-- the following is a discussion on how poor animation and misunderstanding can ruin something previously fun. very brief run through of events to illustrate bad pacing. reader discretion is advised. --
I've been late to the party for most recent anime events. I started my days with Sword Art Online around its release, but that's the only hype train I was apart of back then. In the years following, I frequently saw The Devil is a Part Timer shine brightly on Netflix pages and never gave it the time of day. I tried a few other shows and didn't really get gripped by the medium until last year, realizing how popular the original is. And, noticing that a second season was coming out, I gave it my time.
I really wish I didn't give the second season my time. It felt like Stockholm syndrome for the first few episodes. "It's not as good, but I don't understand why everyone else is complaining" was what I said to a friend those first few weeks. Then, it clicked.
Animation. My god, is it just oozing laziness out of every line. Characters are more like mannequins than actual living beings that the audience is supposed to feel something for. There's a close-up and someone is speaking. Yeah, it doesn't look great, but their mouth is in-sync so we've hit the lowest bar, great. The next frame has a different character speaking in a group shot, showing the other characters nearby. They have no life. They don't blink, they don't react, they simply exist to show that they're present for this dialogue. The entire frame was drawn once and each subsequent one in that scene has only the character speaking being altered. Even when there's a "lol funny reaction" expression, it takes a few seconds for the character to pump it out. A bunch of old animatronics that should've been sent in for maintenance, but have been left to rot for seven years. The action is brought down too with the all too common anime mishap of giant blasts of light and fights lasting mere moments - at least in the original there was a layer of comedy and stakes.
Misunderstanding. What made the original a lot of fun was character interaction between our two leads as well as the antics the entire cast found themselves in - light fish-out-of-water story with some serious beats lurking in the background. This season is way too convoluted and goes at a breakneck pace, leaving the fun behind. So much just 'happens' that we accept and move on to the next event in the blink of an eye. Hey we have every character acting as a shell of their former selves with their personalities boiled down to one or two aspects, whoa now there's a KID, raising them sure is hard (and we're her parents!??!?!), let's go to an amusement park, Emi's co-worker likes WHO!?!? (let's not talk more about that at all until the end of the season now please), another angel is here to kill us, oh he gave up but now MCRONALDS IS REMODLEING? HOW WILL WE MAKE MON-, oh a beach house to work at, hey that's a bird, the bird is now gone, let's work at Chi's family farm, another angel now, WAIT MY MOM!??!, let's buy a TV, it's over. What? Okay. That happened. Sure, maybe some comes from my inconsistency in keeping up, but binging a few episodes back to back I was surprised with the amount of stuff happening but also how... useless it all feels. I 'guess' Maou and Emi are closer now through Alas Ramus, but that's really the only development that happens and even THAT is insignificant - it doesn't feel different at all.
At least the original VAs came back, giving these robotic imitations some convincing material. I'm not actually against the idea of Alas Ramus, I think she's a decent addition that I at least can't recognize shortcomings with since she's brand new. I laughed a little, I think they're preying on nostalgia a bit too much with varying levels of success (ex: ED goes well, OP fails), and the episodes went by quickly.
I'm cheesed, this sucked.
