The devil incarnate main title male protagonist and his trusty general.
The devil incarnate main title male protagonist and his trusty general.

The third anime I decided to review in this blog ‘ Anime of the Year 2013’ audition today is the a series with an awesome ANN-transliterated English name – The Devil is a Part Timer!. Usually I will just use its usual Japanese title ‘Hataraku Maou-sama’ but when I visit this anime’s ANN page, I know straight away I have to use their title for this anime’s review instead. Name-wise, this anime far surpassed the first two titles reviewed here before in this audition, both in awesomeness and length, but does its story actually managed to repeat that feat?

The essence of the anime's storyline.
The essence of the anime's storyline.

Story:-
In a distant fantastical world in a galaxy far far away from Earth called Ente Isla, the local demon lord a.k.a. the main male title protagonist is just about to finish subjugating the whole world but was thwarted by the heroic main female protagonist and her merry band of heroes. Deeply wounded, the demon lord and one of his trusty generals enter hyperspace and escape to an alternative world commonly known here as Earth. Naturally, the righteous heroine followed suit to finish the job, but she instead found out that she has just landed in a hell on Earth called Japan and was finished by the demon lord, then condemned as a slave at NTT DoCoMo. After disposing his mortal enemy, the demon lord now has his sight fixed on a new enemy: Kentucky Fried Chicken.

As far as the quality of this anime’s story goes, it gravitates more upon the level of the second anime reviewed in the audition (Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai kara Kuru Sou Desu yo?), rather than the first one (Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru). And this has nothing to do with the former’s penchant for alternative worlds, just like this anime does. This anime starts very well, unlike the two previous anime reviewed in the audition before; even better than Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai kara Kuru Sou Desu yo?. But when the big war against KFC across the street started, the plot’s quality started to trod downhill from there. This inability to keep the quality of the storyline up or constant is what set this anime part from its two predecessors in the audition, negatively. At least those two doesn’t regress the way this anime does.

The main title male protagonist has decent character strength, but is nowhere as good as his counterpart is in Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru. The latter is way too good though, the former shouldn’t be ashamed for losing to him. The main title male protagonist is better at least than his counterpart in Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai kara Kuru Sou Desu yo?, which is a good thing because the main female protagonist isn’t good enough to become a foil for him. The main female protagonist weakness in characterization is so apparent, it makes me wonder why the demon lord loses to her at Ente Isla in the first place. The main male protagonist is definitely the best character of the show; only that he is no Hikigaya Hachiman.

The storyline’s pacing is good, even in the regressive second half of this anime. The flow of the storyline is peachy too. While it is obvious that there are more to come from this anime story-wise (two more generals hasn’t made their appearances, and also who is Miki-T and why everyone seems to ignore her), this anime doesn’t manage to make me interested on what its future may hold, which is the opposite of what I have felt for the first two titles in the audition. The ending (this anime ends at the penultimate episode) is good and not as abrupt as the Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai kara Kuru Sou Desu yo? ending. yet still opens the possibility of a second season which ahs not been announced yet in the time of writing. 

The long titles of the first two anime reviewed in this audition sure takes a lot of space here…

The devil incarnate main title male protagonist and his surly queen.
The devil incarnate main title male protagonist and his surly queen.

Character Design:-
In this anime that takes place in modern Japan, black hairs is surprisingly rare, mainly because most of the characters with high amount of airtime is not from Earth. The ones that are real Japanese doesn’t happen to have them either. In general, character designs in this anime is pretty much ordinary, just like in Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru. Or Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai kara Kuru Sou Desu yo? for the matter. 3 straight titles where their characters all have cookie-cutter shounen designs means the industry has not improved on this aspect for 3 years now?

Voice Acting:-
Not a dialogue-heavy title unlike Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru, this anime is the worst so far when it comes to voice acting quality. Basically, unlike the other two anime titles reviewed here before in the audition, voice acting gigs in this anime is just average. Uninspiring voice acting gig for the main male protagonist is the hallmark of this anime and the one for the main female protagonist is even worse. Lucifer’s voice actor is really good though, and so is the permanently-stoned female companion of the heroine from Ente Isla. Other characters’ voice acting quality lies between those two extremes.

Music:-
The soundtrack for this anime is good. Not as good as soundtrack of Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai kara Kuru Sou Desu yo? though, but at least good enough not to be dinged by me. This anime’s OP theme is actually decent too, unlike the first two anime in the audition that has failures for their OP/ED themes. Only the ED theme is a little bit meh.

