Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. Well we’re in the second week of the Demon Lord arc so how about a joke to lighten things up. What happens when the demon lord of your anime makes a better hero and the hero would make a better demon lord? You get Hataraku Maou-sama. Hataraku Maou-sama or The Devil is a Part-timer when translated is an anime that explores the demon lord and his values in a comedic way while also exploring the values of a hero. The show focuses on a demon lord who gets transported to our world and in order to live he has to get a part-time job at a fast-food restaurant. As time goes on more people from his world come to our world and we see how they all face the dilemmas of our world. The series is a light novel written by Satoshi Wagahara in 2010 and still continuing to this day. There’s also an ongoing manga written by Akio Hīragi that follows the events of the light novel and another manga which serves as a spin-off to the series where the characters are in high school written by Kurone Mishima. In 2013 the small but successful anime studio White Fox (Steins;Gate and Jormungand) decided to turn this series into an anime making this the studio’s first real comedy based anime (yeah Steins;Gate and Jormungand had comedy in them but that wasn’t the main focus of the shows). Hold the mustard and give me extra fries, let’s take a look at Hataraku Maou-sama.
Opening and Ending Theme
The opening for this anime is “Zero” by Minami Kuribayashi. It’s an underrated song overlooked by a lot of people but in my opinion it’s one of the best openings of 2013. I like the fast upbeat tempo of the song, the instrumental is nice, and Minami sounds really good here. I’m not familiar with a lot of her songs but listening this song makes me wanna check out them out. The ending is “Tsuki Hana” by nano.RIPE. The song is pretty much the exact opposite of the opening. It’s still a good song, it’s more on the slow-pace and quiet side of music. The singer sings beautifully and the song has that warm and peaceful feel to it that puts you in state of relaxation.
Episodes 1-4
We begin our story in the world of Ente Isla where we hear the story of the Demon Lord (scene here: //youtu.be/g458RvdtBbo, well that was epic. That was like Lord of the Rings mixed with Legend of Zelda. Add in a love interest and some action scenes and I could see this being the next best trilogy). With their defeat at hand the Demon lord voiced by Ryota Ohsaka and his general Alsiel voiced by Yuuki Ono (Taiga from Kuroko’s Basketball) transport themselves to our world (and by our world I mean downtown Tokyo because nothing interesting ever happens outside of Japan) where they lose their demon appearance and look like humans (smexy humans because this is a shonen manga and male characters are required to look handsome). They get arrested by the police and taken to the police station where the Demon lord uses his powers of hypnosis to find out about the world he’s in and report his discovery to Alsiel. They discover that this world doesn’t have magic, heroes, or demon lords in it which they say is crazy (and I suppose the world you come from makes more sense than this world) and they discover that they can’t really use that much magic in our world (scene here: //youtu.be/W0mEehcmsJ4, hey you got a taxi to stop for you that’s pretty magical right there). They decide the best thing to do is to blend into this world until they can figure a way to regain their powers and go back to their world. They get citizen certificates, open a bank account, the demon lord learns to speak Japanese (scene here: //youtu.be/lSwnNy6MRa8, I love how proud he sounds here and Alsiel’s reaction is priceless), and they find an apartment building to stay at owned by this lady (or at least I think it’s a lady I’m not entirely sure) named Miki-T (scene here: //youtu.be/H90YWM6ysVM, not sure if I should attack her with my samurai sword or call the creators of Dungeon and Dragons for a monster and quest idea I wanna sell to them). With their new place they dawn new names the Demon lord now going by Sadao Maou (I’ll be calling him Maou from now on) and Alsiel going by Shiro Ashiya (I’ll keep calling him Alsiel). We fast forward to summer where Maou has a part-time job and Alsiel is a stay at home housekeeper spending his days researching ways to regain their magic powers and return home while dealing with Maou’s irresponsibility of money usage (scene here: //youtu.be/oFoFElumwZ8). On his way to work it begins to rain so he gives his umbrella to a lady to keep her from getting wet (that was nice of him) and he goes to work at McDonald’s (yeah it’s obviously McDonald’s one of the most delicious yet unhealthiest organizations in the world. Could be worse, he could have been working at Wal-Mart). We see that he’s a hard worker always thinking about the customer and maintaining a positive attitude despite everything he’s been through. He also befriends a girl named Chiho a big-breasted clumsy 16-year old girl who has a secret crush on Maou (of course she does girls always go for the bad boy). She’s voiced by Nao Tōyama (Kanon from The World God Only Knows. Oh, please tell me she gets her own insert song?). At the end of his shift the manager tells Maou that he’s being hired as a full-time employee which makes him happy (trust me getting hired full-time at McDonald’s is never a good thing). At the end of the episode as he’s peddling home the lady he gave his umbrella to earlier appears before him to reveal herself to be Emilia the hero voiced by Yōko Hikasa (Rias from Highschool DxD. Alright Maou what did you do to piss her off? Also, does this mean she’s not giving the umbrella back? Finally, does anybody else find it weird that Yōko goes from voicing a small-breasted hero to a big breasted-devil girl to a loli basketball player all in one year?).
