MANGA REVIEW | "Kanna’s Daily Life" - Volume Twelve
On one hand, it’s nice seeing that both coolkyousinnjya and Mitsuhiro Kimura are coming up with ideas for stories about everyone’s favorite smol dragon. However, unlike the main Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid series, it seems like Kanna’s Daily Life is grasping for laughs. It’s not that it’s not entertaining; it still is. However, as the twelfth volume shows, this spinoff leans more on being cute than being funny.
A Children’s Day event allows Kanna to make her own carp flag, with her thinking outside of the box with her design. Saikawa’s constant nightmares has the cute dragon seeking a remedy from a mysterious man named Mr. Fortune, with her solution taking inspiration from old cultures. The dragons have their own version of Laid-Back Camp, while Kanna experiences her very first Halloween. Plus, a couple of new characters joins the sweetness, including a fox god and a dryad with a hefty appetite.
The scenarios showcased in this volume of Kanna’s Daily Life surprisingly leans more into the educational side of things. You get some good facts regarding Japanese culture, ranging from Children’s Day to what goes into a day-in-the-life at a Shinto Shrine. One of the more fun chapters involves Kanna and her father taking part in a mochi-making contest. Not only do you learn about how it’s done, but it’s a great father/daughter moment that you actually don’t see enough of in the main Dragon Maid series.
With that being said, there are ways where the more comedic charm of past volumes could’ve been implemented into many of these chapters. Adorableness can only go so far to make things entertaining, and while the everyday lives of Kanna and Saikawa indeed deliver a bountiful of sweetness, it doesn’t reach the same heights as many of the previous stories. There are some good laughs, especially in the chapter about the heat wave in Kanna’s classroom, but they don’t elevate the silliness enough.
As for surprises, I was taken surprise with the chapter “Time For Growth”. Not only is it a fun chapter involving Kanna’s height frustrations, but it delivers some solid action when Kanna and Tohru spar. It also serves a pretty good life lesson, as the smol dragon learns that she doesn’t have to literally grow in order to both mature and become stronger. Although it’s lacking in laughs, it does deliver a good amount of entertainment.
Perhaps that’s the best way to sum up Volume Twelve of Kanna’s Daily Life. It’s not as funny as the stronger volumes, but it’s still filled with some cute stories and enough surprises to make it enough fun to read. Maybe it won’t reach the same levels of laughs as the main Dragon Maid series again, but one can’t help but feel warm and fuzzy after reading these side-adventures of Kanna, Saikawa, and the other characters from coolkyousinnjya’s universe.
