and the fourth episode of the second season, wielding her signature steel pipe. Kanna is also reading Peach Boy Riverside at the beginning of the manga version.
• Cannot Tell Fiction from Reality: Tohru and Kanna end up believing that humans on Earth can fire energy blasts and perform feats of superhuman strength after watching "The Ma·rix". To be fair, they come from World of Badass where such things are commonplace.
• Canon Immigrant:
  • Chapter 55 uses the 5 symbol scene transitions seen in the anime.
  • While she never shows up in the main series, the design for Saikawa's mother from episode 9 was used in Kanna's Daily Life.
• Caretaker Reversal: Invoked, then subverted in Kanna's Daily Life. Kanna takes care of Saikawa when she comes down with a fever, then tries to catch a cold herself a few days later so Saikawa can take care of her. Being a dragon, she has Ideal Illness Immunity, so her attempts to get sick fail.
• Censored for Comedy:
  • Fafnir's "Curse Anthology", his attempt at making a manga, is completely pixelated to the viewers. Tohru points out that he put actual instructions of real curses, including how to kill people. She also mentioned that selling it at 1000 yen (roughly $9-$10 USD in 2016) is quite a bargain.
  • Tohru's Christmas present for Kobayashi was some weird and still-living thing from her world she'd have to grind up and apply to her back to get rid of her back pain.
  • Some of the leftover ingredients from Tohru's omurice are still wriggling by the time Kobayashi gets back home.
• Character in the Logo: The anime version featured Tohru's horns and maid headdress.
• Cheeky Mouth: Happens in the anime adaptation especially for characters further back in a scene. The anime generally sticks to front shots of speaking characters. Profile shots and many characters in the background however end up falling into this trope.
• Chekhov's Gun: At the end of the Azad arc Kobayashi displays a huge sum of magical power dwelling within her and later in chapter 95 Shouta innocoussly reveals that wizards are born with the high magical reserve while normal humans have to work their way up to that level. Kobayashi briefly ponders then why was she able to do so much.
• Christmas Episode:
  • Chapter 8 in the manga. It was also when Fafnir and Lucoa were formally introduced.
  • The anime did its own with episode 10, featuring the cast putting on a play for an old folks' home.
  • Kanna's Daily Life has a chapter where Kanna and Saikawa give out cookies to their friends and the people in their neighborhood on Christmas Eve.
• Clones Are People, Too: In a chapter of Kanna's Daily Life that takes place during the events of chapter 85, Kanna develops such a close relationship to one of the Tohru clones that she tries to hide her when the real Tohru is rounding them up to send them into orbit as a means of getting rid of them.
• Clue, Evidence, and a Smoking Gun: The final sketch in in the sixth DVD special has Tohru do this while playing the part of Sherlock Holmes, pointing out that Lucoa just came out of the bath because of her wet hair, sweaty body, and complete lack of clothing.
• The Coats Are Off: In chapter 64, about a third of the way through Tohru and Elma's practice fight, they remove their outermost layers of clothing (and, for some reason, Tohru takes off her hairpiece), before resuming their battle. Considering how much more aggressive Elma gets immediately afterwards, it's obvious it was meant to maximize their movement.
• Color-Coded Characters: Downplayed since the characters barely wear their associated colors. The dragons also have patterns to go along with it in the opening/ending.
  • Kobayashi: Green
  • Tohru: Red plaid
  • Kanna: Pink polka dots
  • Lucoa: Purple horizontal bars
  • Elma: Blue vertical bars
  • Fafnir: Bluish purple with an elaborate paisley pattern.
• Color Failure:
  • Kobayashi when she sees Tohru in her dragon form the first time after sobering up.
  • Kobayashi and Takiya when they see Fafnir in his monstrous humanoid form for the first time (episode 3).
  • Fafnir walks away from Comiket 90 completely dejected and devoid of color, because he wasn't able to sell even one copy of his manga. It happens again when no-one wants to buy the sequel at Comiket 91.
• Comic-Book Time: Even though both the anime and Kanna's Daily Life are pretty clear about the passage of time (with the former covering 1 1/2 years as of the end of season 2 and the latter covering 2 1/4 years at the end of volume 9), none of the child characters ever move up to higher grades or show any signs of getting older.
• Cooking Duel: In chapter 23, Kanna wanting a bentou lunch for her school picnic causes Kobayashi and Tohru to square off over who's the better cook between them in order to decide who makes said lunch.
• Cool Code of Source: Occasional shots of Kobayashi's computer in the anime reveal that she codes in Python.
• Cover-Blowing Superpower: Kanna was able to track down Tohru after she used a Wave-Motion Gun to clear some rain clouds and used her super strength and speed to catch a purse snatcher.
• Creative Sterility: Dragons are very good at performing magic, but almost all spells were created by humans, since dragon nature isn't exactly conducive to the sort of long-term cooperative effort it would take to create them.
• Crippling Overspecialization: The company Kobayashi, Takiya, and Elma work for has a hard time getting new employees because they use a personal in-house programing system, meaning anyone who comes in will have to spend a lot of time learning a language they can't use in any other job meaning they would probably be stuck at the company for their entire career. It's later revealed the programming language they use was made by Mages for Mages.
• Crossover Cosmology:
  • At the very least, Aztec, Norse, Japanese, Ainu, Basque, and Christian mythology are true (Tohru's not a big fan of Jesus's dad).
  • A chapter of Kanna's Daily Life where the Kobayashi household is telling ghost stories reveals that the Japanese urban legend of Mary-san is indeed true, with her visiting places where her story is told in hopes of finding her owner. However, only Kanna realizes this, with Kobayashi and Tohru assuming that Mary-san was one of Kanna's schoolmates coming over to their apartment to add some scare factor when Kanna told the tale.
• Cue the Sun: It's dawn when Tohru's father leaves in the season 1 finale, and the sun starts peeking from over the horizon just after Tohru glomps Kobayashi.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Tohru and her friends play a game of dodgeball against some people who were bullying Saikawa in chapter 21. Kobayashi's narration even points out how overkill it was to have 4 superpowered dragons take on a group of ordinary, untrained humans.
  • Shouta wins a Wizard Duel against William in about five seconds in chapter 66. Just to add insult to injury, neither of the spells he cast were offensive in nature.
  • In chapter 95, Tohru uses the fact Shouta needs to be kissed by a powerful magical being to help absorb his overflowing magical power to coax Lucoa into a battle. Lucoa comes at Tohru with serious intent and wipes the floor with the younger dragon.
• Curb-Stomp Cushion: While Tohru and Ilulu initially appear evenly matched in their duel and Ilulu even gets a few good hits in, it quickly becomes clear that Ilulu has no real chance of victory and the only thing holding Tohru back is a fear of collateral damage. Once Elma puts up a protective barrier, Tohru proceeds to end the fight in a single attack.
• Cuteness Overload: Riko Saikawa frequently short-circuits whenever Kanna compliments her or does something cute.
• Dark Reprise: Tohru's cleaning song from Chapter 11 makes a return in Chapter 111, only now all her talk of annihilating dust comes across as an Implied Death Threat towards Jida.
• Deader than Dead: Tohru threatened to not only destroy the body of Clemene, but also his soul for hurting Kobayashi. She doesn't actually go through with it though, instead opting to break off one of his horns and wipe his memory.
• Deadpan Door Shut: Tohru invites her friends over for a visit. She barely opens the door wide enough before noticing that Fafnir showed up in his Monstrous Humanoid form and immediately shuts the door in a heartbeat before politely excusing herself outside to remedy the situation. Not to say that Kobayashi and Takiya hadn't noticed anyway.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: A double whammy. Not only do the various dragons have issues understanding humans due to being dragons, but all their information on humans up till this point is based off an entirely different culture whose values are nearly as alien to modern Japan as they are to the dragons.
• Delicious Distraction: Chapter 11 of Elma's Office Lady Diary has Kobayashi using taiyaki to distract Elma, from a burglar, so that she won't kill or injure him.
• The Dentist Episode: Volume 4 of Kanna's Daily Life has a short bonus chapter where Saikawa goes to the dentist for a cavity and Kanna accompanies her for emotional support (and helping her open her mouth wider by holding her hand).
• Derailed Fairy Tale: Episode 10's version of The Little Match Girl, thanks to the cast deciding to make the story more interesting, involves two Magical Girls, one of whom's the old man from the Japanese Kasajizo folktale, who set a mansion on fire, then team up with Kuranosuke Oishi to fight Kouzuke-no-suke Kira, who turns out to be a dragon.
• Deserted Island: The final chapter of the Mexico arc in Lucoa is My xx has Shouta and Lucoa stuck on one after they get caught in a storm while flying home and Lucoa suffers (or possibly pretends to suffer) from memory loss.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: In Chapter 60, Tohru (and in the anime, Ilulu) are shown watching the music video for season 1's intro "Blue Sky Rhapsody".
• Diet Episode: Kobayashi goes on one during one chapter of Kanna's Daily Life.
• "Dinner, Bath, or Sex" Offer: The second chapter of Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: Kanna's Daily Life opens with Tohru asking Kobayashi if she wants " a maid, a dragon, or her". Kobayashi points out that none of those are real options.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • At the beginning of episode 5, Tohru blasts a couple of birds that were pulling on the laundry she hung out to dry. Said blast presumably destroys the birds, along with the clothing, and the balcony, though it seems she fixes it after the opening credits are done.
  • A minor running gag in Elma's Office Lady Diary is that Tohru will try to kill Elma for anything the latter does with Kobayshi that she doesn't approve of. Examples include: taking Kobayashi to a mixer, letting Kobayashi get drunk (and ending up in Australia), and giving Tohru new meal ideas that Tohru herself ruins by trying to serve her tail. It pretty much stops after the spinoff reaches the point in the timeline where chapter 64 of the main manga takes place, though.
• Distracted by the Sexy: During the fifth grade cavalry battle on sports day, Shouta's team was able to defeat the other classes single-handed because they were too distracted by Lucoa cheering for him. Kobayashi gets a dose of this too in Chapter 37 after Ilulu switches her genitals, constantly struggling against lust for Tohru.