At the start of episode 2 Emilia takes out a knife prepared to kill Maou (scene here: //youtu.be/kzCq9RXF0Hw, can’t you just feel the love and chemistry between these two) but they get arrested and taken in for questioning by the police (scene here: //youtu.be/KNlJlFuVuCE, I ship it). After the police station the two go their separate ways with Emilia vowing to destroy him and saying that she destroyed his umbrella (wow, that’s just mean. Are you sure you’re the hero?). The next day we see that Emilia works as a call girl at a call center agency and lives in an apartment complex much bigger and better than Maou and Alsiel’s place (wow the lady is better at managing money than the boys. Usually it’s the other way around). After realizing that she’s in the same funk as Maou she goes to his place in an attempt to kill him (scene here: //youtu.be/ytrWZaTAj2k, okay Emilia is too cute and funny in this scene I wanna give her a hug). After they let her in Maou tells her his plan is to conquer this world by climbing up the work latter at McDonald’s until one day he gets a position of power to influence Japan and take over the world (//youtu.be/X8u7px_GzWQ). Not caring anymore she decides to go home but continues to keep an eye on them after work to see if they’re up to no good but each time her expectations fall short as all they do is buy food (I think she has her expectations way too high for Maou he’s clearly not sane you heard his grand plan to conquer Japan. Though as silly as his plan is it’s entirely possible). She finally decides to talk to him and get him to give up on world conquest and returning to Enta Tala and just stay in our world and live a good life (what, and miss out on the fun of pissing you off I don’t think so). As they talk a sniper targets them using magic and they make a run for it where Emilia drops her wallet so she has no choice but to stay at Maou’s place for the night. We end with Maou receiving a strange message saying that earthquakes will continue to occur throughout the city and that he should be careful (obviously it’s an earthquake).
Next morning in episode 3 Emilia leaves the apartment while also giving back their key and leaving them a bowl of pickle slices (scene here: //youtu.be/wCePcwC7k00). After that Chiho sets up a date with Maou to discuss her concerns about all the earthquakes that have been happening in the city (can’t you just talk about your school problems?). Meanwhile at work Emilia receives a call from the sniper that tried to kill her and Maou and tells her that he plans on killing both of them because that’s the will of Enta Tala (your roles are complete now die). She then receives a call from the police station to vouch for Maou’s identity so that he can get his bike back and we get this funny scene: (//youtu.be/QO3kZJqChOc, ouch right in the heart). After that Alsiel buys Maou some new clothes and he goes on his date with Chiho while Alsiel watches over them from the shadows only to get discovered that Emilia (scene here: //youtu.be/VCP4wAeK_Ps, looks like we discovered the hero’s weakness). Chiho tells Maou that she can now understand his world’s language for some reason and as she gets ready to confess her feelings to Maou, Emilia comes in to stop her saying he’s no good and a scumbag (said the lady stalking from behind the corner). The girls get into a fight (alright cat fight in Starbucks) but an earthquake levels the whole underground station they’re in and traps them inside (damn it earthquake you ruined something good about to happen). Emilia puts Chiho to sleep and Maou comes out in his demon form meaning his powers have returned (//youtu.be/ZfYBsuBzulE). This means that Emilia can use the last of her powers to summon her holy sword and land the finishing blow on Maou but before she can summon it Maou begins to make plans to save everyone trapped in the debris much to Emilia’s surprise (what!? A demon lord can’t save a bunch of people out of kindness).