Animation/Direction:-
The overall animation quality in this anime is good and flawless. Integration between CGI and traditional animation is smooth. Choreography in action scenes in this action anime title are really mediocre though, you are definitely not going to watch this for the fights. This anime has the best directing gigs so far in the audition, mainly because there are no notable mistakes that his counterparts in the two anime titles reviewed before this one has committed. If there anything else I can say about the director, I’ll say there isn’t any. A positive aspect for this anime.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10.
Same score as Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai kara Kuru Sou Desu yo?, therefore Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru is still ahead in this audition for this blog’s ‘Anime of the Year 2013’ title. If EveTaku fan-sub group finished subbing the episode 14-16 of the final season of Oreno Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai before I decided to continue the audition, then it will be next anime reviewed here. Else, it will be the one after the next one.

Shortlink: http://wp.me/prgSo-C0

The second 2013 title in this blog’s ‘Anime of the Year 2013’ audition that I decided to watch and then review today would be yet another anime with a long title titled Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai kara Kuru Sou Desu yo?. Completely different when it comes to plot when compared to the first title in the audition, the long-titled Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru, can the shortest anime series in this audition be able to challenge the surprise early front-runner of this audition in the form of the latter? By the way, this review will be the only third one that doesn’t have any screenshots.

Story:-
Three gifted teenagers from three different parallel worlds was invited into ‘The Garden’, a mystical fantasy world vastly different from their own versions of Japan. In The Garden, the gifted teenagers that comes from different eras of Japan will get to alleviate their boredoms  by participating in ‘Gift Games’ hosted by the powerful and (in)famous characters in that world. Therefore the three teenagers started to have it their own way and fighting their way through those games, with varying results.

Storywise, this anime is a fast starter compared to Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru, with the first five episodes of this anime being better than the first 5 episodes of the latter. Unlike the latter though, this anime does not improve in its final five episodes therefore, Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru has better final 5 episodes than this anime. This doesn’t mean that the quality of the plots of this anime has plunged in the those last 5 episodes, it is just that the plot barely improved in quality in those episodes.

Now the biggest question I have for this anime is ‘Why this anime has only 10 episodes?’. The way this anime’s screenplay was written AND THEN presented to the viewers, it is as if this anime has been truly planned to have at least 24 or 26 episodes (2 cours) instead of only 10. If the director knows that this anime has only 10 episodes, why is that he/she lets the writer wrote the story the way it is currently seen now? The second season of Hakuouki Hekketsu-roku also have 10 episodes, but at least its plot was written exactly to fit into those meager 10 episodes at the cost of pacing.

This is a pity because this anime could have turned out to become a very good action title. Just like Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru, this anime do still has a lot of potential still left in its storyline. The setting of ‘The Garden’ is excellent and can provide plenty of inspiration for the writer to draw more decent-quality plots out of it. The ending of this anime then feels like it ends abruptly, which is understandable because in any other action anime title, its ending will be commonly seen as an end to an arc, not an end to an anime series or season(s).

Considering the 10-episode nature of this anime, the pacing of this anime is very good. Not like the very fast pacing of Hakuouki Hekketsu-roku reviewed here before. The flow of the storyline is also great, better even than Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru. While this anime doesn’t have any characters that is on the same level of Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru’s main male protagonist, the developments of the characters in this anime are more balanced than in the former. Again I do have a feeling that the character developments of the 3 Japanese teenagers are devised on the premise that this anime would need at least 2 cours to be executed properly.

Just like Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru, there are no second season planned for this anime yet as of writing. I do think this anime do deserve one with much higher episode count. At least this anime is much more watchable, unlike another anime title reviewed here that also doesn’t have any screenshots in it…

Character Design:-
The character designs for the two female Japanese teenagers whisked away from their parallel worlds is good, especially for the one that can talk to animals. The design for the only male character is ordinary unlike his awesomely powerful gift. In ‘The Garden’ there are very few black-haired characters in it, but instead has plenty of real cat and rabbit ears on humanoid forms. This anime has done better than Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru in this regard, but then again the ‘The Garden’ settings really helps this anime here.

Voice Acting:-
The voice acting gigs in this anime is good overall. Characters whose voice actors has done outstanding job includes the girl that come from the post-war Japan and also the white-haired Floor Master. The other two teenagers are good though voice-acting-wise, but quite far behind them. Other recurring characters too doesn’t have any gigs that is not at least above-average in level. This anime has definitely done better than Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru in this aspect.

Music:-
Unlike Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru, this anime has very good soundtrack. But just like Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru, this anime has crappy OP and ED themes. And insert themes too. This anime is barely better than Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru I suppose in this aspect.

Animation/Direction:-
This anime employed the blurry animation technique which will result on 1-point docking from this anime final evaluation score. Apart from that, general animation quality of this anime is at least flawless, but there are times when character animations is going to be jerky. No problem with character composition unlike Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru. Integration between traditional 2D animation and CGI sequences is excellent.

Choreography in action scenes is below average though; a blip for this anime. Apart from the suspect editorial decision I have mentioned in the story section above, the director has done a very good job for this anime, especially for its presentation.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10.
This probably would have done well with more episodes. Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru still remains a surprise front-runner in this audition, I hope other titles in the audition can do challenge it in the future.