• Dodgeball Is Hell: Especially when the players are dragons with Super-Strength.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The ending theme for the anime was sung by Tohru, Kanna, Elma, and Lucoa's voice actresses.
• Doomed New Clothes: Elma spends chapter 8 of her spin-off trying to buy a new outfit. She doesn't even manage to make it out the front door of the store before the clothes get torn to shreds (by her own boobs, no less).
• Do You Want to Copulate?:
  • Tohru almost immediately professes her love for Kobayashi, then clarifies with "I mean sexually!"
  • After Kanna and Saikawa's kiss gets interrupted, Kanna mentions in the manga omake "I wanted to *** her." The last two words were muted in the anime.^note Some translators suggest that the censored dialogue was about Kanna wanting to lick Saikawa. In which case, it might be a form of Deliberate Values Dissonance as dragons view licking each other the same way that a Japanese person would view washing someone's back. The Funimation dub of this scene has most of Kanna's dialogue muted save for the last two words, "dragon style".
  • When asked what she wants to do following her Heel–Face Turn, Ilulu's response is "I wanna breed with Kobayashi."
  • Subverted in chapter 81, when Ilulu thinks that she's going into heat around Takeo and gets confused when she realizes that isn't what she's feeling.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • During a flashback chapter, Tohru tells a bandit that she'd never let a human ride on her back. In the present day, she often complains about how Kobayashi refuses to ride her to work.
  • After Tohru showed up in retaliation for him hurting Kobayashi, Clemene tried calling Elma for help. It's far more likely that — if Elma had shown up — she might have struck an Enemy Mine situation with Tohru and been conflicted instead due to her own relationship with Kobayashi.
  • Tohru's father has no idea that him teaching her to always repay her debts is partially the reason for her staying with Kobayashi.
• Dub-Induced Plotline Change: In the dub, when Fafnir introduced himself to Kobayashi and the others, he expressed his total disdain for the human world and asked to be killed to spare him the pain of being there. In the Japanese original, the German dub and the manga, he didn't wish to meet his end, but wished to end the world.

Tropes E-F

• E.T. Gave Us Wi-Fi: According to Shouta's father, wizards gave us Python.
• Eiffel Tower Effect: When Kanna flies to New York City in chapter 62, she lands at the base of the Statue of Liberty.
• Elemental Absorption: Dragons can regain mana by absorbing their respective elements. This can lead to cute moments like Kanna having her own personal outlet so she can plug in her tail or Ilulu carrying around a lighter for snacks while at work. They can also use the ambient mana that Tohru produces, but Ilulu claims that it tastes awful.
• Emotional Maturity Is Physical Maturity: Each of the dragons seen through the series that transform into humans have made it clear that their human appearances are tied less to their actual equivalent dragon age and more to their mental age, as even taking Proportional Aging into account, Lucoa (one of the oldest beings in the series) is quite youthful due to her motherly-yet-childish mindset and Damocles (who while decently old compared to his daughter Tohru and other young adult dragons is actually a lot younger than Lucoa and her peers) is rather elderly due to his stern yet somewhat reasonable aura of authority. This is especially prominent with Ilulu, who while very clearly is not a child and is outright stated to be around Tohru's age, is so mentally and emotionally stunted due to losing her parents and lacking Parental Substitutes to fill the void, she has such poor shapeshifting skill that her child-like looks perfectly represent her womanchild personality.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Saikawa and some others outside of the main cast are under the impression that Kobayashi is Kanna's mother. This is not an unreasonable assumption. Kanna lives in Kobayashi's home, goes by "Kanna Kobayashi" at school, and Kobayashi is a Parental Substitute to Kanna. Further, Kobayashi doesn't really argue against the description, even as she's shown to dislike it, and she herself notes she's old enough that some of her classmates have children of their own. Saikawa does note some inconsistencies in that, such as Kanna calling her mom "Kobayashi" and referring to their maid as "Lady" Tohru, but is so overwhelmed by Kanna's cuteness that she never pursues this line of thought.
• Establishing Series Moment: The very first scene of the anime shows Kobayashi waking up one morning with a hangover and getting ready for work at her Soul-Crushing Desk Job, which would make you think this'll be another slice of life series... Except Kobayashi's morning routine is intercut with an ENORMOUS F**K YOU DRAGON waking up in the countryside and flying into the city. When she opens her door, the dragon, which is easily as tall as her apartment building, roars right in Kobayashi's face before transforming into a blonde-haired girl in a maid outfit, telling Kobayashi she's there to start working as her live-in maid as thanks for saving her life the previous night during a drunken bender. Believing she's still asleep in bed and dreaming, Kobayashi turns down her offer, but quickly changes her mind when she realizes that no, it's not a dream and she's late for work, asking the overjoyed dragon to fly her there. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Tohru and all the Urban Fantasy hijinks she brings with her.
• Everyone Can See It: Most people wonder if Ilulu and Taketo are a couple when they see them together. Taketo does the whole She Is Not My Girlfriend routine, while Ilulu has no idea what they're talking about due to not understanding what dating is. In the second OVA Chloe remarks that Taketo obviously likes Ilulu, causing him to do the routine while Ilulu plays along with their joking, saying that it's not her Taketo likes but her huge boobs.
• Eyes Are Mental: The dragons keep their reptilian pupils when they take on human form, though the distribution of color on the iris changes (instead of a darker color outlining the pupil it becomes a gradient from top to bottom). Lucoa is an exception to the rule, though that's probably because she was originally a goddess.
• Fake-Out Fade-Out: Chapter 53 of the main manga, has a section where Georgie tells Kobayashi what wearing a maid outfit really means. They then shake hands, while "The End" appears. Then Tohru says that they're missing the point, then finally Elma appears and asks her (Tohru) what she drew for Kobayashi's maid outfit, and the chapter continues for a few more pages, before finally ending.
• Fake Wizardry: Played for Laughs when Tohru and Kanna mistake a spoon bending illusion on the TV for actual magic. They spend the rest of the chapter trying to learn how to do it (with a stereotypical martial arts training montage). It's not that it's more powerful than their own magic (Tohru is practically a full blown Reality Warper), but their pride as dragons doesn't let them accept that humans can do something that they can't.
• False Camera Effects: From the OP: We watch a countdown featuring each of the dragons, followed by false film damage such as vertical lines and dirt on the projector lens. As if we were watching a documentary rather than an anime!
• Family Business: Ilulu gets a job at the Aida family's candy store in chapter 51. Taketo is set to inherit it, but he's mentioned to not really be interested (though given all the Ship Tease he has with Ilulu, it probably will end up staying in the family anyways).
• Fantastic Fruits and Vegetables:
  • During the cooking contest with Kobayashi, Tohru brings back something from her world that looks fruit-like, but which has teeth and bites like an animal.
  • Tohru goes back to her dimension to get some ingredients for an omurice meal Kobayashi asked for earlier. Some of the items she retrieves include fruits from that region.
• Fantastic Medicinal Bodily Product: If Tohru is to be believed, dragon saliva has healing properties (on top of being able to wash delicate clothing), but Ilulu says that she's just looking for an excuse to lick Kobayashi.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Tohru's less than stellar view of humans (Kobayashi being the exception, of course) comes up multiple times, but it slowly dies down as she adjusts to living on Earth. Other dragons also show signs of this, but it only really gets focus in Ilulu's character arc.
  • Interestingly, Lucoa never shows any signs of racism (most likely due to the fact that she has spent the most time directly interacting with humans and advancing their development).
• Fantastic Romance: Every dragon/human relationship is this by default.
• "Fantastic Voyage" Plot: Takiya suggests that Tohru could do this to cure Kobayashi's fever in chapter 42. Tohru shoots down the idea, saying that Kobayashi's body wouldn't be able to handle it.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: The "Other World" that the dragons hail from is a Medieval European Fantasy world with aspects of various mythologies and folklores.
• Feather Boa Constrictor: Emily is introduced with her snake familiar wrapped around her neck as if it was a scarf.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: The relationship between Tohru, Kanna & Elma is set up this way, with Tohru being fire, Kanna being lightning and Elma being ice.
• First Day of School Episode: Chapter 13 focused on Kanna's first day of school and her first meeting with Saikawa. The anime (episode 4) also had a section where she, Kobayashi, and Tohru go shopping for school supplies.
• Fish out of Water: Due to a combination of dragons having a heavy case of Proud Warrior Race culture, along with humanity in their world being exactly like what you'd expect from a Fantasy Kitchen Sink modelled after a Medieval European Fantasy, most of the dragons, particularly Tohru, Kanna, and Elma, who come to the "main" Earth experience some difficulties adjusting to modern human life since it's completely different from everything they know. That said, there are a rare few that instead are Like a Duck Takes to Water, such as Lucoa and Telne, who despite some draconic eccentricities fit in perfectly. Though regardless of how much time each of the dragons took to comprehend this version of humanity, them spending enough time interacting with it has consistently resulted in them Going Native, feeling stronger connections to Earthly humans than they had even with other dragons back home.
• Flashback Nightmare: The first episode ends with Tohru having one of her battle against the gods, followed Kobayashi's detached attempt to comfort her.
• Flower Motif: Episode 13 is centered around one. First it's discussed when Saikawa gives Kanna a Shepherd's Purse^note Capsella bursa-pastoris after finding out that it means "I offer you my all". After Tohru is abducted by her father, the camera shows the flower many times. It is finally echoed by Tohru after the Final Battle, where she tells Kobayashi she can have her all.
• Flowers of Romance: Saikawa gives Kanna a Shepherd's Purse in episode 13 after finding out that it means "I offer you my all".
• Food as Bribe: Kobayashi convinces Elma to help Tohru fight against Ilulu by offering her sweets. Early as Elma's debut, Tohru got her to forget about their duel and go away by offering her a whole bag of cream bread.