Episode 4 is Emilia’s episode. We find out that as a child she was destined to be hero because her father did a little bump and grinding with an angel which means Emilia is half human half angel. After she was taken away by the church a few days later her home village was attacked by demons and destroyed killing everyone including her father (//youtu.be/hvW33wqBZZk?t=4s). After that not much really happens, Emilia goes to Maou’s house to return some money he gave to her and as she’s leaving she falls down the stairs and injures herself. Maou and Alsiel try to help her out but they’re out of gauze so Alsiel ask if he can unleash the Dullahan to go get some gauze (scene here: //youtu.be/MIG_Q6KgA6s, now release the hounds). As their alone Emilia finally goes off on Maou for being so nice and how she can’t stand it because she feels that in her heart she’s supposed to hate him for all of the bad things he’s done in the past (and it’s hard to hate a guy who keeps doing good things when you know he’s supposed to be doing bad things). Alsiel returns along with Chiho who sees the two in the room together and misreads the situation (scene here: //youtu.be/Olkw1axHR_4, only understood a few lines in this scene but seeing Alsiel scream at the end just makes this scene gold for me). As Chiho runs through the streets crying she realizes she’s in love with Maou (and all it took was for you to see him in the same room with some other girl alone) but her resolution gets cut short as she runs into a boy who destroys a nearby building to get the attention of Maou and Emilia where we see that the person who’s been trying to kill them all this time is Lucifer one of Maou’s generals who was thought to be dead and the one who destroyed Emilia’s village. Also, he’s voiced by Hiro Shimono (Keima from TWGOK) so you know this character is gonna be funny.
In episode 5 we see that the reason Lucifer is still alive is all thanks to Orba a sorcerer who was an ally of Emilia back in Ente Isla and wants to see her die so that he can receive credit for killing Maou (scene here: //youtu.be/gWLhafdJeoQ, gotta agree with Maou this is B movie villain motive right here. Also if you wanna go to a movie and save money either go in the morning when their cheap to watch or bargain Tuesdays). After shooting Alsiel (you bastard) Maou grabs him and he and Emilia make a run for it where Lucifer catches up to them and reveals that the key to restoring Maou’s powers is to feed off of everyone’s despair, fear, and negative emotions in general (oh so Lucifer got his powers back from a Youtube comment section). He tells Maou to use this to return to Ente Isla but he refuses because Maou has taken a liking to our world (of course he likes us we have cookies). Lucifer reveals that he’s captured Chiho and is feeding off her negative emotions (she’s a teenage girl in love that’s like a treasure cove of negative emotions) and he finally shoots Maou through the chest and Orba shoots Maou through the leg with a gun. Cornered and injured Maou uses the last of powers to transport him and Emilia to a place full of people where Lucifer finally kills him and decides to destroy everyone within the area but it turns out this was all a part of Maou’s plan to absorb all of the negative emotions of everyone near him and return to his demon lord form to fight back. He stops a bridge from collapsing and creates a magical field to put everyone to sleep and keep damage to a minimum. Emilia also transforms into a hero and takes on Lucifer and Orba (funny scene: //youtu.be/Rxyg5LGWers, way to get payback Emilia) with the help of Alsiel who was revived by Maou (I guess he was carrying a Phoenix Down). Maou is finally able to lower the collapse bridge down safely and decides to join the fight and make Lucifier pay (scene here: //youtu.be/b7PGpq5zJw8, damn Maou hit Lucifer with Fist of the Demon lord~). After that badass scene we see that Chiho is totally okay with Maou being a demon lord and coming from another world (yep that girl wants him inside her) and Emilia’s other companions Emeralda and Albertio come through the gate and they all decide to reconvene back at Maou’s place (can the place even hold all of them) where we find out that the reason Chiho can understand Ente Isla’s language is all thanks to Albertio who has been launching a magic known as Sonar which helped him track down Emilia (it’s also responsible for all the earthquakes that have been happening in the city) and we get this epic scream scene after Maou returns from restoring the city and erasing the minds of everyone (scene here: //youtu.be/q7VHv3gO9NM, you don’t know the half of it lady). After all of this Emeralda and Albertio return back to Ente Isla with Emilia deciding to stay behind and keep an eye on Maou while Lucifer will now be under the care of Maou and Alsiel. As for Orba nowhere to be seen.
