Devil Survivor 2 Review — F

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The end of the world is upon us. And I feel like falling asleep.

I’m a huge SMT fan. But this show was a piece of crap. Any trace of personality the characters may have had was mercilessly beaten out of them. The protagonist was especially infuriating. All he did was preach at everyone else about friendship and have his thunder tiger beat things up. Ugh.

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For a comparison to show how this show could have not been a complete disaster, look at Persona 4. There the creators were also presented with what is effectively a blank slate protagonist. They chose to make him a bit badass and give him a great sense of humor. In Devil Survivor they made him, effectively, Touma, except without Touma’s sole redeeming quality, the part where he punches girls in the face.

The rest of the cast is equally obnoxious. Even Joe is is a boring toady. For those who haven’t played the game, in it Joe was hilarious. Actually so was the protagonist. He had some ridiculous responses you could pick for most of the choices which added a fair amount of humor to the game. But nope. Every single character is a soulless stooge.

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The fights also suck. Hibiki summons his lightning tiger which he had handed to him on the first day and is somehow one of the most powerful demons in the world. Then the characters argue philosophy as their demons hug each other. No I’m not making this up, that’s how the final battle went down.

  • Storytelling – F – Heavy handed and soulless. Makes Sword Art Online look subtle.
  • Voice – F – Nothing unique except how awful it is.
  • Characters – F – The worst part of all. No personalities whatsoever.
  • Attention Grab – F – Boring.
  • Production – B – Looks fine, but who cares given everything else?
  • Overall – F

RecommendationsPersona 4, Durarara!

15 thoughts on “Devil Survivor 2 Review — F

  1. “In Devil Survivor they made him, effectively, Touma, except without Touma’s sole redeeming quality, the part where he punches girls in the face”. You sir, are a funny man; As much as I like Toma, i do agree that he is a soulless character. I feel like the series was trying to go for something dark and thought-provoking but completely stumbled when it came to the execution. Towards the end when the staff realized that they fucked up, they instead decided to change the show into a comedy by having a demon with 20 tits and a giant naked angel hug; if that aint comedic gold, then I dont know what is.

    1. Hey, I like Touma too, but fair is fair. 🙂

      This definitely didn’t end up being thought provoking at all, the execution was a complete disaster.

  2. Hibiki was an awful protagonist, but Yamato was just as bad of an antagonist. They could have given both sides a reasonable argument and simply let the natural conflict play out, but instead they had to hammer into our heads that Yamato and meritocracies are inherently evil.

    They dumbed down what could have been an interesting conflict, and essentially forced the viewer to side with Hibiki by making Yamato irrationally apathetic.

    Looking back on it, i don’t think I even remotely liked a single character in this show.

    1. I like Jungo. He’s like having a quiet chef that will make you Chawanmushi all day and not nag at you while you eat it.

      1. Jungo was a lot funnier in the game. In his Fate storyline, he adopts a cat who he names Jungo who he wuvs so much the he has to let the cat go to survive… which is quite sad. He ends up being a test subject for Fumi’s machine in one scene, and he has arguments with Keita in Keita’s Fate storyline from time to time saying ‘Friendship is best!” in the simplest way possible. Though he doesn’t have much of a connection with Airi like the anime supports heavily (making their relationship in the game simply as a platonic friendship), he’s pretty much that friendly powerhouse and spreads out among the team.

        1. Everyone was much funnier in the game… same with Joe and the protagonist. I wished they’d gone with some of the main character’s joke responses.

      2. Exactly. I also like him much more than all the other characters because he never opens his mouth.

    2. Interestingly, the game does exactly what you suggest and makes Yamato much less irrational. In the good end he even ends up siding with you and abandoning his meritocracy plan, from what I recall.

  3. Shit anime which I dropped at episode 4.

    Index has another good comedy, that is Touma having the most girls in his harem compared to all other harem anime protagonist. 🙂
    This anime doesn’t.
    This anime made by shit director and shit writer.

  4. I never really like this anime. And this is the woman who actually like the DeSu2 game which has really good moments and the gameplay… damn I like it.

    The anime, for me, lacks the grim and somewhat grotesque (hell, sprites actually shatter and burn here) tone involving surviving an apocalypse. Each of the characters have been stripped in their moments of glory just so that the protagonist gets the Stu powers (Daichi’s truck driving scene was bloody significant, man. IT WAS.). Also, there were actually other conflicts aside from the foreboding apocalypse (like other summoner-type bandits) and in about Saturday, everyone ends up fighting one another on which world they should end up becoming. Also, the protag, as blank as he is, has a more canonical sense of humor and is a pretty frequent smiler… maybe it’s to foreshadow him as the Shining One. Why did he turn into Angst Bunny all the way?! Also, how they fight was too dull…

    I think the problem with Seiji Kishii is that he doesn’t adapt the tone and the feel of the source material right. Persona 4 only worked as an adaptation from him because about 60% of the game’s scenes were light and bubbly Slice-o-life. Ragnarok the Animation pretty much sucked hard (Seriously, can a mix of the manga and the game fare much better as an adaptation?!), and so far with Dangan Ronpa, I don’t feel them being crazy with the anime aside from the opening scene.

    As and adaptation, I hate it, and as a standalone. it’s soooo boring and unlikable. About they kill one septrione per episode VERY EASILY (without a strategy on their heads) and yet they wasted an episode involving the stupidly short moment in the game (the boob sizes physical exam. JOY.) And also, lots of Info-dumping. LOTS of info-dumping using only slides. DOUBLE JOY.

    Long story short. DeSu2 sucked HARD. and Why did I even bother watching it?

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