• For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: Several of the cosplayers at Comiket are actually creatures from Tohru's world.
• The Force Is Strong with This One: Several wizards try to sense Kobayashi's magic powers after she got first place on a mage exam. They end up sensing Tohru instead (who was sitting next to her), which causes Kobayashi to be Mistaken for Badass. All of the dragons can also be seen reacting when Tohru's father shows up in the anime.
• Foreign Cuss Word: Tohru calls Takiya, Kobayashi's work colleague and target of her hate for purportedly trying to seduce Kobayashi (only in Tohru's love-addled mind), "stultus", which is Latin for foolish, stupid and so on.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Elma's true reason for following Tohru to Earth (reigniting their friendship) was hinted at way back in her first appearance when she said she was going to bring her back to the other world. Not kill, not defeat; bring back.
  • During the anime verion of Elma and Tohru's falling out, the final clash makes it look like they're kissing.
  • Elma comments that the programming language their company uses was easy to learn despite having not even known what a computer was when she started learning hints at the reveal that it's actually modeled after the series' magic system, since she would already have a familiarity with it.
  • In yet another hint towards the magic=programming language reveal, the words "Hello, World" flash across Kanna's eye when she learns English.
  • When Ilulu goes into heat, Tohru gives Kobayashi examples of the various ways that dragons reproduce. One of them is the only fashioned way of two dragons coming across each other in the wild and breeding. The two dragons shown there look like stylized versions of Tohru and Elma, setting up the eventual reveal that Elma is in love with Tohru.
  • The holy sword that initially stabbed Tohru gaining sentience is briefly hinted at in chapters 85 and 88 before they're actually introduced.
• Formulaic Magic: Magic is akin to that of a programming language, and is similar enough that wizards who immigrated from the other world were actually able to convert it into one.
• Fountain of Youth: Chapter 41 of Elma's Office Lady Diary, Lucoa grows a Dragon World mushroom on Earth that can revert whoever eats it into a baby in hopes of seeing Shota as an infant, with Elma noticing it and proceeding to eat it. Lucoa's plan to have Shouta eat it eventually happens in Chapter 34 of Lucoa is my xx.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • The butterfly seen in episode 2 is an owl butterfly, which would place the field somewhere in Central or South America (which is roughly the opposite side of the planet from Japan).
  • Played with in Episode 10 of the second season. The second segment has Tohru showing that she was watching over Kanna the entire time the latter had run away to New York, highlighting scenes where she was in the background. Going back to these specific scenes in the episode will reveal that Tohru was there. This expands on the similar occurence in chapter 62 of the manga, which the episode is based on: there the chapter bonus pointed out a single panel with Tohru in the background, and going back to the page the panel is from shows Tohru is indeed there.
• The Friends Who Never Hang:
  • The dragon characters frequently interact as a group but, on their own, usually only socialize with Tohru or the humans of their acquaintance. Chapter 61, however, has the normally very anti-social Fafnir seek out Lucoa, who's typically only seen with either Tohru or Shouta, for help as a model for the manga he wants to draw.
  • The Kanna's Daily Life spinoff rectifies this with Kanna. In the main series, she interacts primarily with the others in the Kobayashi household and her classmates. The spinoff features chapters such as she and Saikawa finding Fafnir's secret arcade and bribing Lucoa for help. The main series also has a chapter of Elma taking Kanna, Saikawa, and Shouta fishing and one where Kanna asks her fellow dragons for their opinions when figuring out which dragon faction she should side with.
  • Chapter 6 of Elma's spinoff opens with her hanging out with Lucoa at a festival, but it becomes more about her babysitting Kanna and Ilulu.
• Friendly Enemy:
  • Tohru and Elma were like this in the backstory, having become close friends despite being members of opposing dragon factions. Their friendship has long since deteriorated into a fierce rivalry by the time the story starts due to personal issues (mainly related to Elma's eating habits), albeit one with strong Vitriolic Best Buds undertones and they end up reigniting their friendship later on.
  • It's apparently inheritable. Tohru and Kanna's fathers (both high ranking chaos dragons) are shown to not have any problem going barhopping with Elma's grandmother (second in command of the entire harmony faction).
• Funny Background Event:
  • Every crowd shot with Lucoa in episode 9 features very happy men and annoyed women.
  • When Lucoa starts playing seriously during her arm wrestling match against Tohru in the season 2 finale, Kanna can be seen getting knocked over from the wind generated by her Battle Aura.

Tropes G-H

• Geodesic Cast: The cast is broken up into pairs of dragons and the human that they most associate with (Tohru and Kobayashi, Kanna and Saikawa, Lucoa and Shouta, Fafnir and Takiya, Ilulu and Taketo, Tohru's father and Shouta's father, Kimun and Azad). The only exception to this rule is Elma, who is instead paired up with food.
• Getting Sick Deliberately: Wanting to be doted on, Kanna attempts this in Kanna's Daily Life after Saikawa gets sick and she helps take care of her. It doesn't work because Kanna's dragon biology prevents all illnesses.
• Gilligan Cut:
  • In episode 2, Tohru is about to take Kanna outside to play, and asks Kobayashi to come along. She declines, stating that "I don't exercise." Cut to a screaming Kobayashi in the talons of a flying Tohru, on their way to an empty field God knows where. At least Kobayashi's lungs got a workout...
  • In one chapter of Kanna's Daily Life, when Shouta talks to Kanna and Saikawa about how his classmates say he looks like a girl, Saikawa suggests that he dresses up like one. While Shouta states that he doesn't want to do it, Lucoa overheard the conversation while meeting up with him, resulting in Shouta being dressed like a girl in the next panel.
• Going Native: None of the dragons seem to have any intention of returning to their world, and adapt very well to life on Earth. It even gets discussed in chapter 15/episode 5.
• Gory Discretion Shot:
  • Played with during Tohru's fight with Clemene in the anime, where the camera angle and foliage prevent us from seeing what seems to be Tohru crushing Clemene's head, although we can hear it... until it turns out that Tohru didn't kill him, just roughed him up (in the dragon sense, putting him near death, since dragons have a Healing Factor), erased his memory of the events, and cut off his horn.
  • A much straighter example comes when Fafnir gets Lucoa to pose for his manga art, as his curse scenes require a body being horrifically mutilated in various ways, and Lucoa is the only person he knows who's skilled enough at Voluntary Transformation to replicate the visuals. To repay his faith in her, she puts her body through tons of intentional Body Horror that the audience never gets a clear image of, the first time being a Shadow Discretion Shot of her contorting her limbs and splitting her head off, while the next three "poses" switch to scenes showing normal objects that provide decent implied images of what her horrific body alterations might look like.
• Go Through Me:
  • Kobayashi does this for Ilulu when she's attacked by Clemene. Despite the rule that dragons are not supposed to harm people on Earth, Clemene just swats her aside. It does solidify Ilulu's Heel–Face Turn though, leading her to do the same thing for Kobayashi immediately after. It still doesn't make Clemene hesitate though. Instead, his thanking the gods for his good luck ends up summoning a very angry Tohru, who proceeds to beat him within an inch of his life for hurting Kobayashi.
  • Taketo also does this for Ilulu when they encounter a group of thugs in Chapter 89, with Ilulu experiencing the similar feelings that she had during the Clemene incident when Taketo protected her.
• Go-to-Sleep Ending:
  • Subverted in chapter 22. After working things out with their neighbors so they won't be so loud, Kobayashi, Tohru, and Kanna decide to lay down and take a nap. It would have been peaceful if Tohru didn't grind her teeth as she slept. Poor Kobayashi.
  • Played straight at the end of episode 1 (minus Tohru's short Flashback Nightmare).
• Gratuitous Japanese: When Tohru saw a photo album with photos of Kobayashi as a little child, she squealed "Chibi Kobayashi!!" in the dub and "Miss Kobayashi's so adorable!!" in the Japanese original.
• Great Offscreen War: The dragon war between the Order and Chaos factions. Characters make plenty of references to it, but the fact that the story takes place on Earth (which is an established demilitarized zone) means that it's never shown. The one time that the plot heads to the other world, the battle that would have taken place is avoided thanks to Kobayashi's intervention.
• Group Picture Ending: Inverted. The opening has Kobayashi, Tohru, and Kanna trying to take a selfie, only for the supporting cast to photobomb them.
• Hands Play In Theater: In Elma's Office Lady Diary, Elma has a Type B scenario after she learns from a co-worker about this practice and, thinking that she has to do it in a movie theater, tries to do this with Kanna and Fafnir. It leads to a Type A scenario when Saikawa, upon seeing Elma kiss Kanna on the cheek, panics, and Kanna, thinking that her friend is being spooked by the film, proceeds to hold her hand.
• Happiness in Slavery: Discussed in chapter 28 when Tohru met a bandit who dreamed of being a maid. Being a dragon, Tohru had a hard time understanding why anyone would willingly submit themselves to another, especially someone who had just gained their freedom.
  Tohru: You are enslaving yourself, are you not?
  Bandit: But, it's by my own choice.
• Healing Factor: It's shown whenever a dragon seriously fights another dragon that they have self-healing powers which are incredibly strong, healing away most injuries in seconds, with wounds that would be mortal for humans vanishing in minutes. It takes incredibly powerful attacks, such as godly swords or a dragon of an equivalent or greater power level attacking them to actually potentially kill them, and even then, if the attack gets canceled before it can be fatal, even a wound mortal to them would stabilize in a few hours.
• Heh Heh, You Said "X": In chapter 86, when Shouta and and Lucoa have stopped at a department store selling crepes, they have this exchange while she is pushing out her chest just slightly.
  Lucoa: It's so sweet and delish with all that milk inside.
  Shouta: You're making it sound dirty on purpose, aren't you?
  Lucoa: I actually meant [the crepe] tho ...
  Shouta: Eh!? Huh!?! Sorry.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Invoked in Elma's Office Lady Diary when in chapter 34 Elma, Saikawa, and Kanna are at the zoo. When some goats sense Elma's hunger aura, they get frightened and one is willing to lay before her to be eaten to save its bretheren. Elma yells that this isn't needed and finds some snacks to quell her hunger.
