You've heard of stories where the Hero comes to help a fledgling friend or enemy in need, a setting and story that only now, has become its own sub-genre of all things. The oldies like myself will know of novelist Mamare Touno's Maoyuu Maou Yuusha which saw the LN ran from 2010 and 2012 and studio Arms' anime adaptation the year after the LN ended (damn, now I feel so old that this source is more than a decade old). The more recent mainstream ones are of course, novelist Dojyomaru's Realist Hero and Toru Toba's Tensai Ouji. And in this packed Spring season, there's one more to add to the mix: novelist Quantum's only work that is Yuusha, Yamemasu a.k.a I'm Quitting Heroing, a short 3-volume LN fantasy series that ran from December 2017 to October 2018. Its overall themes are very similar to Maoyuu, but I feel that the context of Realist Hero is also important as well for creating the reverse "the grass is greener on the other side" derivative of "How a Failed Hero Rebuilt the Demon Lord's Army". The result from all of this are answers that'll surprise you if you understand the context well to fully appreciate what this show is about.
Without further ado, here we go again...the story of the clashing between humanity and demons seems to have no end, it's a guaranteed must-have for any work that wants to create the fantasy vibe. And honestly, I'm getting tired of watching lots of ideas copy-pasted to be one's own that even with its "special touches", it's nothing that ever breaks the bank for trying to subvert expectations, and "Yuusha, Yamemasu" starts out just being like that of humanity sending out heroes just to defeat demons so that one or the other exists. But, this premise does not stay for long, for after the world's strongest Hero has defeated the Demon Queen and her Four Great Generals, and people celebrated the hell outta it, peace prospered, and there wasn't a need of a Hero anymore. Soon after, people despise the Hero enough to label him an outcast of society for fear and mongering that his insanity of an OP power would be the next candidate for the Demon King, so they ousted the Hero in exile, leaving him the only path that he can turn to: back to the Demon Queen's quarters, and fervently requesting to be of aid to his enemy to rebuild their forces. The Demon Queen rejected his offer, but the Hero would keep trying in order to find out what is truly his calling and purpose in this undertaking.
**Spoilers for the Hero MC**
This Hero is Leo Demonhart, and although he looks and feels like a human being, he's in fact something much more gratifying: a bioweapon, made from an experiment that involved constellations for names and the mass production of robot-like humans to only be programmed with one purpose: "protect humanity by destroying enemies (demons)." And it's a well-known fact that robots do not display emotions a.k.a emotionless, and Leo for once was where his and this story started it all: saving humanity by destroying Demon Queen Echidna's forces, to only reverse that decision when humanity turned on him, beckoning to be his enemies' ally with the pitfall end goal to inflict karma against the very ones whom they commissioned him and his allies to do. Leo is an enigma, a mover of words where his experience as a Hero speaks for himself in its effectiveness and OP power that's not just for show, his character being so poignant and down-to-earth when you see that his life from the get-go has been nothing but like a slave shackled by chains of commands that he cannot escape unless someone ends his life to relieve him of that macabre of a burden. And I think this is what makes Leo such a juxtaposition of a character: being a programmed robot-human being, yet can converse and feel emotions just like a human being. Between knowing what's best for the Demon Lord's army that he decimated before humanity turned his back on him, and being in disguise from Echidna's sight, it's a delicate balance of playing the ruse while slowly revealing his real self towards her, putting expectations into reality. A thought-provoking OP MC that's not like your usual cut-copy-paste Hero.
The Demon Lord's side is just as what you'd expect: a leader with his/her underlings and the forces beneath. And in this story that the Hero supposedly wants to quit his "profession" of Hearing, the Demon Queen Echidna, along with her Four Great Generals: the "Red Roar" Dragon General Edvard, the "Unseen Blade" Shadowless General Mernes, the "Ruthless Fang" Beast General Lily, and the "Almighty Mage" Sorcerer General Shutina. Each of the Generals serve within a cluster of demonfolk whom are similar to of or in kind, such as the animalistic servant Lili commanding the beastly creatures in the Demon Lord's army, and have your typical and sometimes weird traditions like Mernes being inflicted by humanity to be sold to child slavery, only to join Echidna's ranks to take revenge on them, or Lili's weird tradition of closeness leading to marriage. Either way, everyone works out for the betterment of the Demon Lord's army the way that is managed...or rather, MIS-managed like the way that Shutina is Echidna's clerk whose simultaneously a magic-wielding succubus. It's definitely in a state of disarray that Leo would've destroyed most of Echidna's forces, to only give his hand back to them in return, because his programmed ideology of humanity, for better or for worse, will be saved or decimated given the Demonhart series that people are blessed with to take for granted. It's a lot of soul searching for what feels right within one's eyes.
Being a EMT Squared production, expect the same low budget visuals to product-place itself everywhere within the show, it does not look pretty nor interesting at all, save for the somewhat awful-looking fights. This show one of few instances where a captivating story such as this holds up against the mediocre production values, enough to retain audience viewership. If there was a plus point about this, it just had to be that the production was just barely well-enough to get the story idea to the small screen, and in this circumstance, IMO it worked.
Also, some might complain that the music feels lackluster, and you'll probably be right. Despite not having heard her voice for quite sometime, Minori Suzuki still has that conviction through her vocal lengths to deliver a nice OP, while for Nao Touyama, her 2 ED songs here IMO were certainly on par with yet another of her OP song for Isekai Bookworm Season 3, but better as the halves go along contrasting light and darkness. Still a decent OST overall.
Do I think that Yuusha, Yamemasu a.k.a I'm Quitting Heroing is a bad show? Yes, if you only care for the typical Hero vs. Demon Lord shenanigan that's been repeated countless times over. But where this work stood out, is being able to make me look at a different angle and gives me a train of thought, of how it would look like when roles are literally reversed, and that's where the charm of this small show feels the best: to feel human, to feel sympathy, and most importantly, to have a sense of belonging, because everyone belongs somewhere. And this is a case of the Hero, Leo Demonhart, finding a place where he truly belonged and fit into his ideal group: the Demon Lord's Army, and to officially proclaim that "I'm Quitting Heroing".
This ain't great, but it isn't all bad either. A decent-to-good watch that keeps your mind thinking for being everything similar but with a difference that makes the charm.
