Age Appropriate: Preteens
Emotional Response: excitement and laughter
Notable Features: demons, heroes, magic, alternate realms
Language: Japanese
Length: 1 Seasons, 13 episodes
Overall Recommendation: Pretty Good
"Is this really the Devil?" - Bel
In the other dimensional world, Ente Isla, the Devil has started a war to take over the four directional countries in a bid for world domination. However, he's met his match in the Hero Emilia, and they both end up in modern day Japan, traveling through a Gate. Upon arrival, Satan and his general, Alciel, find themselves in a place where they have no more magic, a different language, and without any resources. Emilia has followed them through said gate, and they meet up on a street in the rain. While the story revolves around the situations presented between Emilia and Satan (and co.), the center of the comedy is the fact that Satan has become a part time worker at MgRonald's, and originally believes that this will be his path to the top of his new world, Earth. Everyone from Ente Isla has changed their names, and ages, met new people and started some sort of job situation - except Alciel who is tending house and researching ways to replenish magic.
At some point, there are new Ente Isla characters added to the story, often people from either side betraying our favored protagonists. There is also a young lady character who works under Satan and has managed to fall in love with him. His commitment to protecting those "under his command" often leads him into situations where he becomes the heroic character, and confuses those on the other side in the process. The series has mini-battles, some emotional flashbacks and a comedy element that makes this series more modern day vs. fantasy genre.-----
I throughly enjoyed this series. There weren't any points where I was teary eyes - either from hilarity or sadness - so the emotional components weren't that important, but it was fun. I got a big kick of out Lucifer's character the most, I think. He has a rather small part in each episode, but I could totally see him in a lot of guys I know. I wish there had been time for a little more character development, but I'm happy with what there was. I also think there could have been a little more to the potentially epic battles, but it seems they wanted to keep it to 13 episodes and with that amount of time I think they did a really good job. There is a part of me that wouldn't mind a second season, though I've heard nothing about it, but I'm pretty satisfied without one. I guess, if they'd done more it would change the overall feel of the series, and I don't know that it would've been a good thing.
Well, apart from Satan actually being a bit of an idiot most of the time. I found a lot of fun in each of the other characters, when I didn't want to throttle them. I just wish I'd been able to get a little bit more. I really liked the few moments when he shows how not-stupid he is, as much as I liked when Alciel acted like an irresponsible fool. There was a small book-by-uts-cover moral to the story, but not so overt as to be irritating. I'm really glad that I decided to give this one a try. I would seriously recommend it.
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Crazy, yo: Astarotte's Toy
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