We start off episode 6 with Maou being promoted to shift manager at his job and he and Alsiel eating out to celebrate (scene here: //youtu.be/LDoEo5HSJyU, dinner and a show, not bad). Back at home Lucifer spends his days trying to master the arts of the Internet (first lesson, you and bronies: where do you stand) hoping to find ways to restore their magic (go to an Xbox One forum you’ll find all of your negative emotions there) and we see he’s actually a good hacker (hey Maou, wanna be a millionaire in one day?). Lucifer discovers the story of a school that has a forbidden classroom and thinks there might be a source of magic hidden in the classroom so Maou and Alsiel go to inspect the school which happens to be the same school Chiho goes to (why am I not surprise). With the help of Chiho, Maou and Alsiel along with Emilia who followed them (stalker girl. It’s starting to get really hard to defend your title as a hero) go into the school and make their way to the forbidden classroom where there is no source of magic and it was just a setup by Lucifer to get his PSP back (still playing those gal games huh Hiro?) because this building is where he and Orba originally entered the world. After that we end with Maou getting a new neighbor girl in their apartment building (trust me lady I would move if I were you).
In episode 7 we find out that the new neighbor is Suzuno voiced by Kanae Itō (Yui from SAO) a girl who comes from a traditional Japanese family, speaks in the old tongue, and isn’t all that good with technology (but she’s pretty and nice and that’s all that matters). Emilia receives a package from Emeralda which contains a new potion called Holy Vitamin Beta (that sounds awesome) a potion that will help restore Emilia’s magic powers (so it’s like an energy drink that actually works). As she’s stalking Maou’s house again (okay seriously Emilia I’m having a hard time seeing you as the hero) where she peeks in on them to see Suzuno making lunch for Alsiel who has fallen ill due to the summer heat. Suzuno opens up the door which causes Emilia to run away and fall down the stairs again (Jesus that’s like the second time. Forget Maou the stairs are her enemies) but this time she gets saved by Maou (scene here: //youtu.be/3tJsd0WqCAU, what kind of demon lord gets ko’d by a punch and a knee to the face?). She enters the house and meets Suzuno where she quickly figures out that Suzuno has a crush on Maou (wasn’t it obvious) and the two become friends with Emilia telling her to stay away from Maou for her own safety (you just don’t want anyone to steal Maou away from you). At Maou’s job we find out that their arch-competitor Kentucky Fried Chicken will be opening across the street soon (McDonald’s arch-competitor is the Colonel? All these years I thought it was Wendy’s or Burger King) and the manager will be out of town during their opening so it’ll be up to Maou to crush the competition (hit them with a rock). Chiho finds out about Suzuno through Maou because of the homemade lunch Suzuno made for him and responds in an appropriate way for this situation (scene here: //youtu.be/1nkI3ADZjWY, poor Chiho a fierce competitor has appeared before her. Today lunches, tomorrow she’ll be washing his clothes). We wrap the episode up with Emilia getting attacked at the convenience by a masked man who can use magic but thanks to Emeralda’s potion she’s able to battle off the intruder and force him to retreat. Who is this mask intruder nobody knows right now but Emilia has other problems she needs to worry about like Chiho being totally freaked out by that amazing bento.
