Hataraku Maou-sama!
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!

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Imagine being served a perfect steak. Just before you're about to dig in, the chef comes to your table and tells you he forgot to add the final touch and proceeds to dump an entire cup of salt and ketchup over your steak, walking away with a smirk of satisfaction after announcing "There, now it's perfect!".

The ending completely ruins the entire series; yes it's that bad. It invalidates 20 volumes of wonderful character development, shoving down your throat an abysmal relationship that makes absolutely no sense in the story.

How can the author be so tone deaf/unable to read the room? It's absolutely disgusting what ... the author's done to this series. It was one of my top 3 light novels, and now I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I regret giving the author my time, attention, and money. He should be ashamed and apologize for ruining the series.

Being an avid Anime enthusiast, I have come to accept numerous flaws in the industry that I cherish, flaws that have been ruining the industry for years, with no sign of said flaws going away any time soon. One of the biggest of these blunders, is how many writers of Manga and Light Novels end their beloved series, stabbing the reader in the heart, a reader who has spent years dedicated to the source material, only for the author to lose all sense of writing ability at the end, and vomiting out a ending that should not be accepted as a professional publication of any ... sort. This sadly happened to Devil is a Part Timer, another series in a long line of fantastic source material that was great for a long time, than the writer decided to put out a final volume with the quality you find in poorly written fan-fiction. It is utterly disappointing, and heartbreaking for individuals who spent so much time supporting this, all to be lent down with something so poorly made to finish it all off.

To be honest I didn't read much of the actual Light Novel itself, I watched the Anime back when it was released, and enjoyed it tremendously. I would check up on summaries of each novel that was released so I at least was caught up on what was happening in the original source material. I did this, because I have been disappointed so many times by Manga and Light Novels wasting years of the reader's time only to end up completely ruining the entire series with writing quality that goes down the toilet, with an author who clearly has no real writing skills being exposed at the end, because they have no utter idea how to end the series they built up. Thankfully for me I didn't take a vested interest in the light novel, otherwise my disappointment would have been even greater.

The ending is so butchered, it seems the author wanted to end the series in the most lethargic and utterly incompetent way possible without actually looking up how he wrote the rest of the series, to see if the ending he proposed actually makes any sense with the development he already established. It truly makes me wonder if the writers in the Anime industry as a whole actually know how to write anything, or if they simply string together a couple of random ideas that accidentally work, but then when it comes time to tie all these ideas together into a nice bow with a fantastic ending, their inherent lack of talent shines through, and their lack of writing talent leads to an ending that even a four year old could write better. To not spoil anything, basically the ending goes against any of the natural build up of the past volumes, this ending just comes out of right field with illogical character decisions that are in contrast with past decisions, again just further supporting my conclusion that these authors get lucky with a decent premise but are unable to fulfill anything beyond that, relying on the Anime medium to sell their poorly written novels, otherwise if they actually had any belief in their abilities they would write regular novels without piggybacking on the Anime medium to quickly sell off their mediocre "books".

That is why I don't bother reading any Manga or Light Novels while they are still in the middle of their runs, I have no trust in the author being able to maintain any semblance of quality, it usually just ends up getting worse and worse, with an eventual final release that leaves everyone empty inside, wasting years of their life and money on an author who didn't deserve it. I heard the author is getting death threats, I do not condone such vile behavior, however I do condone not supporting authors with track records of failure, until they can prove they can actually maintain the quality of the beginning novels all the way to the end. Otherwise, we are just supporting mediocrity and setting ourselves up for disappointment again.

Hopefully by some miracle this source material gets its second season as unlikely as it is, and that the Anime studio in charge actually gets leeway into making significant changes. Otherwise just stick to the original first season Anime. Just another great source material like Food Wars, that is ruined by an author who was given too much hype, and was unable to fulfill the early promise, instead butchering the series as it went along. At least the final season of Food Wars did remedy some of the Manga's issues, however this is most likely not gonna happen for Devil is a Part Timer. I am truly getting sick of this, the industry needs better talent as harsh as that sounds, I truly believe it.

