Note: I’m in Los Angeles for Anime Expo this weekend, so I’ll be behind on new season impressions. I come back on Monday.
The demon king is defeated and escapes to the human world. He begins his path to world domination as a McDonald’s employee.
Hataraku Maou-sama is a comedy where most of the jokes center on the characters from a fantasy world living in our own. The demon king becomes a McDonald’s employee, the hero works in a call center, the chief general is a stay at home husband, and Lucifer is a NEET. With these kinds of shows there’s always the danger the jokes will become overused, but the humor and the setup manage to stay fresh throughout the series. The other fear is that the creators will try to include some sort of half-assed serious story. Hataraku Maou-sama does do this, but they remember to keep the focus on the jokes so it works out all right.
In short, it’s funny. Go watch it.
- Storytelling – A – Excellent sense of humor.
- Voice – B – Nothing we’ve never seen before, but delivers it better than anything else.
- Characters – B – Great except for Chiho who is pretty annoying.
- Attention Grab – B – Retained my interest throughout. Only a few hiccups when discussing whether or not Maou is actually a bad person.
- Production – B – Looks fine but nothing remarkable.
- Overall – B+
Recommendations – Ben-to, Ichiban Ushiro no Dai-maou
One correction.
Sadao works at MgRonald. McDonald and KFC does not exist in film media w/o all that proper sponsorship. =]
Yes, you’re right. 🙂
I pretty much agree with your judgement (in particular regarding Chiho!). There was some wasted potential imo:
I would have expected the series’ authors to make better use of Maou trying to gain world control by moving up McRo’s corporate ladder. This idea was all but abandoned after a few episodes. Even Maou himself, it seems, did bury it silently.
Also, one could have resolved the obvious conflict about what really happend at Ente Isla (the church’s schemings – was Maou really all that bad?) with some funny conclusion.
All romantic conflicts were left open, as well. So I feel a bit unsatisfied.
The show still was funny, innovative and well executed. As a Suzuno fan I’d have liked to see more of her. Sometimes I had the impression there were only two or three different facial shots re-used again and again. Not so for Emi, though, who imo was the star of this series!
Yeah, Maou didn’t make much progress on world domination. But if he had that would have been kind of silly. His plan was ridiculous in the first place. And regardless, he’s in it for the long run. Maybe in twenty years…
Emi had the best faces.
i have a brand new anime or manga featuring a normal 44 year old teacher named Adam lee he lives on blue sky island which is east of japans mainland it is home to 2100 people who are all Japanese this island has stricter laws than the mainland and the people have a different mindset we see Adam lee teaches at the islands only school which teaches preschool all the way to high school the island has one single college or university to prepare young adults for careers on the island or choose to go to the mainland and beyond in other countries around the world.