We start episode 8 on a laugh with Chiho and Emilia going to Maou’s house (did you fall down the stairs again Emilia?) and discover that Suzuno is on first name bases with Maou (scene here: //youtu.be/lNSLtg888oE, Chiho’s gonna lose it). After that not much really happens. Chiho confesses her true feelings to Maou and tells him she’ll love him no matter who he is and even if he just sees her as a fellow worker (brave girl) and Suzuno hears all of the confession which results in this funny scene (scene here: //youtu.be/A_16Q8gv5Fc, ahh! She stole Dullahan). After that Emilia finds out that Suzuno comes from Ente Isla and is the great Inquisitor of the Church (which inquisition? Why the Spanish of course, //youtu.be/yQKG6_0mMfo) who was sent to confirm if Emilia and Maou have formed an alliance against the Church which Emilia outright denies and tells her and the Church to butt out of her business and that the death of Maou is her duty and not the Church’s duty. We also see that Suzuno studied old classic Japanese movies before coming to Japan which is why she’s behind the times and speaks in the old tongue, hell she doesn’t even know how a TV works (scene here: //youtu.be/AwEROK2XtOQ, reveal yourselves. . .tiny people). After their talk we cut to Maou at McDonald’s where the restaurant has suffered heavy losses due to KFC opening up across the street making the manager upset because she’s afraid of being moved to Greenland for losing sales (I don’t think McDonald’s would do that but then again they are working with Wal-Mart so who knows). Before leaving she gives Maou orders to crush the competition by whatever means necessary (here you go Maou, you’re gonna need this *hands Maou a container of gasoline with a tiny box of matches*. Oh come on we’ve all been here at least once). After she leaves Maou sends Alsiel into KFC to get information while Maou receives a visit from Sarue the manager of KFC who (there’s no sense in hiding it) is fucking James from Team Rocket. I’m not kidding its James from Team Rocket just look at this guy and tell me you don’t see James (scene here: //youtu.be/xOfCIsuQtpI?t=5s, man that is surreal. Let this fester in your mind and never leave). We end the episode with Suzuno bragging about what she did while Emilia was at work (scene here: //youtu.be/AjDgRNDb2xY, well looks like she had one busy and funny day), wanting to visit Maou’s workplace and getting dragged to the place by Emilia’s friend Rika from work.
In episode 9 the girls go to KFC where Rika tries to get the dirt on Maou from Emilia and Suzuno where Emilia berates him (you just need to sleep with him and get it over with) until Alsiel can hear no more and orders her to stop. Back on Maou’s side McDonald’s has become a ghost town (never thought I see the day) so he gives the crew shores to do to keep morale up (scene here: //youtu.be/OyhA783u4Qg, I love how he’s treating this whole situation like a war scenario. Though to be fair I think this is how a lot of corporations act about their competitors). Rika takes this opportunity to ask Alsiel about Maou and how he’s related to Emilia (they have a love-hate relationship mixed with a bit of tsundere on Emilia’s side). Through his clever thinking he tells a cover-up story about how he and Maou owned their own construction company but got ran out of business due to Emilia who worked with another construction company. 1 year later the three are reunited and Emilia decides to keep an eye on them out of the kindness (or in this case insanity) in her heart (best cover story ever). After hearing this Rika gains a new found respect for Alsiel and makes the subtle hint that she has fallen for him (good, he deserves a girl the guy hilarious). They all go over to McDonald’s where Alsiel reports what he’s discovered (scene here: //youtu.be/50dvBWyx3bE) and Rika finally meets Maou where’s she not all that impressed (trust me, you will be, scene here: //youtu.be/TQIVVHtfHS8). After that Maou tries to fight fire with fire but they all fail (we’ve been through this you fight fire with water. Why make the fire bigger and destroy everything). That is until a friend of Maou’s stops by and gives him some bamboo trees as thanks for helping him with park cleaning. With these bamboo trees Maou’s decides to have the restaurant take part in the festival going on in town and have people place their wishes on the bamboo tree (now that’s what I’m talking about. That’s the water you wanna use to destroy the fire). This strategy turns things around as everyone starts going to McDonald’s and packing into the place to end the episode.