In the modern world, Its not easy to live a decent life. You don't get a good life, you earn it yourself . Having job is not an option but a necessity . No matter who you are.. a middle aged man, a young man,a boy, or even the demon king..you need money . And our friend Maou here is no exception either ,as After escaping from a loosing battle in his world , He finds himself in this weird world called "Earth" and now needs to work as employ in a burger joint to conquer the world, Or rather to be ... able to get a meal for tonight.

The story might start of in the midst of a gruesome war between humans and demons, for the land of "Ente Isle".and of course With a lot of blood being shed and people being killed,however the way things progress, might just make you forget that something like this even happened.

So, the story itself is not really great .Even though things start good , It has little to offer beyond that . The book doesn't have a grand plot with lot of mysteries and plot twist.In fact, for the most part you yourself would keep wondering, what the book is even about.The plot progression and development are extremely slow, and at some points even non existent . But good thing is that the book realizes that and does not really the story part too seriously. The author knows the true strength of the book and focuses on what is important, that is the characters.

Its quite difficult to describe the character line up of devil is a part timer. All of them seem to have a certain charm about them and they fit the overall theme perfectly. Take the protagonist for example, The reader knows that he is demon king who had tried to rule the land of ente isle in the past, However his actions and behavior now, actually makes one wonder about his true motives. He acts, or rather, becomes a good, respectable and law abiding citizen and the only reminder of his true past is the constant complaining of Emi, the hero. The book shatters the image of demons we had in our mind and portrays them as something completely different.

The book , as mentioned before, is more of a character driven story and thus the plot progresses very slowly with very little development in each volume. But on the other hand, The author gives a lot of time on developing the characters ,And as we progress further, one notices some major changes in the personality and behavior of some characters, yes i am referring to Emi. However , none of it seems to be forced or rushed, but it rather feels more natural. For instance, Emi's hostile and violent behavior towards the demons changes to a more friendly and caring one, and the way all this happens , actually makes sense and is understandable.

There is also good time and effort given to developing relation between the characters . The relation between Emi and Maou was exteremely tense and they hated each other from the bottom of their hearts. However, through various small events, their relationship improved slowly and it has reached a point where the both have some level of mutual attraction towards each other ,and who knows, they might even become a couple. However, equal attention is given to other characters and relations as well, Like the relation between Ashiya and Rika also slowly develops , but its still something far from being romance. But, that is understandable as its not a romance story.

Now, its very difficult to describe the art and character design of the book. In one word, i would say its "cute". The illustrations are colorful, attractive and adorable. The character look nothing like what you would expect mythical creatures to be, and that in fact, fits the real theme all too well. They rather seem to be more attractive and adorable, especially Alas=Ramus, who just might be the cutest thing you will ever see in your entire life.

In conclusion ..its a good book with one of the most charming cast of characters. It has somewhat of a week plot, but the characters easily make up for that. There also some action, but its very plain and not really the focus of the story. There are moments when things get serious but overall , its really lighthearted .The plot progression is really slow and it might turn off many people who like more fast paced stories. But overall, I really enjoyed the book and it is something i would easily recommend to both newcomers and veterans of Light Novels.

Includes spoilers.

The over all story was extremely engaging and fun to read, with the good character development... Except for the last volume. It was rushed (still a good story), and it did get a bit confusing during the last few volumes, but the point that ruined it was the ship war. I had thought the hero would definitely get together with Maou in the end, with all the character development and how most of the readers preferred hero over Chiho. Maou had fallen in love with Chiho for a kiss (which was done in the end of volume 20). I had also expected that Maou ... would end up with Yusa because all the continents leaders were surprised when they found out that Alas Ramus was the Hero and Devil Kings child.

in conclusion the story was good except for who Maou ends up with.

Hataraku Maou-sama! is an amazing series. Nearly all of it's aspects are amazing, and those that aren't don't detract from the series too much. If you are reading the story purely for the comedic factor, or the plot, and not the relationships between the characters, then I would recommend reading it. However, if you read it for the relationship between Maou and Emi, then I recommend stopping at around Volume 17, as opposed to completing the entire thing. So, to make it brief, the series has an amazing story, and, despite me personally finding the ending to be less than favorable, I'd still recommend it ... to anyone interested in something like this, if for nothing else than the story leading up to the ending.