• Hide Your Otherness: Unlike the other dragons, Elma and Kanna both hide their horns when they're in public. The others just pass it off as cosplay, but Elma works in an office and Kanna attends school (two places where cosplay wouldn't be allowed).
• Holy Is Not Safe: Holy weapons are completely non-judgmental in who they hurt, with Tohru mentioned that the sword that pierced her back would have Mind Raped any mortal who touched it (Kobayashi was only able to remove it because she's an atheist, and also quite drunk on sake by the time she found Tohru.). Also, the one named character shown wielding one was a blatant racist trying to bring about a war.
• Home Field Advantage: Inverted when Tohru breaks into a Harmony-faction run temple that is enchanted to keep dragons from shifting into their true forms while inside. Most dragons tend to only take on their human form for short periods of time (both as a matter of pride and because it can be uncomfortable), but Tohru has been almost exclusively in human form since the start of the series, giving her a distinct advantage when the fighting starts.
• Horned Humanoid: All of the dragons have access to a Little Bit Beastly form, though male dragons tend to prefer their full human or full dragon forms.
• Horrible Camping Trip: Chapter 59 has Elma chaperoning a picnic trip involving Kanna, Saikawa, and Shouta (although the tent does suggest that they were spending the night there). The typical problems of camping trips affect Elma (getting lost in the woods looking for the kids after they accompany Shouta with his mana research without informing her; having a run-in with a bear), only with her eventually going into full Dragon mode out of frustration, with Kanna and Shouta having to prevent Saikawa from seeing this side of Elma.
• Hot Springs Episode: The main cast visit a hot springs town in chapter 33.
• Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: Kobayashi is naturally confused and astonished to find out that her coworker Tetsuzawa isn't just a dragon whose real name is Shanableh, but a dragon-fairy hybrid. While she does understand that magic was involved, she wonders just how it was involved.
• Human Outside, Alien Inside: Downplayed. Dragons use magic to take on a more or less human form, but things like their metabolism and blood pressure are vastly different from humans. This ends up becoming an issue for Elma when she attends a fasting dojo in her spin-off, and needs Lucoa to come along and fudge her test results so they won't realize that anything is out of the ordinary.
• Human Sacrifice:
  • While Order-class dragons helped people grow stronger and become better, Elma reveals they typically required humans to sacrifice themselves to help others in their group.
  • Tohru actually complained about the cliche of young maidens always being the sacrifices back when she first met Kobayashi.
    Tohru: Yesh!! Don't think that all dragons are lolicons who ask for little girl sacrifices!! Princess moe my ass!!
• Humanity Is Infectious: Dragon psychology is far more simplified than that of a human (given that they are both a solitary species and apex predetors who don't really need to think all that hard), but they are very quick learners. As such, any dragon who spends extended periods of time among human society will start to express certain human concepts like romance, familial affection, and even age based maturity.

Tropes I-L

• I Thought Everyone Could Do That: Tohru and Kanna initially believe that Earth is a World of Badass like the one they come from after having watched "The Ma·rix". It comes as a genuine shock to them when Kobayashi reveals that Earth humans can't fire energy beams or perform feats of superhuman strength.
• Ideal Illness Immunity: Dragons are immune to all diseases, which helps balance out the fact that their massive size often makes personal hygiene a hassle.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming:
  • Every manga chapter is titled "[Character] and [Subject of Chapter]". Up until chapter 38, the character in the title was always one of the dragons, even if the main focus was on one of the humans.
  • Chapters of Kanna's Daily Life are titled "[Subject of Chapter] Time".
  • The anime has conventional titles that describe the overarching theme of the episode, followed by a snarky comment in parenthesis.
• I'm Taking Her Home with Me!: In the final Blu-ray short, Kobayashi has a subdued version of this in reaction to Kanna wearing traditional Russian clothing.
• Impact Silhouette: Downplayed in episode 8. When Tohru blasts Elma out of the apartment, the hole doesn't really resemble her body... but her horn leaves an almost perfect outline at the top.
• Inconsistent Dub:
  • Subtitle example. In the preview for episode 10, Sanae introduces herself as "Josie" rather than "Georgie".
  • Kobayashi's work place was at first localized as "Hell Tours Ltd." in the manga before being referred to by the original Japanese name "Jigokumeguri" in volume 9.
• Incredible Shrinking Man: Happens in a chapter of Elma's Office Lady Diary after Elma eats a mysterious apple she found lying on the ground.
• Instant Turn-Off: In chapter 37 of the manga, a Gender Bent Kobayashi ends up getting turned off by Tohru when she takes off her maid outfit (the narration compares it to the feeling of seeing a cosplayer out of their costume).
• Intergenerational Friendship: The guild meetup Fafnir went to in the sixth Minidora short had a wide range of ages for the people present, with the oldest (other than Fafnir himself) being a middle aged man and the youngest being a girl in her late teens/early twenties.
• Interspecies Romance: Tohru and Kanna are both shown to be in love with a human (plus Lucoa attempting to seduce Shouta for room and board), but only Kanna's feelings for Saikawa are shown to be mutual.
• Intimate Lotion Application: The anime adds a sunblock-applying session to the Beach Episode, where Tohru sees a couple romantically rubbing sunscreen on each other and gets the idea to offer if Kobayashi needs sunscreen, but Kobayashi can see through her perverted intentions and pointedly refuses. Lucoa does genuinely ask Shouta to rub sunscreen on her back, but he's far too nervous and shy to do it. But he does accept when she offers to rub it on him, only that having her hands rub him so vigorously gets him so flustered that he runs away as soon as she's finished, accusing her of trying to seduce him.
• Is It Something You Eat?: In the first chapter of Elma's Office Lady Diary when Tohru demands to know if Kobayashi and Elma are having an affair, Elma asks, "Is [an affair] tasty?"
• Kimodameshi: Kanna and Saikawa do this in chapter 8 of Kanna's Daily Life, exploring an abandoned building that people occasionally see lights from despite no electricity running in the place. It turns out that Fafnir had turned it into his own private arcade, using magic to power the cabinets.
• Knight Templar: Clemene, who is willing to kill innocent bystanders and flat out ignore the Alien Non-Interference Clause in the name of peace and harmony.
• Knockback Slide: Tohru does this when she catches Fafnir's ball.
• Kraken and Leviathan: Tohru is apparently on bad terms with Leviathan, mentioning he once tried to kill her.
• Language of Magic: The series crosses this over with Formulaic Magic and E.T. Gave Us Wi-Fi when it was revealed that certain programming languages (such as JavaScript) were actually created by wizards who migrated to Earth and modeled it off of their magic system. Coding doesn't have any magical effects though, since Earth doesn't have enough ambient mana for spells to be cast.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In Chapters 74 and 75, it is revealed Kanna was tricked into playing with the a powerful magical item by Azad, a human wizard ally of her father's resulting in her banishment, and the trickster knew because of her history with other pranks, her trying to pass off blame to someone else would be ignored. Now, at the present time, Kanna meets the trickster and secretly records their conversation when he gloats about his actions, how he hates all dragon kind, and is playing both dragon factions against each other. Kanna records the whole thing on her tape recorder and when Kobayashi and Tohru arrive in the nearby battlefield where a battle is about to happen, sends the message to them by her cellphone, destroying his reputation on both sides.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In episode 1, Kobayashi tells Tohru "You can't wear the same clothes like you're in some anime."
• Let's Meet the Meat: Tohru grills her own tail to feed to Kobayashi, though it helps that she can grow it back.
• Lighter and Softer: While the main series is already pretty lighthearted, the spin-offs take this even further. This is especially true for Kanna's Daily Life, due to having Kanna as the protagonist (along with it's Puni Plush art style).
• Loophole Abuse: Attempted and subverted in chapter 86. Elma and Tohru, both having learned to drive, have gone to various locations in a race. On their way to the last place, being all tied up, and Elma behind Tohru, Elma is reminded by Kobayashi to not break the speed limit to win. So Elma gets out and carries the car at higher speeds, rationalizing there are no speed limits if one is on foot. Kobayashi later disqualifies Elma for that stunt.
• Lost in Translation: Kobayashi works for Jigokumeguri, the company founded by Haru Jigokumeguri at the end of Ojojojo. However, Jigokumeguri doesn't look or sound like a surname, so Seven Seas Entertainment at first translated it into "Hell Tours Ltd.," omitting The 'Verse implications, before using Jigokumeguri in volume 9.
• Love Potion:
  • In chapter 10/the OVA, Tohru tries to give Kobayashi some Valentine's Chocolate that she spiked with a love potion. Kobayashi suspects something, but she still ends up eating it by mistake later in the day. The chocolates had alcohol in them, thus nothing comes of them besides Kobayashi complaining about Tohru's maid outfit.
  • In chapter 37, Tohru spikes Kobayashi's dinner with a love potion, after finding out what Ilulu did to her.

Tropes M-N

• Magic from Technology: Inverted. The programming language used at Kobayashi's office is modeled after the series' Formulaic Magic (and is close enough that Kobayashi can pass a high level magic exam without studying). That said, programming does not actually have any magic powers since Earth lacks a Background Magic Field, though whether or not someone like Elma (who is both a coder and capable of using magic) could cast a spell with it is unspecified.
• Marshmallow Hell: Poor Shouta ends up receiving this from Lucoa's boobs while sharing a bed in episode 8. The first two times cause Shouta to dream that he's being crushed by a giant ball, then suffocated by a bear's paw. The third time has him dream about fighting a sumo wrestler, indirectly feeling up Lucoa.
• Masquerade: Various magical beings from Tohru's original world find refuge and conceal themselves as normal denizens on Earth, to escape their harsh Crapsack World. To them Earth's relative stability and lack of magical threats is a virtual paradise.
• Mayfly–December Romance:
  • Fafnir brings this up when Tohru says she has no plans to return to their world. She doesn't have any problem with it.
