Thank God it's only 13 episodes

bmoore07

Ente Isla, the medieval land of major- league magic and corrupt churches, is being destroyed, one village at a time, by the depraved Demon King Jacob and his almost-as-evil underlings. One fateful night, the heroine Emilia Justina and co. invades the Demon Kings' castle, annihilating the many evildoers in the way. When the good guys finally come face-to-face with the all-mighty villain himself, the Demon King retreats to modern-day Earth with his most loyal henchman, where they adopt different names (the Demon King is now Sadou Maou while the henchman becomes Shiro Ashiya and our notoriously vicious villain morphs into… a mere McDonalds (I mean, "McRonalds") employee. Welcome to The Devil is a Part-Timer, where the unexpected is expected and where expectations too high will be crushed.

We find our protagonists in the city of Sasazuka, Japan, a business- oriented megalopolitan with beautiful scenery straight from a painting and a spectacularly subpar soundtrack inserted in the atmosphere. At first glance, Sadou Maou is the typical non-chalant slacker but he is also a loyal, hard-working employee at McRonalds and is generally a kind, good-natured person (Yep, Sadou's personality took a complete 180 after his Demon King days but the series feels no need to explain that. It's not like character development matters, right?). Shiro Ashiya is an even greater victim of the Sadou Effect than Sadou himself, a genuinely caring and loyal person (especially to Sadou) who serves as this series' comic relief and is pretty much useless in a fight (When does this guy ever throw a punch?). Now, you're probably thinking "Wow, The Devil is a Part- Timer doesn't sound all that great." Well, your opinion of this comedy/slice-of-life series is about to plummet even further.

As our protagonists (very, very quickly) adjust to life on Earth, other characters are thrown into the already-shaky plot. First and foremost is customer support worker Emi Yusa who is also Emilia Justina (shocker, right?), a red-headed tsundere with a supremely short temper, an obsession with routinely stalking Sadou, an annoyingly self-righteous attitude ("I'm the Hero!" screams Emi in more episodes than one, and my all-time least favorite character (Eren Yeager (Attack on Titan) and Kagome (Inuyasha) are now 2nd and 3rd respectively). Then, there's Chiho, an average girl working at McRonalds who's really in love with Sadou, a rather one-dimensional character that garnered attention from other characters due in part to her massive jugs. "A female supporting character needs to be an object of fan-service (as well as a boob job) in order to be noticed", the series seems to say. Later in the series, other characters just appear out-of-the-blue, like slacker computer whiz Hanzo (a former General under the Demon King who everyone in Sadou's group treats like dirt), stereotypical quiet girl Suzuno (her dubbed voice is painful to hear), and Emi's friend Emeralda Etuva (her purpose in the series is…I don't know). With the cast of The Devil is a Part-Timer (who embody one anime cliché after another), the show tries way too hard to be funny. Sometimes it works (like in episode 9, where Ashiya explains the series' synopsis with a metaphor to one of Emi's very few friends) and sometimes it doesn't.

When The Devil is a Part-Timer is tired of being a comedy (Comedies are supposed to be CONSISTENTLY funny) and is plain bored of calling itself a rom-com (I'll get to that later), it nosedives into probably the most over-used genre in all of anime: action. The fight scenes are easily the most beautifully animated sequences in the series but that's the only compliment I can give to it. The action in this series doesn't occur often and, when it does, it's mostly balls of energy from hands, Superman-esque eye beams, and aerial attacks that take place. Needless to say, action isn't really this anime's forte but the third-to-last episode and second-to-last episode were all about action. At this point, The Devil is a Part- Timer, which was once a light-hearted comedy with few serious moments, transformed into a dark drama with tragic pasts and screaming matches. During this massive mood shift, Chiho exclaims "Where is all this coming from?!", a question for which I have no answer. In the last of the two aforementioned episodes, a villain who was inserted into the series in episode 9 declares, "Satan's current power level makes you able to defeat him. If you didn't know this anime is trying to be a generic Dragon Ball Z replica, now you do. At one point in this stretch, Emi absorbs a severe blow from the aforementioned villain and crashes into a pile of boxes. This is one of those scenes where it's implied that you're supposed to sympathize with the character's pain but I felt nothing while watching this moment, mostly because there was nothing to Emi, to any of the show's characters, which told me I should care.

The last episode was a stand-alone story about dreams, scams, and a villain in love. It didn't meet the overarching goals of the series (for Sadou to choose Chiho, Suzuno, or Emi as his lover and, more importantly, for Sadou to return to Ente Isla and reign once more as Demon King), and was ultimately a half-baked conclusion to a mediocre series. No review of The Devil is a Part-Timer would be complete, however, without mentioning the opening, a forgettable theme song worthy of the skip button with head-scratching sequences. One sequence, for example, has Chiho appear with a traditional miko dress and a bow (When does this happen in the series?) before she softly lands an arrow in the middle of the target as hearts, stars, and sparkles surround the arrow. Even the theme song sucks. If I could summarize my opinion of The Devil is a Part-Timer in one sentence, it would be this: Thank God it's only 13 episodes.

score 5/10

bmoore07 11 August 2015

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3300098/