「最強新人」 (Saikyou Shinjin)
“The Strongest Newcomer”

It’s Shera’s turn.

This series is trashy fun in the best of ways. Look no further than our current petty villain for an example of that. Why would he show up at the scene of the crime? Why would he admit it so quickly? If this were a serious show, that would be head scratch or face palm inducing, but this isn’t a serious show, so it’s not. Okay, maybe I felt like face palming a little—I did note how dumb that was of him in my episode notes—but Isekai Maou clearly wants a petty villain for us all to hate, and this ponce does the job. This is not a serious show. It’s trashy fun. That means it should be evaluated on those merits.

And as far as fun goes, I’m still having it. The ecchi is on point. The comedy is both funny and just unexpected enough to keep things spicy. There’s a good balance between Diablo winning (dat groping, him shaking a girl’s hand—that’s a real victory for him, bravo!) and the girls winning (Rem slapping him when he deserves it, Shera getting compliments and assurances). Diablo is still totally imbalanced—he’s a walking ecological disaster—but there’s not a power imbalance in their relationship, and that’s vital to this whole thing working out. When that dies, the series dies with it.

As for the crisis of the episode, Shera is a princess, her nii-san wants her to bear his child (1st: ew, 2nd: keep your hands off the unwilling lady you idiot prince/king/asshole), and Diablo saves the day. The point, clearly, is to put Shera on the same standing as Rem—one needs a Demon Lord slain, the other needs to be protected from being kidnapped back to her kingdom—as well as the requisite ecchi reward scene. Shera getting into it was a nice touch. Rem was on bottom, but Shera was on top. LET THE DOUJINS BEGIN UFUFU~!!

This show is just fun so far. I plan to blog at least a third episode, and then I’ll decide whether I’m taking it the full series after that.

Random thoughts:

  • My least favorite thing about this episode: hints of human vs demi-human racism. I hope it will be done well, but I’m mostly hoping it’ll feed into the trashy fun (more hateable villains) rather than be taken seriously. Racism is serious, and fantasy settings are good places to explore it, b-but trashy fun!
  • A thing I really enjoyed about this episode: the reason Diablo is so much stronger is because he grinded like no other (because his character could revive), whereas everyone in this world doesn’t grind as much because perma-death. That’s a good reason for it beyond “Main character is strong because main character!” Respect.

My SECOND novel, Freelance Heroics, is available now! (Now in print!) (Also available: Firesign #1 Wage Slave Rebellion.) Sign up for my email list for updates. At stephenwgee.com, the latest post: Risk Tolerance in the Creative Life.

Full-length images: 11, 33.

 

Preview

22 Comments

  1. Human racism against demihumans is kind of played out, don’t you think? Elf egotism, too. Let’s get, I dunno, some demihuman elitism while the humans are racist against those damn knife ears, hmm?

    Guile
  2. Greed
    1. Fun fact: the triplets at the Guild are a parody on old-school MMO receptionists that used the same model for different quests but just had their colors swapped. “Blue Girl” is for Story Quests.

      Aex
    2. Let’s see. There’s a Bunny Girl in Arifureta and that’s getting an anime next year. There’s a cowgirl in Goblin Slayer but unfortunately she’s not a cow girl.

      il-Palazzo
  3. Another reason why Diablo and the girls’ relationship is not so unbalanced is that his lack of a UI for this world apparently leaves him lacking in some lower-level skills. In the forest he says that he can’t see the maps, and as it’s the maps that would reveal the presence of enemies, he has to rely on Shera to tell him where they are.

    But more importantly than that, left or right?

    https://randomc.net/image/Isekai%20Maou%20to%20Shoukan%20Shoujo%20no%20Dorei%20Majutsu/Isekai%20Maou%20to%20Shoukan%20Shoujo%20no%20Dorei%20Majutsu%20-%2002%20-%20Large%2001.jpg
    https://randomc.net/image/Isekai%20Maou%20to%20Shoukan%20Shoujo%20no%20Dorei%20Majutsu/Isekai%20Maou%20to%20Shoukan%20Shoujo%20no%20Dorei%20Majutsu%20-%2002%20-%20Large%2003.jpg

    Angelus
  4. My least favorite thing about this episode: hints of human vs demi-human racism. I hope it will be done well, but I’m mostly hoping it’ll feed into the trashy fun (more hateable villains) rather than be taken seriously.

    The anime basically cut out lots of world building dialogues. So some of the much serious part were cut out too.
    There are some characters that are very racist and believe in human supremacy Show Spoiler ▼

    The idiot mage was suppose to be one of those racist human supremacist, but I notice his dialogues were changed to just portray him as an idiot.
    The episode basically mix and match scenes from vol 1 and 2.
    The story would have flowed better if they follow the original story flow, this is just jumping to highlights. And much of the serious part were absent in the anime adaption.
    To us novel readers, its like watching highlight reels, but I feel most anime only will just get confused on some parts and miss out on why the novels has lots of fans.

    EWA
  5. Isekai Maou’s author talks about demihuman heroines in LNs and his efforts to get his story published, from Vol 9’s afterwords.

    (Isekai Maou’s concept was derived)… from idle talk with (LN illustrator) Tsurusaki (Takahiro)-sensei. In those days, there were few demi-human heroines in light novels, and (the common opinion was) that isekai things had to (originate from) internet publi(shed) works…

    …Actually, (my story was) shown disapproval at several editorial departments but…(my current editor) Shouji-san of Kodansha Lightnovel Bunko had said 「This (story) looks interesting! Let’s do it!」 and cheerfully accepted it, causing it to be published. As a result──the maker’s side received a surprising response, and when (the manga version of Maou by) Fukuda (Naoto)-sensei… started, its momentum became even stronger.

    And now, we finally arrive at it becoming an anime. Since that was my objective since before I became a writer, I am really happy. Since I will be doing my best from now on as well, you have my best regards.

    https://isekaicyborg.wordpress.com/isekai-maou-to-shoukan-shoujo-dorei-majutsu/vol9afterword/

    zztop
  6. It’s trashy fun

    True, and it’s a shame cause it’s an interesting premise
    that’s going overboard with the ecchi aspect, IMHO.

    I guess as long as I don’t take it too seriously…

    mac65
    1. There’s nothing wrong with trashy! As long as that’s the goal. And I don’t think the premise is that interesting aside from the ways in which it smoothly enables the trashiness. No “loss”, certainly.

  7. Aw, they cut the part where Plebeian isn’t just a moron, but a hypocrite. Show Spoiler ▼

    Not sure if that needed spoilers because in the manga he actually stops to explain all that in the middle of the frozen forest, completely lost on him that he’s surrounded by demihumans. The reactions were hilarious. And freezing the forest flushed out and killed the snake they were there for in the first place. It’s too bad these touches are getting lost in adaptation because they’re really what made the series stand out for me. It’s still really good, just not great.

    BTW, how idiotic Plebeian’s narcissism is actually makes sense later on in a surprising way.

    Aex
  8. So this series has a main character who regularly gropes his female friends’ boobs without any shame and molests them on a regular basis. We’re supposed to LIKE this guy?

    Sia
  9. Find the LNs very enjoyable, so enjoying this too. Annoyed that crunchyroll gets the censored version, so I have to watch the actual version by dubious means. The pinching scene is complete white-ed out in CR, and there’s no dry humping either. Boo-urns!

    setlzermx

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