This is part of a series of re-posts of older reviews on 100 Word Anime. The original review came out in May 2016 and can be found here.
The comedy in this show is fantastic as it balances absurd humour and satire fairly well throughout most of the series while still managing the odd moment of touching friendship and drama. While the occasional boob joke may intrude, for the most part the show relies on situational comedy and it plays the fish out of water card with precision and for merciless laughs.
Highlights include Satan’s dilemma over whether to use his power to cook chips when the fryer breaks. This is a moment stretched out for dramatic tension. He stands poised but frozen in indecision. He doesn’t have much power. But they won’t be first in sales if they can’t sell the chips. What should he do? And then the moment is broken and we see him hanging his head in utter defeat.
Also, Emilia’s dissatisfaction with her own mundane life and her inability to accept her changing relationship with Satan is regularly played for laughs even while it addresses real issues about not judging books by their covers and learning to move on. That and to stop projecting onto other people.
Lucifer’s portrayal as an introvert and lay about also brings on some good laughs later in the series. As does his plaintive complaints about his treatment (given he did try to kill most of the other cast members).
The Devil is a Part Time Complete Series
In addition to comedy the show offers some good satirical commentary about the nature of the modern world and whether or not our current work/corporate culture is evil. This point is further emphasised in the final episode that moves entirely away from the clash between angels and demons and focuses entirely on sales scams.
While some of the characters remain one dimensional and the basic premise never really evolves beyond Lord Satan is working part time and somehow believes he will one day rule the world, this series is more than entertaining enough. The few complaints about the odd missed joke and the sleazy portrayal of Sariel seem petty when looking at the overall.
The music is neither good nor bad (it fulfils its purpose but is readily forgotten after the fact) and the animation is neither particularly good or bad.
That said, I have to nominate Ashiya/Alciel for being the single most useless minion of all time.
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I have checked the description and walked away so many times from the series before finally giving in and watching it. I was so surprised when I found myself enjoying it. I kind of wish for a second season, since it’s clear the first season was sort of unfinished.
The description doesn’t really do the show justice. I guess it is accurate, but the way it comes together in the anime just works really well.
This show is great. Also is this re-post part of that one week hiatus thing from earlier?
I kind of realised a lot of my old posts had almost zero views and most of my followers never saw them, plus they needed an edit (some need a full rewrite) so I’m resurrecting them bit by bit.
Fair enough, I feel a bit like that towards some of my older posts as well!
I’m just clearly labelling them so that those who have followed from the beginning aren’t subjected to reruns, unless they want to be. But yeah, this came about after going through old posts for the week away and I realised how many of my old reviews had just kind of never been read.
Yeah sure, it’s a good idea honestly.
Quite possibly the first ever comedy anime I got exposed to. Granted I never revisited it, but I remember liking it immensely during my younger days.
Yeah, I love this one. Its very similar to I Couldn’t Be A Hero So I Got A Job Instead. The characters are somewhat funnier in this, however, and there’s a bit more plot too.
This series was hilarious…
It’s not very high on my list of ‘anime that should I wish had another season’, but it’s on there! (Somewhere)
I think a second season would have been great because there seems like a lot more to the story. That said, I’m glad they didn’t stretch this season because I’m sure the jokes would have gotten stale if we’d had any more at the time.
Okay, I am a tad bit busy this week, but next week I will drop some notes for that thing we spoke of before your week off 😊 (the old vs new tag or something along those lines 😊). Somehow this post was a good way to let you know that I haven’t forgotten about it 😉
Sounds great.
This was a series that I enjoyed. I kinda figured it would be light enertainment that I could ahve on in the background without missing out on too much, and that seemed to be right. Fun but not a favourite.
I was just surprised I like this given the premise and genre I was expecting to roll my eyes and walk away from the series when I started it. I ended up having a great time and quite a few laughs.
The humour was the biggest surprise for me. If anything was going to slip up with it, I thought it would be that. It was a lot of fun though.