Not much happens in episode 10. Maou gets asked by his manager to go help out another McDonalds at a waterpark which he happily agrees to do. Bummed not being able to help out Maou, Chiho decides to go to the waterpark herself and invites Emilia who also invites Suzuno. They go to the park and get changed where Emilia’s weakness comes into play again (scene here://youtu.be/-zNJiREfaBs, large meal or small meal. What’s your preference?). They say hi to Maou and go check out the parks two main attractions the haunted house (scene here: //youtu.be/bs3O-VFhgpY, probably best haunted house I’ve seen) and the reptile house where a monkey (//youtu.be/MdrlALQVEKM?t=14s) gets the keys and unleashes a cage of crocodiles into the pool causing widespread panic until Maou comes in and handles the situation himself (scene here://youtu.be/OIQ2OXdJSpQ, he’s basically telling them that he’s their pimp while they’re his bitches and what he says goes). After that everyone goes home.
Once again not much happens in episode 11. We see a bit of Suzuno’s past where she was used as a tool by the church to assassinate people that got in their way (Assassin’s Creed much?). She gets approached by a mysterious cloaked figure who tells her to stop goofing off and eliminate Maou once and for all. Chiho is against this because Maou has done nothing wrong and sees him as a good person and Emilia says she won’t kill Maou unless he really does something evil which he hasn’t (obviously, if anything he’s a better hero than you). Suzuno can’t believe what she’s hearing and walks away from them angry (Suzuno: Good day. (Emilia): But Suzuno. (Suzuno): I SAID GOOD DAY). After she leaves the masked robber who attacked Emilia in the past reveals himself to be Sarue who an actuality is really an angel (could’ve fooled me) and knocks out Emilia. Suzuno comes in and knocks out Chiho to reveal that she’s in cahoots with Sarue and that he’s the mysterious cloak figure who’s been talking to Suzuno. They capture the two and use them as bait to lure out Maou who hears about the capture, grabs a broom from the closet (truly the most dangerous weapon of the demon lord) and rides off on Dullahan to go save them.
At the beginning of episode 12 Orba returns. Where has he been? In the hospital in what I assume to be a coma. He wakes up from it, knocks out the police officer, and takes out Alsiel who’s also in the hospital due to diarrhea because he ate too much sacred food that Suzuno gave him. After taking him out he goes to meet Lucifer at Maou’s house where he asks to team up with him one more time and in return Orba will allow him to enter Heaven. Back on Maou’s part of the story he reaches the place where Chiho and Emilia are being kept and gets greeted by Suzuno (//youtu.be/xNZVW5uDqS8, Dullahan no~). The two fight where thanks to Maou berating her for turning on her friends and those to close her to her (basically he called her a bitch) Suzuno stops fighting and gives up. With Suzuno taken care of Maou goes into the large building to reach the roof where Chiho and Emilia are being kept and has to take the stairs since the elevator is broken (//youtu.be/MF0DbOhiOtg). He reaches the top but is no match for Sarue since he has no power and with Orba bringing the moon closer to Sarue which makes him stronger Maou is no match for him. However, with Sarue’s power running amok in the city everyone starts to panic which allows Maou to power up (like Popeye after eating his steroid spinach). Lucifer double-crosses Orba and takes him out saying he rather stay here and enjoy his NEET life (you’re a bum Lucifer) and Maou takes on Sarue in a battle that lights up the sky (scene here://youtu.be/q9HmtfbRKE0) where he saves Emilia in his normal demon lord fashion (scene here://youtu.be/uVCLVK7gODo), finishes off Sarue with his demon broom which turns into a giant sword (badass), and we end the episode on a funny note (scene here: //youtu.be/JTNSNmv4znk, and Alsiel failed big time).
