Story 6/10
As I said before, “Hataraku Maou-sama!” definitely has one of the more unique premises among most shounen animes. I’ll try not to spoil too much. It is set in a fantasy world where supposedly a huge war is taking place between the humans and the demons, and like in any typical RPG game, a hero blessed with divine powers journeys to the demon king’s domicile to engage in the final boss battle. However, in the final seconds before the demon king’s defeat, he creates a portal to take him and his chief general to another world in order to regroup…modern day Tokyo. He then discovers he is powerless and then decides to attempt to return to his original world while working part-time at McDonalds. It then plays the expected card of having the demon king amazed by how modern people live. This interesting premise however is one of the show’s only redeeming qualities, as while the first few episodes honestly had me laughing, it only goes downhill from there.
While working at McDonalds, the “demon king” lives an honest life, does community service, and is a model citizen. The biggest plot hole slowly, but surely surfaces. How on earth does the power-hungry conqueror of lands, the very incarnation of evil, suddenly become a shounen protagonist in the course of one episode!? Not once does this anime care to explain this, as upon his arrival in Tokyo he automatically transforms from a dark lord to a caring and honest young man. No proper explanation is given, and throughout the anime they expect us to simply accept this. In the beginning, they spoke a strange made-up language (from their old world) but suddenly become fluent in Japanese. This plot hole alone…isn’t really a big deal but what really bugged me is how they alternated between it at time for no apparent reason.
Art, Animation and Sound 7/10
Nothing very memorable, but nothing very bad either.
Characters 6/10
The term “generic” can be used to aptly describe the entire cast. We have the red-haired tsundere, the orange-haired genki girl, a loyal servant who is constantly amazed by his master’s kindness and of course, the protagonist with barely any personality. The girls are quite annoying, and the servant is forgotten in the second half of the anime for REALLY stupid reasons. There is some character development though. For instance, the demon king, the main protagonist ends up developing from a genuinely interesting character into a boring male lead reminiscent of most male harem protagonists. There are also 2 characters that are introduced in one episode and even appear in the intro, but barely appear at all throughout the entire anime, with one of them only appearing in like one episode. By the end of the series, I didn’t like most of the characters.
Enjoyment 8/10
I have to admit though, despite the show’s many flaws, and the fact that I have been quite critical about it, it was quite enjoyable to watch. The first few episodes were really funny, as they focused mainly on the better characters, the demon king and his servant. Their initial reactions to Japanese culture and their various attempts to save money were hilarious. It was also great to see the demon king grow some balls every few episodes and beat someone up.
Overall 7/10
“Hataraku Maou-sama!” is definitely one of the more creative shounen animes out there, which I liked, but is really nothing more than average. If you like stupid humor there are better alternatives (baka to test), and if you like decent plots and character development in addition to the slice of life aspect there are many better animes to choose from as well. However, this is definitely a refreshing take on the genre is quite enjoyable as well. Just don’t watch it with high expectations.
