Despite a really simple setting and overall not too deep story or characters, I found Itaden to be one of the most competent and “complete” works in quite a while. You will surely list many titles that have better stories, characters or art. But not many, if any at all, manage to keep all those elements at such a high level without losing somewhere else. Itaden on the other hand is a super solid all-rounder with no weak points.
As I mentioned earlier, the story is simple. It pretty much follows what you read in synopsis, without some huge twists. It doesn’t try to re-define the genre or deconstruct anything. Instead it’s just a coherent piece of narrative that nicely makes space for characters to shine.
As a side note, comedy is pretty golden too.
Yes, characters… That's the best piece here. Just like the story, they aren’t overly complicated. Pretty much all of them are built around their one or two characteristics. That’s quite a good choice, considering we only have 11 episodes and a large cast of memorable gods and demons. Yup, you read that right: bad guys are memorable too. Itaden managed to make antagonists really likeable - to the point I actually wanted them to befriend good guys shounen-style. What really captivated me about them was the way they were portrayed from the very beginning: not some all-powerful bosses, they actually think about their chances, are afraid for their lives and try to protect those dear to them. Another thing enforcing this feeling is how people on both sides are somewhat morally neutral - I wouldn’t call any of them good or evil, they are all more natural than that, with a mix of good and bad sides.
What’s more, characters aren’t stupid. Yes, very un-anime-like. Both sides do a good job at logical thinking and predicting what the enemy is planning. They generally don’t fall for cheap tricks and do learn from their mistakes. Both gods and demons analyze the others and try to learn about them. There are no annoying or facepalm worthy decisions just to keep the story going.
There are waifus too. I might be too old to get a crush on anime characters, but I gotta admit, one of them made me remember DBZ and Android 18…
Naturally, I couldn’t not mention the art. The cartoonish style works really nicely with quirkiness of characters and not too serious story. Wounds and gore don’t make viewers disgusted, maybe just a bit tingly. Due to the artstyle some skimpy outfits and occasional panty shot also don’t feel too intrusive.
Action scenes aren’t really a focus and I guess the animation in those might not be satisfying to fans of such elements, but they aren’t bad by any means.
The one and only complaint I could have about Itaden is the lack of some memorable insert songs or battle music. On one hand there aren’t really any scenes that needed such “emphasis”, on the other I just like such elements lol.
Reading the above, I think I explained why I scored this anime the way I did. Simply put I find it pretty much flawless. I enjoyed literally every second of it, there wasn’t any moment when I wanted a scene to pass faster or I got impatient with some character - it was 11 episodes of pure enjoyment. Why didn’t I give it a full 10/10? Only because of the ending, or rather lack of it.