    Tohru: If I treasure the time I spend here. I would indeed feel an equal amount of sadness. But, I don't think I will ever call that feeling of sadness "regret".
  • Kanna and Saikawa are also in love, with Kanna thinking about this situation after Saikawa mentions the short lifespan of fireflies in Chapter 27 of Kanna's Daily Life.
• Meaningful Background Event:
  • In chapter 62 where Kanna runs away to New York, while playing with her new friend Chloe, Tohru can be spotted watching her in the background of one panel. It's drawn small enough that you might not notice until the chapter end bonus page in the volume release points it out.
  • As Kobayashi is walking home in Chapter 97, Shin's human form is walking right alongside her. You could easily mistake them for a random passerby the first time around.
• Meaningful Echo:
  • When Kobayashi tries to help Ilulu overcome her Tragic Bigotry towards humans in chapter 38, the person says to Kobayashi "You're trying to trick me." When all is said and done at the end of the chapter, the person tearfully hugs Kobayashi and asks "Can you trick me?"
  • "A two-year sentence is a mere blink of an eye". Tohru says this to Elma when rescuing her from her Arranged Marriage in a direct reference to their previous discussion about Japan's laws against polygamy, making the whole thing an oblique Love Confession.
• Medieval European Fantasy: The universe the dragons come from is indicated to be like this, because Tohru often mentions "crusader bases" that gave her trouble and adventurers that would harrass her if she stayed in one place too long. She is also annoyed by the association of dragons as princess-kidnapers.
• Meditating Under a Waterfall: Played for Laughs. Tohru and Kanna do this to learn how to bend spoons (without their own dragon strength or magical power).
• Mega Meal Challenge: Kanna and Saikawa both get extra large parfaits that are free (plus a photo with one of the maids) if they're eaten in less than half an hour when they go to the Maid Cafe that Tohru works at in Kanna's Daily Life. Kanna eats about half of hers in less than five seconds.
• Meido: Obviously, there's Tohru herself, but maids are treated as incredibly Serious Business by the adult humans. Kobayashi, Makoto, and Saikawa's sister are all massive maid otakus (the latter to the point that she pretends to be one when guests come over); and the bandit that Tohru once met equated becoming a maid with freedom.
• Mistaken for Cheating: Elma catches two of her coworkers making out in an empty room in chapter 32 of her spinoff. Tohru's soap opera-fueled fantasies leads the two dragons to believe they're having an affair. They're actually a married couple who've been feeling more romantic after the kids grew up and moved out.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: Twice in chapter 102:
  • When Kimun Kamui is playing tag with Kanna in the park Saikawa comes along, she gets scared Kanna is being stalked by a creepy guy.
  • At the end of the chapter, after Saikawa has accepted the man is Kanna's father, she is now playing tag with the pair in the park. A neighbor of Kobayashi's believes Kimun is after the girls and calls the police.
• Missing Child: One chapter in Kanna's Daily Life focuses on Kanna and Ilulu helping a young girl look for her mother after they got separated at a mall.
• Moe Couplet: Kobayashi and Kanna. The fact that both of them are normally The Stoic makes all of their mother/daughter interactions all the more adorable.
• Moment Killer: While seeking refuge from Kobayashi's Meido discussion with Saikawa's sister, Tohru ends up stopping Kanna and Saikawa from kissing (and given what Kanna was thinking at the end of the chapter, she prevented a lot more than that).
• Moon Rabbit: Lucoa mentions in chapter 2 of Lucoa is my xx that she was responsible for the rabbit on the moon (in direct reference to Aztec mythology).
• Muggles Do It Better: Minor example. Tohru and Kanna mention that Earth's vegetables and rice are superior to what is found in their world due to some magic called "selective breeding".
• Muggle Sports, Super Athletes:
  • Saikawa challenges a bunch of playground bullies to a game of dodgeball, before realizing she doesn't have a team. Luckily she's best friends with Kanna, who then gathers up all her dragon friends to accept the challenge. Needless to say the dragons lay waste to the opposition. In fact they were so bored by the lack of any challenge they decided to continue the game between themselves without holding back, causing the ball to get thrown around at supersonic speed.
  • Subverted when Kanna partakes in her school's sports event. She has kept her dragon abilities in check so it's not apparent she's superhuman, though she still ends up as the top athlete of her class.
• Multi-Part Episode: Several
  • "Ilulu and Work", which focuses on Ilulu starting to work at Aida's candy store and meeting Taketo for the first time.
  • "Tohru and The Past", which deals with Tohru's past before she came to Earth.
  • "Shouta and Magic School", where Kobayashi and Tohru accompany Shouta to a magic school promotion exam.
  • Kanna's Daily Life has quite a few that involve:
    • Chloe, the girl that Kanna met when she ran away to New York City, coming to visit Kanna in Japan.
    • Kanna's class putting on a play for their school's cultural festival.
    • Kanna befriending Nina, an elf girl who accidentally winds up on Earth after chasing dragon form Tohru in the Dragon World.
    • Kanna making an outfit for Ilulu, only for Ilulu to accidentally damage it.
    • Kanna, in her dragon form, being unable to transform back into a human and subquently finding a lost cat that she helps return to its owner when she's finally able to change back into a human.
  • Elma's Office Lady Diary has one involving Elma planning a drinking party for her office.
  • Lucoa is My xx features one where Lucoa and Shouta visit Mexico and take part in a Wizards Tourmanemt with Emily.
• Mundane Luxury: Tohru and Kanna get excited by the idea of having their own room when they move to a new apartment since they were never able to stay in a single place for too long in the other world (for fear of being hunted down by human warriors). The same thing happens with Ilulu later on when she moves in and Kobayashi buys her a personal set of dishes.
• Mundane Made Awesome:
  • In Chapter 21, after the Curb-Stomp Battle, the dragons decide to have a match between themselves. Their vast superhuman abilities turn the relatively modest sport of dodgeball into what amounts to an epic battle with massive amounts of property destruction... which gets fixed in a jiffy (and bystanders have their memories erased) through magic afterwards.
  • In Episode 2, Tohru and Kanna use the seesaw to toss each other sky high after Kobayashi tries explaining its correct usage to them.
• Mundane Object Amazement: Kobayashi takes Tohru and Kanna shopping for supplies for Kanna's first day of school, and the two dragons are fascinated by all the stationery they encounter.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Parodied.
  • Fafnir's first go to solution for any problem from cleaning to shopping to children's games is always "Kill them. Kill them all."
  • Tohru will often suggest killing any human she finds in any way annoying before getting more used to living on Earth.
  • After learning that Tohru is not returning back to the "dragon world" due to her being in love with Kobayashi, Kanna responds by trying to kill Kobayashi, but lacks the mana to do any real damage to her.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: The dragons, despite being impossibly strong creatures, don't have very noticeable musculature in their human forms. This is especially true for Tohru, who's quite slender, and Kanna, who's a little girl. It's explained by Tohru that they use magic to reinforce their muscles, and if they're all out then they're no stronger than their appearances would suggest (as demonstrated by Kanna when she was first introduced).
• Mysterious Animal Senses: The first chapter of Kanna's Daily Life revealed that the pet rabbit for Kanna's elementary school class can sense her draconic nature and is terrified of her as a result.
• Mythology Gag: The Playboy Bunny outfit that Tohru wore during the second DVD special was a simplified version of the one she wore on the cover of chapter 18.
• The Neutral Zone: Earth is treated this way among dragons, more so because it would lead to the planet's destruction if any truly violent dragons showed up than the war between the order and chaos factions. In fact, the main reason why Tohru's father and Elma originally show up is due to Tohru violating the rules (though Elma's reason would later turn out to be a lot more personal).
• Never Gets Fat: Dragons can eat ridiculous amounts of food without putting on a single pound, though this likely ties into Shapeshifter Baggage given the sheer size of their true forms. Two of Elma's coworkers express jealousy over her ability to chow down at an all you can eat buffet without gaining weight since both of them were on diets.
• New Year Has Come: Episode 11 covers all the basics: making mochi, shrine and festival visits in kimonos, watching the first sunrise, hatsuyume, hanging out under the kotatsu for days at a time eating oranges, New Year's cards, giving money to children, and complaining about all the anime being on break.
• Nipple and Dimed:
  • During the Hot Springs Episode in chapter 33, Lucoa and Tohru are seen completely topless for once, but the other girls are not. The guys on the other hand have Barbie Doll Anatomy.
  • When Tohru undresses a sick Kobayashi, the nipples of her non-existing breasts are shown.
  • In the chapter about Ilulu in heat we see her and Tooru's nipples.
• The Nose Knows:
  • When Elma joins Kobayashi's office to work, Tohru can smell the other dragon on Miss Kobayashi and accuses her of cheating on her.
  • Tohru is able to track down Kanna and Saikawa when they get lost in Kanna's Daily Life by following Kobayashi's scent on Kanna's backpack charm.
  • In the main series, Ilulu does this at Kobayashi's suggestion in order to find the owner of a lost doll. However, the rain washes away the scent before she can find them.
• Not Hyperbole: When Ilulu was asked by a little girl why her breasts were so big, she responded that they were where she stored all her dragon fire. The anime would later reveal that she wasn't kidding in the slightest, as they glow red hot just before she blasted Tohru.

Tropes O-R

• Once More, with Clarity: The scene where Kobayashi and Tohru meet is shown three times. The first time in chapter 2 only shows Tohru in dragon form and with only the loosest amount of details (since Kobayashi is still suffering from a hangover while remembering it). The second time in chapter 32 shows it in much greater detail, such as why Kobayashi got so drunk, the sword wound on Tohru's back, and the full scope of the conversation that went down while Tohru is in human form. Then it's visited a third time in chapter 58 when the reader finally sees the circumstances behind how and why Tohru was wounded.
• Once per Episode: At least once in each of the spinoff series, Elma arrives at the Kobayashi household along one of its other residents, who Tohru greets at the door. Every time, Tohru leaves Elma still outside when she shuts the door.
