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「破滅の魔女」 (Hametsu no Majo)
“The Witch of Destruction”
Typically I’d be inclined to rail against series like Maou Gakuin which are the epitome of wish fulfillment gone overboard, but I’ll damned if I’m having a hard time so far. Sure, we may only be two weeks in, but two weeks has been more than enough to go from OP to pea shooter annihilating magical Dora railway gun and hearing the lamentations of humiliated women OP. It’s definitely going to be as objectively bad as you could imagine—and arguably benefits all the more because of it.
As expected after last episode, Maou Gakuin mostly filled in the missing blanks concerning backstory. Anoth did the usual demon thing of fighting the heroes for world (multi-world?) domination, came to the unusual agreement of peace through race separation via his magic, and after fully recovering two millennia later woke up as a fresh-faced baby with a voice. Yeah, we went places alright. It’s honestly nothing special once you combine it with the current battle academy setting (now with demonic flavour) and Anoth’s drive to recover fame, fortune, and notoriety, although it starts growing teeth once you realize this show knows exactly what it is and makes no excuses for it.
Case in point is our MC who wastes little time in taking last week’s antics and kicking them up a notch. Shocking teachers; effortlessly overcoming special abilities; literally twirling stone castles; anything you could ever think possible was done, and you know full well this isn’t half of what this guy is capable of. While undeniably a Gary Stu power-wise at this point (seriously), what largely keeps Anoth from becoming annoying as hell is that no-sh*ts-given attitude where he never so much as bats an eye at anything, no matter how serious it may seem. Whereas other Stu candidates (especially the isekai variety) would lament, monologue, and super seriously call out stuff like wrong names and beatdowns of friends (all the while wagging fingers and indulging in harem romance), here Anoth just casually crushes face and collects babes without breaking a sweat. Such blatant invincibility and full understanding of what is going on here is actually kind of refreshing in a way, as it dispenses with a lot of the usual (and annoying) wish fulfillment contrivances to leave the main material we’re all here to dig into. Don’t think many thought our OP machine would reach second base with new harem initiate Sasha so soon after all—even the family was not expecting that!
Going forward, however, the key for Maou Gakuin will be the story complementing its exploration of OP badass-ery. While the first hint of conflict (and potential hero origins) exists with Misha’s and Sasha’s family situation, there’ll need to be some sort of challenge to keep Anoth from lounging around too much, or just like many a comedic slice-of-life, boredom may soon overwhelm any sense of fun emanating from all that demonic power. We’ll just have to wait and see what’s waiting in the wings next time.
ED Sequence
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ED: 「ハミダシモノ」 (Hamidashimono) by Tomori Kusunoki
Preview
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Fun series so far, and Anoth does make the Gary Stu trope currently likable in this specific iteration.
Sasha’s personality is all over the place though, and rather than being original -contrary to Misha who fills a very defined and used stereotype- it makes her feel extra fake. We’ll see if the next episode changes that.
Sasha’s personality can largely be attributed to the rushing, this adaptation is slashing and burning material all over. She’s still nothing special, but her actions make some better sense in the source material.
Finally a MC I can identify with.
Going forward, however, the key for Maou Gakuin will be the story complementing its exploration of OP badass-ery.
Hopefully the thing that will keep the show on the rails is that it’s not wish-fulfillment per-se. The main character doesn’t want power, they just have immense power. What they want is peaceful coexistence/the race they essentially founded to be better than it was.
It’ll be interesting to see where they take the arc around the other demon who appears to have taken credit for everything he did.
If the show gets that far, I honestly expect him to just laugh and do what he usually does and crush face 😛
Anoth has already been shown to be incredibly chill about anything which affects him, I don’t expect any less once things start getting serious.
This episode felt fast and it ended too fast. Can’t believe almost half an hour went by already. Really don’t know how to describe this episode, but I’ll certainly watch the next one.
Kinda afraid that they’ll run out of interesting things to do. Hard to believe they’ll be able to top spinning a castle like that. But considering how OP he is, anything’s possible I guess. He did manage to split the world into several realms after all.
Me so op me meet girl me showa power they randomly kiss me on the first day we meet. babies are born the next morning.
Complete wish fulfillment fantasy crap. 1 more ep for the 3 ep rule
Nice to see Anoth’s backstory from 2,000 years ago. And the reveal that another uppity demon lord usurped the title of “Founder”, stolen Anoth’s achievements from that time (likely with the help of co-conspirators), and indirectly caused regression in magic abilities in the last 2,000 years just to hold on to power (as usurpers are most likely to do)… Well, that’s already better than my initial (textbook power fantasy) impressions of the show, and good enough reasons to root for the reborn Anoth. The descendants of that uppity demon lord and those co-conspirators (who I assume will serve as the main antagonists of this series) will be in for a rude awakening (especially if they start to fight dirty).
On a lighter note, Sasha Necron… Twin-tailed tsundere with (Grade-S!) zettai ryouiki. Gets absolutely charmed by Anoth’s sheer charisma after that “defeat means friendship” moment. XD
Can’t wait to see the Necron sisters’ backstory.
They should rename this the return of a Madlad XD