Friday, May 9, 2014

Hataraku Maou-sama!

Hataraku Maou-sama!:  B+


The title is a little hard to translate due to Japanese constructions, the official translation is "The Devil is a Part-Timer!" which I think pretty bad, but whatever.  This is the story of the Dark Lord Satan (not the actual biblical Adversary, just a demon lord that shares his name) losing the ultimate battle between good and evil on his home plane and like any good villain fleeing to another dimension so that the brave Hero has to pursue him for all eternity.

He comes out on Earth, finds out that his evil sorcery works a little different here and has to work at McDonalds to pay his rent.  The Hero follows him and she winds up working in a call center.  Since she's constantly keeping an eye on him to make sure he doesn't try anything really evil, everyone keeps mistaking her for his ex.  Neither of them is amused, nor is the cute high school girl who works the same shift as the Dark Lord, now going by "Maou Sadao".

The show does an excellent job of balancing the humor of the premise with genuine drama when people from the Dark Lord and the Hero's home plane come to try to finish things.  The characters are flavorful and engaging, the pacing is good and the series does a good job of maintaining a proper level of tension.  I particularly love the Hero, Emi, as a character, she really does give a sense of genuine heroism, while also being an interesting character in her own right.  She's even well-contrasted with the Inquisitor who has made so many sacrifices in the name of "good" that she doesn't really know what's right any more.  While I wouldn't say that the show is a brilliant discussion of 'real' good and evil, it certainly brings the arbitrariness of the words into question.

If I have to criticize it: the ending could be better.  The final battle is a little anticlimactic and comes at the end of the 12th, not 13th, episode, so Ep 13 is just kind of... there.  Hopefully it's setting itself up for a second season, which I feel like it could use to really make some statements, but it loses some points for that.

It's not deep, it's not brilliant, but it's fun and it's funny and it's good.  I actually can pretty broad-strokes recommend it to anyone who the premise appeals to, though if you're looking for depth you won't really get it here.

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