• One-Sided Arm-Wrestling: Chapter 40 features several examples during an arm wrestling tournament. Takiya gets his wrist snapped like a twig by Ilulu, Kanna is unable to even budge Lucoa's arm despite using both hands, and the only reason Tohru didn't lose to Lucoa in the finals is because she bribed Shouta to distract her.
• Opposites Theme Naming: Kanna and her father Kimun have a Sky/Earth contrast, being named after storm and mountain deities respectively. It helps underline their Like Father, Unlike Son dynamic.
• Order Versus Chaos: Dragon society is divided into three factions: those who seek to keep the world in order, those who seek destruction and power, and those who seek neither. Tohru, Fafnir, and Ilulu are part of the chaos faction. Elma is part of the order faction. Lucoa is part of the spectator faction. Kanna is part of the Kanna faction.
• Otaku: Several of the characters are otaku for maids.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Due to the Fantasy Kitchen Sink nature of Cool-kyou Shinsha's verse, all of the dragons have vastly different powers and appearances. Though the ones that have similar horn designs are related.^note like Damocles/Tohru, Kimun/Kanna and Elma/Telne The only real consistencies seem to be their ability to fly and use magic (generally to turn into human form). It's also important to note that Tohru's fight with the gods and Quetzalcoatl's backstory demonstrates that dragons are the level of power below godhood in the series.
• Pacifism Is Cowardice: Tohru is revealed to have called Lucoa a coward for the latter refusing to fight against the humans at some point in the past. Of course, Tohru herself didn't actually want to fight either and she's long since patched things up with Lucoa.
• Parents as People: Kobayashi's parents were like this while she was growing up, and she ends up as one when she becomes Kanna's Parental Substitute.
  Kobayashi: Parents' day... my parents never came. They were busy with work. It was to support the family, and I understood that.
• Partial Transformation: Dragons with a sufficient level of skill (i.e. everyone that isn't Ilulu) can freely alter how many draconic attributes they show while in human form. It's implied that letting more of their true self out makes their human bodies less constraining, given that Tohru, Kanna, and Ilulu always have their tails out when they don't need to keep up the masquerade.
• Parting the Sea: In Lucoa is my xx, Lucoa does this in order to save a drowning student at the school pool. The rest of the class more or less ignores this display of magic due to her having cast a "fuzzy spell" on them.
• Pen Pals: In chapter 71, Kobayashi and Kanna exchange letters with Kanna's father Kimun. While Kimun doesn't really understand what they're talking about (and mostly just writes about sake), he does view it as a chance to learn more about them.
• Perception Filter: Dragons are able to prevent their presence from being perceived by humans' senses through "cognitive inhibition"; it's implied to be some kind of magic that all dragons are capable of, though apparently they have to train themselves in its use. Kanna can't use it yet, for example.
• Platonic Co-Parenting: Kobayashi acts as a mother for Kanna while Tohru is something of a hybrid between a mother and an older sister. Despite Tohru's crush on Kobayashi, their relationship remains non-romantic.
• Portmanteau: Kobayashi occasionally calls Tohru a "chorogon" (from choroi^note Simple person and dragon).
• Portmantitle:
  • The "Maid Dragon" bit in the kana of the Japanese title is read "Meidoragon".
  • Exaggerated with the BD special, Kobayashi-san chi no OODragon. The OO serves as a blank, and the audience is presented with things like Bandragon, New Zealandragon, Mermaidragon, Avocadoragon, and Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Doragon.
• Public Bathhouse Scene: One chapter of Kanna's Daily Life involves the members of the Kobayashi household going to one when water services are down in their apartment building.
• Puni Plush: Most of the kids' and female adults' faces are pretty round at the corners.
• Puppy Love: Kanna and Saikawa, with a dash of Mayfly–December Romance. Although, their relationship is far more adult in nature than is the standard for elementary school kids. Saikawa has a Squee-gasm whenever Kanna does something cute, and Kanna... well...
  Kanna: I wanted to ████ her.^note the last two words were muted in the anime, although translation notes suggest that the censored dialogue was about Kanna wanting to lick Saikawa, with her eventually doing so a few episodes later.
• Real-Place Background: The anime is set in Koshigaya.
• Relatively Flimsy Excuse:
  • Tohru and Kanna both masquerade as Kobayashi's cousins from overseas. Just like the horns, no one questions it.
  • In the anime, Shouta's classmates think Lucoa is his big sister.
• Rule of Three:
  • This series loves having three main characters in its cast so much so, that by Chapter 53 it has introduced five different trios, those five being: Kobayashi, Tohru & Kanna, Kobayashi, Takiya & Elma, Tohru, Lucoa & Fafnir, Kanna, Elma & Ilulu and Kanna, Saikawa & Shouta.
  • In the Blu-ray shorts, Lucoa's first two appearances end with her getting arrested for indecent exposure. When she turns up a third time, Kobayashi asks if it's going to happen again and Lucoa responds "That sort of joke isn't funny if you do it more than twice." It happens again, and it's still funny.
  • In Elma's Diary chapter 15 when Elma joins some co-workers at an indoor pool, Lucoa and Shouta join them. Like the above, when Lucoa ends up showing off a lot of skin, she is taken away again. This happens three times.
  • Early in the main manga, Tohru gets three requests to return to her home dimension; first by Kanna in chapter 6, then by Damocles in chapter 20 and finally by Elma in chapter 24. All three times she responds the same way, by telling them that she doesn't want to return to said dimension.
  • In her debut episode/chapters 24 & 26 of the main manga, Elma gets kicked out of Kobayashi's apartment by Tohru three different times. The first time she gets tricked into going through a portal to another continent, on the second time, Tohru sends Elma off with a bag of cream puffs (both in chapter 24), on the final time in chapter 26, she gets shot out of the apartment and into a park when Tohru uses her Breath Weapon on Elma.
  • Many of the Mini Dora shorts abide by this rule. Some examples:
    • Short 3: Tohru takes Kobayashi and Kanna to three different places where they can relax, with Kobayashi being against them due to the extreme natures of said places.
    • Short 4: The short depicts three examples of Saikawa incorporating Kanna into her school art projects.
    • Short 7: The short shows three times where Kanna is distracted from eating breakfast by the television set.
    • Short 8: During three points of the say, Kobayashi can tell what time it is at work just by hearing the growling of Elma's stomach.
    • Short 9: Kanna tries out three different hairstyles on Kobayashi.
    • Short 10: The "First Seminar on How to Behave in Human Society" consists of Tohru providing three scenarios about how humans should naturally react to a situation, with the older dragons getting it wrong and Kanna getting it right.
    • Short 12: Tohru makes three bento meals that Kobayashi disapproves of before she it gets it right.
    • Short SP 1: Depicts three nights in a row where Kanna supposedly falls asleep on the couch, only to reveal that by the second night, she is feigning tiredness just so she lay her head on Tohru's breasts (with Kobayashi catching on by night three).
• Running Gag:
  • Kobayashi's lower back pain. In the manga this is translated (probably rightly) as butt pain.
  • Tohru trying to feed Kobayashi her tail.
  • 48th Maid Art "Insert power that has nothing to do with maids"
  • Saikawa having a Squee-gasm whenever Kanna does something cute in the anime (she only did so once in the manga).
  • In the anime, Tohru hanging up the phone on Fafnir while he's still talking.

Tropes S-T

• Sadly Mythcharacterized: The cast includes characters derived from myth, all as shapeshifting dragons. Quetzalcoatl has a Gender Flip and Fafnir goes from a dwarf to a Bishōnen.
• Scary Stinging Swarm: In the bear-themed part of the 2nd blu-ray short, Kanna brings a bee hive with her for the honey, and the bees proceed to attack Kobayashi.
• "The Scream" Parody: Tohru recreates the picture in one episode when she finds out that her job at the maid cafe does not include being a maid, turning blue in the process.
• Self-Serving Memory: In episode 12, Tohru elaborates her memory of Kobayashi asking her to make her omurice good into something out of shoujo anime, with Tohru as the maid heroine and Kobayashi as the handsome bifauxnen.
• Send in the Clones: Chapters 85 involves various clones of Tohru as a result of her molting and the shedded skin coming to life due to to Tohru's self-produced mana.
• Serious Business: Meido are a very serious thing to many people in the story.
• The Seven Mysteries: One chapter in Kanna's Daily Life features Kanna and her friends visiting their school at night to investigate its possible mysteries, with the ending suggesting that there actually is a spirit haunting the school, with it taking the form of Saikawa, who was sick that night, when it was with the girls.
• Sex Sells:
  • This is the entire reason why Fafnir asked Lucoa to model for one of his doujinshis, because someone on an MMO told him that they're supposed to feature a lewd, indecent woman. While he fails to sell any due to his art style, hers sell out, with this being the implied reason judging by Shouta's reaction to a copy.
  • Subverted in Kanna's Daily Life. Lucoa becomes the mascot for a farm she had been volunteering at, but she was chosen for being cute rather than sexy. It's also justified, since you couldn't ask for a better mascot for produce than a literal (former) goddess of agriculture.
• Shapeshifter Baggage: Played with. Dragons are capable of using magic to alter their size and (with enough skill) take on human form, with the excess mass being converted into mana. While this doesn't cause any weight problems, Tohru compares the feeling of all that compressed magic with wearing a suit that's several sizes too small.
• Shapeshifter Default Form: Played With in that the human forms the dragons normally appear in are indeed their true forms just as much as their draconic form forms. It's explained as it being what their essence would look like if they were born as humans, IE a cute/beautiful form to dragons means a cute/beautiful form to humans. Basically while they can change species they have no control over what they look like.
• Shapeshifting Lover: The series has quite a bit of this, given that half of the cast are Weredragons. That said, while there's plenty of interspecies Ship Tease, there aren't any actual couples.
• Ship Tease:
  • Kobayashi and Tohru are the primary tease, but Kobayashi also gets some pretty discreet ship tease with Elma and more overt ship tease with Ilulu.
