Sit back, relax and hope you get abducted by your own daemon grandpa as I present to you the anime review for, Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun. Lets begin shall we?
Story: 8/10
Our story follows Iruma Suzuki, a young lad who is forced to work because of his lazy and irresponsible parents that won’t do any labour. However one day, he finds out that his parents have sold him to a daemon by the name of Sullivan. Sullivan takes Iruma to hell where he plans to adopt Iruma as his grandson, giving him a rather luxury life and have him attend the daemon school Babyls. However there is one thing, in order to hide the fact that Iruma is a human, he wants to maintain a low profile to make sure that he is not eaten.
Of course this being a high-school comedy anime, that plan goes up s**ts creek from the word go. As he soon finds out that Sullivan is chairman of the school who loves to talk about his new grandson and he took the spotlight from the expected honour student, Asmodeus and get into a fight with him. What follows is some very well done comedic episodes and some well done world building. Like Iruma, we don’t know how the society these daemon run, so we learn slowly how this society is run, their views on the world and on humans and how daemons get their powers. It’s done well and is done sometimes in comedic fashion. It’s not trying to portray it in some dark, gritty fashion, but a more light hearted, goofball fashion that helps set a consistent tone so we know throughout what kind of show Iruma-kun is.
Now the show kind of takes a more episodic approach with its storytelling, only really getting into more multi-episode storylines around the halfway mark. But it does help with the pacing of the show. It starts by setting its world and characters and then gets into some more interesting storylines once the setting is established. The show never felt like it was rushing anything in order to get a conclusion to something. But it never felt like it was moving at snail’s pace either. It had a nice balance to it to keep me engaged throughout; with plenty of intrigue to keep you waiting for the next episode. There was a bit of a lull moment during the battler arc for me but it picked itself up rather quickly and quickly got back on track.
Characters: 9/10
Iruma is the kind of character that doesn’t have anything unique to them as he is a rather generic, nice guy protagonist, but he does have a certain charm to him that makes him a likeable protagonist. Mainly because he’s flawed and can’t reject a request and say no; even if he thinks it’s a bad idea. That and he has impeccable dodging skills due to all of the labour he has done. It’s his quirks that make him enjoyable because he has that rather nice spirited, selfless mindset yet it ain’t to the point of obnoxiousness where you want to strangle him for it. He hits that nice balance but again, there isn’t anything totally unique that makes him stand out from other protagonists but everything about him is done quite well.
Now the rest of the cast is what helps give this show its legs in my opinion. Asmodeus is a great prideful, yet a total suck up character who reminds me of Demiurge from Overlord where he thinks Iruma is a masterfiul genius and everyone should bow down to him and his might and should be respected. And much like the protagonist of Overlord, Ains Ooal Gown, Iruma is just winging it at times. Which does lead to some comedic moments. Clara is where half of the goofiness comes from this show as she is just a ball of playfulness and energy waiting to share it with someone. She does round out a well balanced trio of main leads as she is the most free spirited and carefree out of our main leads; with Asmodeus being more by the book and sensible one, whereas Iruma is somewhere in between. But they ain’t the only ones I like. Sullivan is the other half of the goofiness of this show and his personality really makes you want to have a daemon grandpa of your own. Always smothering Iruma when he gets the chance and becomes the parent figure Iruma deserves.
But my favourite character without a doubt is our resident tsundere and class president, Amelie Azazel (who is best girl by the way, come at me bro). The reason being is that her personality is just great. While she isn’t a strict tsundere as she does open up to Iruma more as time goes on, she has a strong will as she is the student council president and must help maintain order in the school. Yet she does have her soft, girly side as she has access to some forbidden texts that she is infatuated by (which I won’t spoil what they are if you haven’t seen it) and develops an affection towards Iruma. This leads to these two having excellent chemistry with one another; which is just the tip of the iceburg with the rest of the cast and how they interact with each other.
Of course, I haven’t mentioned characters like Iruma’s homeroom teacher Naberius, Magical apparatus battler leader, Kiriwo or Iruma’s “rival,” Sabnock who are also great characters, which should go to show how much I like these cast of characters. They help bring something to the table and while they may not be fleshed out compared to others, they do fulfill their own niche that makes the cast as a whole enjoyable.
Animation: 4.5/10
There’s some good when it comes to the animation and some very bad. First the good. The art style for this show is very bold with its colours and helps make some of the characters rather distinct from one another. As well as the background art that helps set a more light hearted, gothic atmosphere, like how Bablys looks from a drawn out distance. It helps give this fun vibe that makes the light hearted and goofy nature of Iruma-kun more enjoyable while also acknowledging what kind of world our characters are in.
Now the bad. This show cheaps out A LOT with its animation As if the animation didn’t feel lacklustre enough with sliding panel shots and still images, they use the same few character models for background characters WITHIN THE SAME SHOT and that’s if they animate a character at all and they just have a silhouette in the background. I know this show ain’t heavy on the action but I would have liked for them to put more effort into the animation quality because despite how good the art style is, it still can be jarring if the animation quality isn’t up to standards. While I do recall a couple of times where the animation was alright, most of the time, it was pretty bad.
Sound: 6/10
The sound does do its job to help set the scene, which to be fair, they do a good job of it. But I don’t recall a single point in the soundtrack that really stands out above the rest. I don’t find the soundtrack to be bad in any particular sense, but it never made want to go back and listen to it again.
The opening, "Magical Babyrinth" by DA PUMP, certainly matches the tone of the show with a light hearted, hip-hop sound that I didn’t really get bored watching or listening to it. The funky beat and lyrics made the opening more enjoyable than I was expecting. The ending on the other hand, "Devi-Cue" by Yuu Serizawa, was an ending sequence that I tried to get into but didn’t carry the same charm that the opening did. While I like the style that was used to animate the ED, the song was a bit of a turn-off in my opinion. After watching it a few times, I skipped over it, only remembering the very end in order to watch the SU-KI-MAs.
Conclusion:
While the show is underwhelming from a production standpoint, Iruma-kun surprisingly turned out to be a very fun watch. The story is funny and charming and I really do like the cast of characters that are on display here. It’s a testament to how good writing and characters can overcome lousy production values. It’s worth the watch if you are looking to watch a high school comedy with a fantasy flare to it. All the while, you realise that this is technically an Isekai show. Although is it really? Iruma does get sent to another world, but it’s hell so does it count? Ah never mind. It really is a shame that this show didn’t get enough attention as it did back in the fall season, because it really was one of the best shows of that season, regardless of the faults. So yeah check this one out when you can.
My Personal enjoyment: 8.5/10
Overall Score: 7.2/10 Recommendation: Watch It