In the final episode Maou and Alsiel begin acting stranger than normal by being secretive and taking time off from work. Emilia and Chiho discover that Maou and Alsiel owe money because of Lucifer spending money on tracking devices that he planted on Emilia and Chiho (stalker much Lucifer?) and the two have been taking up extra work to earn extra pay. Things get worse when Lucifer gets tricked into a scam buying a truck load of fire extinguishers, air mattresses, and other useless crap making them now owe the scammer 128,000 yen (my reaction: //youtu.be/aL3P-ObcmpQ, followed by the strangling of Lucifer). Maou tries to return the stuff but they’re under a binding contract so there’s nothing they can do that is until Emilia solves the problem telling them to do a cooling off period basically being able to cancel the purchase you made if you don’t want it (consumer rights) and to help their problem even more Lucifer’s legal age in Japan is 18 so he’s considered a minor by Japan standards. Yeah, fun little fact about Japan, the age of adulthood is actually 20 instead of 18. Now you’re probably wondering if that’s the case than why do animes that feature characters 16 year-olds of age or possibly younger live by themselves without adult supervision? Well the most likely reason for this is because they have permission from their parents or guardian to live by themselves. Anyway, with this information and the cooling off period Maou is able to return all of the useless crap Lucifer bought (I’m still gonna strangle him) and he and Alsiel celebrate at a restaurant to end the season with the credits rolling (scene here://youtu.be/7NZgCfQYQR8, and the series has come full circle with the Emilia and Maou scene).
Final Thoughts
This is a great anime. I mean it, the anime is funny from beginning to end always making us laugh and giving us a good cast of characters that grow on you and make you like them. You see what I mean about the demon lord being better hero than the actual hero? For the most part of the anime it’s usually Maou who’s doing all the hero stuff and it’s usually Emilia doing all the evil stuff. I like Maou’s laid-back personality, it’s hard to believe this guy once tried to take over the world. The guy just seems so at peace with life like he enjoys his job and life and the people around him. It’s hard to tell if he still has dreams of ruling our world or not, but if so than it doesn’t seem like he’s in any hurry to conquer us and even if he does I think he be a good ruler. Emilia is funny character and does a good job representing what I like to call the holy hero, the hero who thinks that they are good no matter what they do and everything they do whether it’s good or evil can be justified because they are a hero. That’s the kind of vibe we get from Emilia at first but as the anime goes on we start to see her trust Maou more (you can tell she’s developing feelings for him) but at the same time she’s kinda fighting herself because a part of her believes that because Maou is the demon lord he can’t be forgiven for his crimes and must pay for them someday but the other part of her sees Maou for who he really is and believes that he’s a good person who’s just looking for a purpose in life. Alsiel was hands down the best character in the show. This guy comes in and steals the show from Maou, he’s fucking hilarious. I really do admire his respect and loyalty to Maou sticking by him through thick and thin and staying by Maou’s side no matter what choice he chooses in life. The other characters are alright. Chiho’s the typical high school girl with a crush on the main character but she has her funny moments that keep her entertaining, Lucifer is the useless NEET always causing trouble, and Suzuno kinda represents that foreigner who thinks she understands the culture of the country but when she gets there she finds out it’s not what she thought and it’s funny to see her try and adapt to our world’s customs and culture.
The animation is good, nothing really special about it but it’s nice to look at and good on the eyes so no worries there and the music is decent and fun to listen to. If I really have any complaints about this anime I guess it would have to be seeing the backstories of a few of our characters like Alsiel and Lucifer becoming Maou’s followers, how Emilia got her job and her reactions to first arriving in our world, how did Maou get his job working at McDonald’s, why is the church so dead set are killing Maou and Emilia now and probably the most important question what made Chiho fall for Maou? Stuff like that would have nice to see and answered to give us more of a background on the situation the characters are in and why they’re in the spots they’re in right now. But those are just small complaints, nitpicks at best to an otherwise great and funny anime that’s better than I remember it being. I feel bad that this anime didn’t make the top 11 animes of 2013 list.
Final Score
Hataraku Maou-sama final score is a very strong and well deserving 8.5/10 with a must watch stamp of approval. This was one of the funniest and best animes of 2013 with a good story, funny characters and setup. Hopefully this anime gets a second season in the foreseeable future because it rightfully deserves one and I would love to see what more hijinks and situations these characters get into. Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj as the Demon Lord arc continues.
*All images, videos, and music do not belong to me and belong to their respected owners*
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