  • Though comparatively little, there is teasing between Kobayashi and Takiya. Unlike the other teases this is reciprocated on some level.
  • Ilulu and Taketo get quite a bit of teasing. Ilulu even states that Taketo "ranks right after Kobayashi" soon after they met.
• Shockingly Expensive Bill:
  • Downplayed; when Tohru explains to Kobayashi about how dragons get energy, the topic of how Kanna gets energy through plugging her tail to the electric outlet causes Tohru to realize that's why their electric bill was running high.
  • When Kobyashi saw the price tag for the backpack Kanna wanted, she sarcastically asked the clerk if it was made of gold.
  • Gets subverted in an early chapter of Elma's Office Lady Diary when she and a couple of her OL coworkers visit an all-you-can-eat buffet for lunch. Elma stacks up so many plates that her coworkers are nervous about getting one of these, but the staff don't offer any bill at all - because they are banned from ever coming back.
  • Also gets parodied later in Elma's Office Lady Diary when she wants to order some icecream that is usually limited to local release in a region far from where she works. Initially she refuses to use her dragon form to travel, so she decides to have it delivered. Then she sees the price of delivery and the time it would take to arrive. The very next we see is her speeding across the ocean in her dragon form.
• Shown Their Work:
  • Most of the facts about the dragons are taken from actual mythology, such as Tohru's friend Herensuge being killed by an egg without a yolk and the fact that Lucoa (aka Quetzalcoatl) slept with her own sister.
  • In the Wedding edition of the OODragon BD specials, Kanna's wedding scenario has her dressed in Russian attire, reflecting how Ushishir (the home of the actual Kanna Kamuy) is currently under Russian control.^note As are all of the other islands in that chain.
• Sick Episode:
  • In chapter 42, Tohru nurses Kobayashi who has fallen sick from a cold.
  • Kanna takes care of Saikawa in a chapter of Kanna's Daily Life. She also attempts (and fails) to invoke a Caretaker Reversal.
• Sigil Spam: The silhouette of a rabbit's head shows up all over the place in the anime (representing Cool-Kyou Shinsha's Author Avatar).
• Sinister Silhouettes: Done during a Team Shot scene in the Title Sequence to Fafnir (far left) and Lucoa (far right), as their dragon forms had yet to appear in the manga around the time the anime was being produced.
• Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer: Despite being one of the earliest dragons introduced in-series, Fafnir doesn't appear on any of the manga covers (until about 6 volumes after his debut), nor does he get any character art in the anime to himself. The most he got for a long time was a signed shikishi that comes as a bonus with volume 4 of the anime's Blu-Ray release, and even that is shared with Takiya. He did, however, get a spin off manga dedicated to his side of things.
• Sleep Cute:
  • Kanna, a lot. Especially the part where she tries to find a place to sleep. In fact, she herself says that it is one of her three favourite things to do in her PV for Season 2.
  • After Tohru and Kobayashi get the neighbors to quiet down, Kobayashi falls asleep on the couch, and then Tohru does this to Kobayashi... only for the sound of Tohru's teeth grinding to wake her up.
  • A variant happens in Kanna's Daily Life: Kobayashi and Tohru discover how soft and cozy Kanna's fur is when she's in her dragon form, and both of them doze off on her. Kanna, on the other hand, does not find it so charming.
• The Sleepless: Dragons don't need to sleep, though they are capable of doing so. Chapter 41 actually goes into this in depth.
• Slumber Party:
  • The season 1 finale of the anime feature the tail end of one with Kanna staying over at Saikawa's house. Notable in that Saikawa doesn't have a Cuteness Overload despite being in the same bed as Kanna due to seeing how upset she was over Tohru being taken back to the other world.
  • Chapter 44 of Kanna's Daily Life has Saikawa hosting a slumber party for Kanna and Chloe when the latter comes to Japan. Being a Clingy Jealous Girl, she spends a good chunk of it trying to prove that she's closer to Kanna than Chloe is (before the two of them inevitably make friends).
• Snake Charmer: The first episode of season 2 has a brief scene where Shouta is practicing his recorder for school and Lucoa (whose true form is a Feathered Serpent) starts dancing back and forth whenever she hears it.
• Snakes Are Sinister: Played with. Emily having a snake familiar marks her as being a bully towards Shouta, but the snake itself appears rather benign.
• Space Is Noisy: Averted during a bit during one episode of Minidora where the Kobayashi household attempts to relax while floating by the moon, as the scene is silent, and all of the dialogue is provided by subtitles.
• Spaghetti Kiss: Saikawa tries to do this with Kanna using a french fry in episode 6 of season 2, but she has a Cuteness Overload before their lips can actually touch.
• Spoiler Opening: The anime's intro spoils many characters that join the main cast before their first appearances. This continues with the second season, which displays post-Heel–Face Turn Ilulu far more prominently than her initial villianous appearance.
• Spoon Bending: Tohru and Kanna see someone do this on television. They try to do it themselves but with no success.
• Stealth Pun: It's only on-screen for an instant at a time but it appears that Kobayashi specializes in the programming language Python. Not so stealth after the Running Gag in the second season, mentioning the language they use at the company being… unusual. Python is indeed a divisive language, and is particularly reviled in Japan, where its competitor Ruby was developed.
• The Stinger:
  • Episode 12 ends with a portal from the other world opening up, setting up Episode 13.
  • Likewise chapter 23 ends with a monster from the other world, coming through a portal that Tohru forgot to close behind her, setting up chapter 24.
• Summoning Ritual: Lucoa moved into Shouta's house after she intervened in a demon summoning he was performing. Of course, this has led him to believe that she is a demon, and her personality don't exactly help her attempts to convince him otherwise.
• Super Gullible: Dragons are not stupid, but their simple worldview means that they are very easy to fool. Of course, it isn't exactly a smart decision to do this as pissing off a several story tall apex predator tends to be bad for one's health.
• Super Not-Drowning Skills: Tohru mentions during the Beach Episode that dragons can breathe underwater, causing Kobayashi to wonder if they have gills.
• Supering in Your Sleep: What causes Ilulu to turn Kobayashi into a man again in Chapter 100, as she is dreaming about Take becoming a girl after being bitten by a snake and her using her magic to fix the problem.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Once Kanna moves in with her and Tohru, Kobayashi quickly realizes her apartment is too small for all three of them, especially since she only has one bedroom. Rather than have Tohru use her magic to make the apartment Bigger on the Inside, which she could probably do, Kobayashi simply pays for them to move into a bigger apartment with two bedrooms.
  • Lucoa's extremely skimpy swimwear gets her dragged away for overexposure twice, and in the second DVD special, her "Dragon Milk Cow" cosplay even gets her arrested for indecent exposure.
  • Tohru has noted that Kobayashi's drunken antics have taken a toll on her health.
• Synchronous Episodes: Happens from time to time in Kanna's Daily Life.
  • Most of the events in chapter 12 takes place around the same time as chapter 53 of the main manga.
  • "Magic Time" takes place while Kobayashi and Shouta are taking the wizard exams.
  • "Molting Time" happens during the events of chapter 85, with Kanna becoming close to one of the Tohru clones.
• Taking the Fight Outside: Between Tohru and Elma
  • When Elma first debuts she challenges Tohru to a battle in Kobayashi's home. However Tohru manages to trick Elma by invoking this, opening up a portal to where they were supposed to fight and after Elma steps through she closes the portal. Elma finds she's on another continent and spends all day returning back to Kobayashi's house.
  • While the main cast are on a train, Tohru and Elma start bickering again for no reason and look like they're about to tear each other apart, to which Lucoa tells them to fight outside.
• Tamer and Chaster: Zigzagged. The anime is, on average, significantly less risque than the manga and focuses more on the themes of found family, but at the same time Kyoto Animation added fanservice to scenes where none existed in the manga (most prominently seen in the Beach Episode, where they had Lucoa come along).
• Technically Naked Shapeshifter: The clothing that the dragons normally wear are actually their shapeshifted scales. Said clothing is still removable, as shown when Tohru tries to seduce Kobayashi in chapter 37.
• Teleport Interdiction: After it becomes apparent to Azad that his plans have gone south, he tries to teleport away, only for Tohru to reveal that she saturated the surrounding area with her mana (making it impossible for anyone but her to use teleportation magic until it dissipates).
• Ten Paces and Turn: Tohru and Elma do this in the fourth Blue Ray special. Being a Chaos Dragon, Tohru turns around after a single step and shoots Elma In the Back.
• Teru-Teru Bōzu: Kobayashi makes some modeled after her, Tohru, and Kanna during a rainstorm in episode 6 (complete with horns in the case of the latter two).
• The Tetris Effect: An in-universe non-gaming example in Elma's Office Lady Diary. Elma tries to erase Tohru by mashing delete on an imaginary keyboard after spending extra time at the office due to a deadline coming up.
• Those Two Girls: There are two girls that are often shown playing with Kanna and Saikawa in Kanna's Daily Life, as well as Kobayashi and Elma's two female coworkers who appear in Elma's Office Lady Diary.
• Tickle Torture: Saikawa mercilessly tickles Ilulu's stomach in an attempt to figure out why there's valentine's candy sitting out with a note on it, after Kanna invites her over. Kanna is out getting ingredients to make chocolate with at this point, and Ilulu knows nothing. When Kanna gets back and clears things up, Saikawa apologizes, as Ilulu expresses her annoyance.
• Time Abyss: Dialogue in chapter 19 implies that dragons are capable of living for billions of years.
• Time Dissonance: Dragons aren't specifically stated to be immortal, but their lifespans are at least long enough that it can be measured on a planetary scale. This occasionally causes them trouble when it comes to putting things in perspective with a human lifespan, like when Ilulu asks Tohru to give her another century to think about what kind of job she wants or when Elma asks Lucoa to rate her new outfit that is several decades out of style.