Shortlink: http://wp.me/prgSo-BU

The main male protagonist, and the best character of this anime.
The main male protagonist, and the best character of this anime.

This blog’s ‘Anime of the Year 2013’ audition kicks off with its first entry, an anime with an overly-long title Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru. This is a surprisingly good slice-of-life anime title, but whether it is good enough to win the audition remains to be seen.

Story:-
The greatly misunderstood main male protagonist, a loner who shied away from the high-school ‘society’, submitted a wrong essay to his teacher and found himself forced to become the member of the school’s ‘Volunteer Club’. The only other member of the club is the main female protagonist who is the most beautiful girl in school, and together the duo will have to HELP (emphasis added) the students in the school solve their problems.

If there is one reason why you should watch this anime, that would be just to watch the main male protagonist. Not unlike the K-On! series, this anime is so totally powered by his character strength. The other two club members, who was supposed to become his love interests, were truly made ordinary by him. His character development is tremendous, unlike the static development of the main female protagonist. Even the second big-breasted member of the club has a slightly better character development strategy than the latter. This imbalance between the two main protagonists’ character developments would have been a negative aspect for this anime, but somehow it isn’t, because of a reason that will be explained below.

Story-wise, this anime starts slowly. The plots in the first half of this anime is almost below average in quality, and only the  aforementioned character strength of the main male protagonist helped carried the series at those episodes. But the second half of this anime, the plot improves tremendously, especially the summer camp and school festival arcs. The quality tapers off a little though in the final episode which is about the sport festival event. The two aforementioned arc is also where the main male protagonist really shines.

Still, I do have the feeling that only a little tiny bit portion of the storyline has been presented to the viewers in the 13 episodes of this series. Some of the scenes in this anime indicates to me that the main female protagonist do have her own character development strategy, but almost all of them seems to be hidden from the view of the viewers, and maybe the main male protagonist too.

This anime doesn’t really has a definite ending, and definitely can, and should be extended into a second season which this anime really deserved. If the 13th episodes is of any indication, that cannot be counted as an ending at all, it is more like a filler episode to me. This bring us to this anime’s presentation scheme, where the flow of the storyline is actually decent until that last episode. The last episode, what the hell is that? The pacing of the storyline is slow too, befitting the genre of this anime.

Returning to character developments, you should already be able to guess that the main male protagonist is this anime’s best character after what I have wrote above. The other two members of the ‘Volunteer Club’ is nowhere near him in this aspect, and so are the other characters, whether from his school or outside of it. But certain characters like the popular guy from the main protagonist’s class and also the older sister of the main female protagonist definitely has more unpolished potential that can be unearthed in a second season, or more.

Speaking of a second season, I have not heard any news about it yet as of writing. But if there are more extensions to this anime in the future, I sincerely hoped that this anime stays on the slice-of-life+comedy genre combination, and without any romance especially for the main male protagonist.

Quoted for Truth!
Quoted for Truth!

Character Design:-
The characters design in this anime is simply ordinary, and nothing to shout about. In fact, calling the designs in this anime as unoriginal will even be a fair accusation. In this anime that takes place in modern Japan, black hairs are common though, which is a good thing. Unoriginality seems to be the theme of this anime though…

Voice Acting:-
The main male protagonist could have been more awesome, if only he has a voice actor that is on the same level as his counterpart of Ixion Saga Dimension Transfer or even  Bakemonogatari. A lost opportunity in this anime that is naturally dialogue-heavy title. This is not to say that his voice actor is bad though; he has done a good job, but could have been much better just the way how Ixion Saga was greatly helped by its excellent voice acting gigs. The main female protagonist is just average and the other member of the club isn’t that different either. The only other good voice acting gig I have heard in this anime is the one for the fujoshi girl and one of the friends of the main male protagonist’s foil in his class.

Music:-
This anime is an utter failure is this aspect. The soundtrack is forgettable, and the OP and ED themes are uninspiring. There is nothing else I can say here.

Animation/Direction:-
One thing I noticed about the animation quality in this anime is that character animations can be atrocious at times. Not only that, the laziness in characters compositions that can be seen in the second half of Michiko to Hatchin can also be glimpsed here. General animation is okay most of the time, although sometimes the quality goes the way of the character animations too. Choreography did not apply in this strictly slice-of-life title. And as for the directing, let just say that he/she watch to much Bakemonogatari, to the point that I cringe when I watched some of the scenes in this anime.

Conclusion:-
9 out of 10.
That’s how much I’m impressed by the Yui-like character that is the main male protagonist. The great second half of this anime helps too. This audition surprisingly starts off with a great bang, and as a reminder, the last year’s audition winner Another also has the same score. If even half of this year’s audition entries is as good as this one, then this audition is surely going to be enjoyable.

Shortlink: http://wp.me/prgSo-BR