This anime could be described as a reverse isekai. In an isekai anime the protagonist is usually an ordinary person who gets transported to a fantasy world where he is overpowered and has all the hot girls at his feet. In Hataraku Maou-sama!, it’s the opposite. The protagonist is a demon lord who is forced to flee his world, Ente Isla, after a crushing defeat against human armies led by a powerful hero, and ends up in modern-day Tokyo with one his lieutenants. The normal world being devoid of magic, the two demons have very limited use of their powers and have to integrate themselves in modern-day society if they want to survive.
THE FIRST FEW EPISODES ARE NICE
The first 3 or 4 episodes are somewhat good, thanks to the comedy. Most of the comedy comes from the fact that the characters, who were extremely powerful demons and heroes in Ente Isla, have to integrate themselves in modern Japanese society and do normal stuff that normal people do, which creates a comical distance. In the first episode you see them getting an ID, a bank account, and an apartment to rent. They are reduced to live in poverty, eat shit food and work low-paid jobs. The demon lord is now called Maou Sadao and works part-time in a McDonald’s while his subordinate and roommate is now called Ashiya Shirou and does the cooking and manages their budget, which is kind of hilarious. The hero who defeated the demon lord was also transported to the normal world and is now known as Yusa Emi, a call center employee.
AND IT’S ALRIGHT PRODUCTION-WISE
The animation is done pretty well, though it’s nothing unforgettable. Backgrounds are usually well drawn and some of them are fairly detailed. The character designs aren’t generic but they’re not particularly original either. People from Ente Isla have the type of generic clothing that you find in hundreds of other fantasy anime series, while people from the normal world are clothed like… normal people so of course they’re not original. To balance out, the face designs are kind of pretty, the characters’ expressions are done properly, and their faces don’t look inconsistent.
Sound-wise, the voice-acting is mostly good. The background music and the opening are unoriginal and forgettable, but it doesn’t hinder the series.
SADLY, THE REST OF THE SERIES ISN’T AS GOOD
As the plot progresses there is less and less comedy, which is sad since it is the best aspect of the show. Not only this, the jokes also get more repetitive and unfunny, with flat-chest jokes and the like. Most of the comedy stems from the fact that the characters are poor, and if that’s pretty funny at first, I can assure you that it is pretty tiring to hear dozens of times the same god damn joke about the former-demon-lord-but-now-part-time-worker-in-a-shitty-fast-food and his former-demon-lieutenant-but-now-housewife being so broke that they have to eat expired noodles that were left in the fridge or something of the same type. We get it, they’re poor. Find a new joke.
IT TAKES ITSELF TOO SERIOUSLY
The premise and the first few episodes of the series make it look like it is focused on comedy – and it should be – but as the story progresses the series introduces more characters from Ente Isla and tries to give them a serious background, which feels completely out of place. The show also wastes time making an attempt at world-building. For god’s sake, I don’t want to learn about the politics and the intrigues of a generic parallel fantasy world when the series is about former demons and magical beings being poor dudes in modern-day Japan.
DEMON LORD MY ASS
The characters come from another world but it doesn’t seem to affect their personality at all. The protagonist is supposed to be a demon lord who almost conquered Ente Isla and probably killed hundreds of thousands of people in the process, but once he arrives in modern-day Japan, he turns into your average otaku protagonist in a matter of minutes. The same goes for his arch enemy, Emilia a.k.a Yusa Emi, who quickly realizes how the former demon lord has changed and abandons the idea of killing him, even though it is clearly stated that he is responsible for the death of her family and the destruction of her village. But no, she doesn’t want to to kill him because that would make the demon lord’s co-worker sad, and a real hero must protect everyone’s smiles without making any sacrifices – pure idealistic nonsense! The same goes for another of the demon lord demon lord’s former subordinates, Lucifer, turned into a shut-in NEET who leeches off him and somehow becomes a hacker – because wasting all your time on the internet makes you a hacker, apparently! I get that these changes of personality are made for the purpose of comedy, but they are way too sudden and they lack a proper justification. To come back to the protagonist, he has nothing of a demon lord and behaves like a more energetic version of Emiya Shirou from Fate/Stay Night: he is kind, hard-working, idealistic, he has no evil goals whatsoever, and he is completely oblivious to the fact that his 16-year old high school student coworker with large boobs wants to “make babies” with him. Yes, you read that right. The demon lord responsible for the death of probably hundreds of thousands of humans is a good person that has no intention to do anything remotely evil or even to go back to his world. What could have turned the demon lord into such a nice human being, you may ask?
IDEALIZATION OF SHIT JOBS AND ROMANTICIZATION OF THE LIFE OF POOR PEOPLE
And the answer is… McDonald’s! Working at McDonald’s and living in poverty made him realize how kind the human world is, how cute!
Pretty unusual, I know. What kind of absolute frickin’ buffon would make this sort of “realization” after experiencing poverty and working such a low-qualified, low-paid and unrewarding job? And here we are talking about a former demon lord who used to rule over an entire continent, not just some naive imbecile. But no, Maou Sadao loves being poor. He loves living in a cramped room with two of his former subordinates, with one being nothing more than a leech and the other doing only the cooking when he isn’t sick in bed because he ate expired food. In fact he loves it so much he completely gave up on the idea of going back to his world, and doesn’t have any actual objective in the normal world! By the way, he isn’t the only one to love his shitty job. The other employees, too, seem to be having a lot of fun working in a fast-food chain! Yep! This show idealizes working in a McDonald’s to a such a point, it becomes obvious that it’s trying to brainwash the younger generation into loving their shitty life of being exploited and treated like tools. Want some more proof? The protagonist’s manager is a hot woman who looks like she is strict but just, and his coworker is a moe girl with huge breasts. Working in a shitty fast food means you’re surrounded by hot women and cute girls, apparently! What’s more, the protagonist thinks of himself as part of the company and wants it to succeed so much that he works himself to the bone to attract customers and win the “war” against the local KFC. Ridiculous!
I know that most anime series focusing on characters’ working life tend to idealize the workplace, but in this show we’re not talking about a passionate otaku working his dream job of making video games or something of the sort, but about a dude working in a heckin’ McDonald’s in Tokyo.
ONLY ONE DECENT CHARACTER: ASHIYA
Ashiya is the only character from Ente Isla whose personality change after arriving in Tokyo wasn’t too exaggerated. He is still loyal to the demon lord and continues to serve him. He resents the hero Emilia as she is the mortal enemy of his master, while his master cares so little about the past that when Emilia looses her wallet, he allows her to stay at their place for one night. While his delusional master thinks he can conquer Japan by moving up the ladder – he gives up on that project after a few episodes, Ashiya looks for a way to replenish magic in the normal world. He is also the source of most of the comedy, as he is the one who manages their household’s very limited budget, and always tries to spend as little money as possible.
CONCLUSIONSadly, Hataraku Maou-sama! doesn’t know if it wants to be a slice-of-life comedy show, a fantasy series about a parallel world and demons, a moe romance anime, or a 13-episode advertisement for McDonald’s. It tries to be all of these things at the same time and the result is a very average and forgettable anime. The only thing that you will remember about it is that it had an interesting premise which sounded like a parody of the isekai genre. Since they are comical and entertaining, the first 3 or 4 episodes are worth watching. After that, the series gets repetitive and boring.
