Hataraku Maou-Sama! Review

Our series of burger-flipping, dish sliding, and customer gretting demon lord comes to a close

Hataraku Maou Sama wasn’t actually on my short preview posts because I overlooked it while looking at other series. Ironically, I called this season “pretty weak” but I take back those words because this season actually turned out to be one of the best (for me). I recognized the four covered series with the aspects of Action (Shingeki no Kyojin), Comedy (This), Romance (Oregairu in some cases), and Harem (Date A Live). I have two more series, but these 4 were what made the season for me.

There are three more series that will be reviewed and Date A Live already got its review (plus a second season), so let’s dive right into the comedic title for this season with Hataraku Maou Sama

Let’s quickly summarize Episode 13 here:

I have mixed opinions on it but it was a funny episode thanks to fictional financial ruin being so fun to watch. What happens is that Chiho fears Maou will return to his world after suffering a nightmare with the mentioned event happening. She notices that Maou requested to change his working times and Emilia notices a large number of boxes which almost seems to signify Maou’s crew leaving. The situation turns out to be that Maou’s crew needs some serious money as they’re completely screwed in finances and both Alsiel and Maou decide to take daily-paying  jobs. The reason for this are because of the boxes that Emilia discovered. They were items that Urushihara bought when he got scammed off the internet. The entire thing is resolved Emilia lists Urushihara as a child and revokes the purchase as minors can’t buy crap online. I loved how Maou and Alsiel order Katsudon, much like how they started out. The series end with an act of kindness from Emilia, who lends Maou an umbrella, much like how he showed his indiscriminate kindess to in the first episode

So we have our demon trio of Maou, Alsiel, and Lucifer. Maou is the head honcho but in terms of age, looks like he’s younger than Alsiel but older than Lucifer. He’s the most hard-working, earnest type of guy I’ve seen in a while. He cares for his underlings, demon or not, and apparently helps out around the neighborhood. It only takes a demon to show humans how to be an upstanding citizen I suppose. When Maou’s magic returns, he gains Fist of the North Star/Jojo amounts of muscle and usually is the one to deal the finishing blow. Only because he’s a demon and such a likeable character, I was able to forgive him for his small amounts of density to Chiho.

Alsiel is the usual “straight man” in our Maou-Alsiel comedy duo. The circumstances however usually make them both the “straight man” but Alsiel tends to be the more comedic one. While his lord goes off to put food on the table, he goes off researching for magic sources and keeping the house tidy. Alsiel ended as one of my favorites, he makes an awesome duo with Maou and he got his moment of shine when he returns to his demon form.

Lucifer started out as the antagonist of the first arc, but became a regular when he stays with his superiors. From a sadistic little child to a pitiable NEET, Lucifer becomes neglected but he helps out whenever he can. I wanted to see his demon form, but since he’s originally an angel, I guess his body doesn’t change too much. Although he was a fearsome general beforehand, I don’t seem to sense any sort of loyalty thing going on. Either Alsiel is just that fervently loyal or Maou allowed for some freedom in his troops. I thought Lucifer would turn against everyone but he decides that being a NEET beats heaven (I guess they don’t have internet up there). I love his casual-lazy voice for some reason. The demon trio for me were great. Two dramatic try-hards and one NEET all in the same house.

On the other side, we have Emila who really didn’t expect to be the hero (because my mind geared toward male protagonists after so long). She’s play the prejudiced deuterogonist with our demon lord and slowly comes to realize his inner human. Emilia’s “tsun” attitude is justifiable because Maou’s army WAS responsible for her home being razed to the ground so I can at least level with her to understand why she gets so angry when she’s associated with him. She becomes more lenient in the end but I can predict something big is going to happen because of it. Emilia also has the most diverse range of facial expressions I have ever seen.

Chiho is the only “regular” human that is “important” in the series. While we do have Maou’s boss, Chiho takes most the ordinary human timeslot. Maou’s otherwordly diligence and work ethnic makes her helplessly fall in love with him. I’ll give her points for liking someone who is actually worth liking and for delivering a nice confession without all the awkward embarassment bullcrap. Chiho also has her share of facial expressions, but more in comedic sort of faces (while Emilia has some trollish/angry ones). The one problem I had with her are the really oversized chest she had. I was completely fine without the swimsuit episode and her enormous emphasis on her chest.

Christia Bell or just Kamazuki Suzuno was the last of the main characters that showed up in the series. Her “arc” was pretty damn long but I guess it was to prolong the facade that she wasn’t the enemy. Because of her attire, I immediately loved her character. Of course Itou Kanae’s voice helped too. I kind of knew something was up with her after the fight in front of the store but when that turned out to be an angel, I dismissed my thoughts. I would have never expected a giant toy hammer to be her weapon at all too, it just doesn’t fit her at all (especially for an assassin). Like  Emilia, she is convinced of Maou’s earnest desires to keep the modern world regular and becomes a regular…friend, if you want to call it that.

The first arc was simply enjoyable, I had little to no complaints going on. The pacing was good, the setting and characters were fresh, and the comedy finale with the action was great to watch. Once it did solve the issue with the portals, I kind of wondered why everyone stayed. I thought the portal issue was done very early so I felt that further arcs wouldn’t be as strong. The second arc’s pacing issue was most likely to solidify Kamazuki’s character but I’ll admit that it did get a little dragged out. While the comey is still great, it wasn’t as tightly done as the first one. The fights were fun to watch, since we’re constantly reminded that we have demons around. Episode 1’s first few minutes with all the fantasy fights was just superb, I thought I clicked on the wrong link.

Just because this season was chock full of amazing songs, allow me to have a small spotlight for the music in this series. Ironically enough, I thought this series had the weakest point in the music department compared to the rest. What I just said translates to: I didn’t like the opening/ending too much. The opening itself for the first few episodes were rehashed scenes from previous episodes and it got itself a real opening near halfway in. I don’t know why they did this, maybe they had an issue with planning. I’ll just say I liked the opening more than the ending.

Thanks to its characters though, the dragged out second half should not be a reason not to watch this. To be honest, of all the series that I watched this season, I only had expectations for just one and thats Date A Live. Well actually, no, that’s not right. It was a harem series so I had limited expectations. The point still stands because I had no expectations for this series and it turned out way better than expected. It’s a great comedy series with great fight scenes and lastly, I certainly praise it for not setting it in a school. Because I feel like my words don’t do justice for this review (and the many to follow), I’ll give it a numerial score of 8.7 out of 10

and of course, an obligatory fanservice picture