• Tonight, Someone Kisses: The trailer for the OVA has a shot where it looks like Kobayashi and Tohru are about to kiss. In reality, Kobayashi was telling Tohru to come closer so she could give a drunken rant about her maid outfit. Of course, anyone who had read the relevant chapter of the manga (chapter 10 for those interested) would know the outcome ahead of time.
• Totem Pole Trench: In the beginning of one chapter of Kanna's Daily Life, Kanna and Saikawa do this when they try to serve as Georgie's substitute as an amusement park costumed mascot after she sprained her foot.
• Translation Convention: During Kanna's visit to New York City in chapter 62, everyone speaks English and she can't understand it at first, so Kanna acquires "subtitle data from people talking on the streets" (according to the manga) to learn the language. From then on, all English is translated into Japanese with the exception of a few words. Presumably, this also applies to flashbacks in the other world.
• Translator Microbes: Tohru explicitly states she uses a translator spell on Chloe when she comes to visit Japan in the anime (in the manga, Chloe was learning the language the old fashioned way and was nowhere near fluent). It's implied in the manga that Kanna used something similar in New York, while the anime has her explicitly analyzing the lip movement and vocalizations of several civilians to generate an automatic translation spell after she initially ran into a Language Barrier.
• Trapped in Another World: While none of the dragons are natives of Earth, most of them have the ability to freely conjure up inter-dimensional portals. The only ones who are "trapped" on Earth are Kanna and Elma. Kanna could theoretically go back at any time with Tohru's help, but she'd just be sent back to Earth anyway because she had been banished. Elma, on the other hand, got stuck chasing after Tohru, lacks the ability to make her own portals, and isn't on the best of terms with those who can.
• True Sight: Kanna's Daily Life reveals that elves in the Dragon World (or at least Nina) have an ability where they use their fingers like a scope and can see when someone is actually a dragon taking the form of a human.
• Tsundere: In Chapter 16, Tohru asks if Kobayashi is a tsundere... only for the latter to not only deadpanly deny it, but go on a rant over what a tsundere is and how modern fiction apparently misses the point of the character archetype.
  Kobayashi: No, tsunderes are people who are "tsun" most of the time, but turn "dere" when they're alone with the person they like. I don't wanna be a fundamentalist, but what I feel with tsunderes these days is that once they go "dere", they just stay like that...

Tropes U-Z

• Undead Tax Exemption: Tohru is shown using magic to make the necessary paperwork when Kanna wants to go to school.
  Kobayashi: It even has the watermark...
• Unishment: Chapter 45 has Saikawa subjected to a penalty game of rubbing Kanna's belly after losing to her in a game of cards. She considers this to be more of a reward and proceeds to delibrately lose all their later matches just so she can keep doing it.
• Unseen No More: At several points in the first season, Fafir is shown conversing with several guildmates in a MMO he plays, though we never see them outside of their usernames listed in the group chat. All of them later show up in the sixth Mini Dragon short when Fafnir goes to an IRL meetup, allowing the audience to see both what they look like in real life and their player avatars.
• Valentine's Day Episodes:
  • Chapter 10/the first half of the OVA, which involves a chocolate made by Tohru that's laced with a Love Potion that affects humans. While Tohru does decide against giving it to her after a stern warning, Kobayashi still ends up having some of it accidentally when Kanna gets her hands on the chocolate, with the young dragon then giving a piece to Kobayashi.
  • A Valentine's Day story also appears in Chapter 6 of Kanna's Daily Life, in which Ilulu assumes that the chocolate that Kanna made for Saikawa was for her.
• Visual Pun: The opening features a scene where Tohru has smaller and smaller versions of herself bud out of her horns. It's a dragon curve.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Tohru and Elma were close friends in the backstory, until they had a falling out... in theory anyways. Despite claiming to be bitter rivals, they still act like friends (just ones that are in the middle of a bad argument), something which Kobayashi repeatedly lampshades. Of course, it helps that both of them secretly want to become friends again, something which comes to pass in chapter 64. The first season of the anime even made this the subject of their shared Image Song, despite not covering the chapters surrounding their friendship until season 2.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: A part of the cat-themed cosplay in the 2nd special blu-ray short is the display of cat allergy by Kanna and Tohru puking on the floor, but the vomit and their faces are thankfully pixelated out.
• Wall Pin of Love: Discussed in episode 5, when a TV show Tohru watches claims this is the thing that girls want their lovers to do the most.
• Wallbonking: Justified example when Fafnir is playing a Dark Souls Expy, only for Takiya to cover his eyes in response to a drunk Kobayashi stripping Tohru. The game character is then shown walking into and repetedly swinging his sword at the wall of a hallway due to him being unable to see the screen.
• Weirdness Censor:
  • Most bystanders seem to be utterly oblivious to the actions that any of the dragons take, like when Tohru used inhuman strength and speed to stop a purse snatcher, or when she fired a massive Wave-Motion Gun in broad daylight that blew away storm clouds while in full dragon form. They do notice the horns, but everyone just passes that off as cosplaying. It's later explained as being caused by "cognitive inhibition" magic on the part of the dragons.
  • During the Dodgeball chapter where Tohru and friends end up fighting each other and destroy the park they're in, Lucoa states that she'll restore the park and manipulate bystander memory to keep their identities secret.
  • In chapter 38, Tohru also shows that she's capable of manipulating memories as she erases Clemene's memory.
  • In chapter 6 of Lucoa is my xx, Lucoa admits to Shouta that she cast a "Fuzzy Spell" on his entire class that makes them oblivious to what she does while still being aware that she's there. She proceeds to demonstrate its effects by parting the pool a la Moses to save a drowning student without anyone making a comment.
• Weredragon: The dragons are capable of changing between three forms. Their dragon form is their natural form, with various different appearances depending of the dragon. They can also adopt a mostly human form that retains some aspects of their dragon form, primarily their tails and horns, with the option of manifesting wings; their scales likewise shape-shift into clothing in this form. The third form is a completely human one, retaining only the scales-turned-clothing; Ilulu can't properly take this form as she has trouble hiding her claws and tail. Lucoa explains it as shifting their essence from how they naturally appear as dragons to how they would naturally appear as humans, but Fafnir's debut and Ilulu's difficulties imply they can alter their human form's appearance based on preference and experience.
• We Used to Be Friends: Tohru and Elma traveled together for several decades before they began to hate each other. The outright malice between them didn't occur until Tohru grew disgusted with Elma abandoning her ideals for the sake of food and burned her palace to the ground in retaliation. That said, Kobayashi is convinced that they're more Vitriolic Best Buds than arch rivals (and Elma's dream in the first chapter of her Spin-Off hints that she would like things to go back to how they used to be).
• Vocal Dissonance: The dragons keep their voices regardless of which form they're in, which means there are times where a young woman's voice will be coming out of a two-story tall dragon.
• Wham Line:
  • The first chapter of Elma's Office Lady Diary has a line on the second-to-last page that casts her previous interactions with Tohru in a very different light.
    Elma: Next time for sure I'll bring Tohru back! And then... we could go back to those times... and stay together...
  • Chapter 96 of the main series has another one involving Elma when she's complimenting Tohru on her cooking and reveals that she's in love with her.
    Elma: I wish you could make me some [miso soup] every day^note For those not aware, asking a girl if they'd make miso soup for you every day is a traditional Japanese marriage proposal.
  • In the climax of Chapter 97 when Kobayashi is riding on Tohru's dragon form for a private chat she asks how Tohru feels about her. Tohru of course tells Kobayashi that she loves her. Kobayashi's response:
    Kobayashi: I like you too.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Dragons have a very simplistic view on interpersonal relationships since they tend to be a solitary species. Things like romance or familial bonds are completely foreign to them, and it's specifically stated that those who express a desire for such things learned it from mimicing humans. One particular example of this would be when Ilulu gets a warm feeling in her chest after getting a headpat from Taketo and mistakenly believing that she's going into heat.
• When You Coming Home, Dad?: Averted when Kobayashi initially said she wouldn't be able to attend Parent's day (Sports Day in the anime) at Kanna's school due to it being the launch day for a project she was working on, but she then worked even more insane hours than normal to go anyway after realizing how important it was to Kanna.
• Whole Episode Flashback: There are several chapters showing flashbacks of Tohru's past, chapter 32 in particular showing how she and Kobayashi first met.
• Wizard Duel: Shouta gets challenged to a duel by William in chapter 66. William tries to cast a fireball, but Shouta just teleports behind him and knocks him out with a sleep spell.
• World of Badass: Not the current setting, but the world Tohru and the others come from. In episode 2, Tohru and Kanna have an awesome DBZ-like battle with cool explosions, battle aura, and power beams. They call it playing/roughhousing, since they're only at what is considered a human level in their world.
• World of Buxom: All of the female dragons (barring Kanna) have large breasts, much to Kobayashi's annoyance.
• Wound Licking: Tohru tries to lick Kobayashi when Kobayashi is injured. She claims that her saliva is a coagulant (not to mention the fact that bacteria can't survive in a dragon's body) but Ilulu suspects that it was actually a case of Lecherous Licking.
• You Wanna Get Sued?:
  • In chapter 9, Tohru and Kanna got the impression of superhumans being real in Kobayashi's world from the film "The Ma·rix", while in the anime it was an unnamed fictional ninja movie with a ninja cutting a steel door with his sword.
  • In chapter 11, Kobayashi compares Tohru with a Legendary P·kémon, because she would move to a new location whenever her current home was found.
• Your Normal Is Our Taboo: Due to the fact that their massive size makes finding a suitable body of water difficult, most dragons consider it perfectly acceptable to lick each other clean. When Tohru admits that she's done it with Kanna before, Kobayashi points that it's really lewd by human standards.
• You Won't Like How I Taste: When Chloe is kidnapped and Kanna in her dragon form scares the kidnappers away, Chloe thinks the monster is going to eat her, telling Kanna that she doesn't taste good.
• Zombie Apocalypse: Played for Laughs in "Lucoa is my xx" when Lucoa turns the entire city into zombies to celebrate Halloween after watching a horror movie because she thinks it would be fun.