Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid: A lonely dragon wants to be loved, the film sequel to Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S, the second season of the Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid anime, posits itself as a heartwarming addition to an already heartwarming franchise. The film centers on Kanna and her family as various obligations and faction disputes lead to the early signs of a war between Chaos and Harmony forces in the Dragon World. Kanna is forced to find a way to seek unity between the two worlds while balancing her love for her dragon family and her chosen one, lest she be forced to return to the Dragon World. This is something that Miss Kobayashi of course objects to, and our familiar band of characters needs to work together to return to their (relatively) peaceful lives.
The film premiered in Japan on June 27, 2025 and is set to premiere in the United States on October 20th as part of Crunchyroll Anime Nights. Ahead of the release of the film, we had the lovely opportunity during Anime NYC to sit down in conversation with two voice actors from Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid: Maria Naganawa, who voices Kanna Kamui, and Yuuki Kuwahara, who voices Tohru. Our conversation touched on some of the foundational elements of the two’s respective characters, some of their thoughts on the film, and the multi-faceted dynamics in Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid.
Portions of this interview have been lightly edited for clarity.
Q: A lonely dragon wants to be loved is a follow-up to the second season of the Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid anime, meaning this will be the third time you are reprising your characters. Have any aspects of how you approach or play them changed over time?
Kuwahara-san: In the TV series, obviously Tohru loves Kobayashi-san a lot. And in Season 2, that’s still continuing, but we also get to see Tohru start to interact more with the people in town and the people in the apartment complex. And she’s slowly becoming more human herself. She’s able to actually care about other people. In the movie, we see that even more and we see her struggle more. Before, she didn’t put much thought into her actions, she would just go. In the movie, you see her considering what she can do more to protect Kobayashi and Kanna. And we get to see her struggling and thinking a lot more in the movie. My acting really hasn’t changed; I’m not changing my voice or anything or thinking about how to act differently. Basically, I’m trying to relay how she’s going through these struggles and thinking more and her frustrations. But also, there’s a lot of fight scenes in the movie. So I did concentrate on those a little more to see how to make this more exciting.
Naganawa-san: In Seasons 1 and 2, when Kanna comes to the human world, she’s being taught human values. She’s learning how to be a human from Kobayashi, but she also is very clingy to Kobayashi and Tohru the whole time. She has two doting parents and she very much accepts that. But also she goes to school and she makes friends so she gets to experience that. She gets to have a lot of fun; she gets to do basically whatever she wants to do in the human world. But a lot of that changes in the movie. She starts thinking on her own and she’s acting on her own, which we didn’t really see much. There is a moment in the TV series where she gets in a fight with Kobayashi and then she just runs off. But that was the only time we saw it in the TV series. In the movie, we see the conflict with her dad and she wants to resolve it on her own so she’s thinking for herself and acting on her own. And again, this is the first time we’re seeing her do that to this extent. As for playing Kanna in the movie, there are a lot more scenes where she’s showing a lot of rage, sadness — things we don’t really get to see in the series. So I had to put in a lot more emotion. And she’s a lot louder in certain parts. She’s very soft-spoken in the series but there are very emotional scenes in the movie so she gets really loud. I had to concentrate on that so I put all of my effort into all of that for the movie.
Q: Naganawa-san, what was your reaction to learning about Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid: A Lonely Dragon Wants to be Loved and learning that Kanna would play a central role?
Naganawa-san: When the movie offer came up I actually already knew about this part because I read the manga. I knew that she was gonna be the central role so I was obviously excited about that. In playing her in the movie, with how she’s portrayed in the movie, I handled it very delicately. I was wanting to make sure I put everything into this part. The offer came quite early, so before we started recording everything I had been fired up the whole time. I was very excited.
Q: Kuwahara-san, Tohru can be light and playful but also get serious when it comes to those close to her. How do you approach striking that balance in her character?
Kuwahara-san: As you said, Tohru is very expressive. And before playing the role of Tohru, I played a lot of characters that were sort of cool, aloof, and didn’t really show their emotions. I thought I actually related to them a lot, but after playing Tohru I realized that I actually have a lot of similarities with her as well. For example, Tohru very much loves Kobayashi. Even if Kobayashi finds her annoying, she still loves Kobayashi. And in that respect I am similar; if I like something my love is very great for it. My love is very pushy towards the things that I love. And when I get super excited I start talking really fast as well. But in playing the role, I don’t put that much thought into how I’m going to do it. I’ll read the lines and I just do what feels natural.
Q: Naganawa-san, what is your approach to capturing Kanna’s soft-spokenness and cuter side while also making space for her to have more serious expressions of emotion?
Naganawa-san: Yes, Kanna is super cute, if you look at Kanna she’s very very cute. I feel like the longer the series goes on, they’re making her even cuter and they’re drawing her cuter. When we went into the Season 2 recording sessions, I was watching the visuals that they give us, and I felt like Kanna was even cuter than before. So when I play her, I do concentrate on trying to sound cute because I want her to be loved by everyone because of how cute she is. In the movie, she’s still cute, but she’s struggling a lot more. She’s dealing with a lot of different kinds of emotions that she doesn’t usually have to feel. There’s rage, and then there’s also conflict. She’s feeling a lot of conflict with what’s going on in the film. So she’s not just cute anymore, but I try to keep her voice mostly the same. But with that, I still show any rage she’s feeling. Or when she’s crying — I’ll concentrate on how she’ll sound when she’s talking and she’s crying. And you’ll see that difference in the balance between the two sides of her in the movie.
Q: One last question to both of you. Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid is unique in that, despite not being an action-focused anime, it has some battle scenes. What was it like switching gears and voicing those battle scenes?
Kuwahara-san: The movie also has a lot of fighting. I can’t really spoil anything, but when we see the really strong humans or strong dragons, they don’t really make much sound — in the series especially. But this time Tohru is going to fight a very strong opponent, and there’s a bit more grunting and punching sounds. I’ve never personally done these things before, so I really thought about and researched how to express that. The scenes in the anime and the movie are very impactful; they sort of speak for themselves. The scenes themselves are amazing, and to try to keep up with how amazing that is, I researched how I could make those punching sounds. I may have practiced at home, and I had to be careful, since I have neighbors, but I did practice punching and fighting sounds. I hope that people will watch the movie in theaters, because it’s visually beautiful. I want them to have the full experience of seeing those amazing fight scenes and experiencing the music and sound effects at the theater.
Naganawa-san: I’m trying to mind spoilers, but there will be a fighting scene with Kanna as well. I can’t really talk about it much, but basically Kanna works very hard. When Kanna fights, she uses lightning, and seeing that in the movie is really beautiful. I did try to concentrate on how she would sound in a fight, but she is also still a child. She’s not physically really strong — not in child form at least, but in the fight in the movie I can say that she will at least run out of breath. But the fights in the movie aren’t just physical. There’s going to be battle of brains. Please go see the movie and support it if you can.
We’d like to thank Maria Naganawa and Yuuki Kuwahara for taking the time to speak with us during Anime NYC. As mentioned previously, the movie will premiere as part of Crunchyroll Anime Nights in the United States this coming October. In the meantime, you can watch both seasons of Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid on Crunchyroll and check out the trailer for the film here.
©coolkyousinnjya, Futabasha / Dragon Maid Committee
