Maoujou de Oyasumi – 10

「姫とオワリノシティ」 (Hime to Owari no City)
“The Princess in Endopolis”

Maoujou de Oyasumi hits full speed ahead with Episode 10 when Princess Syalis drags the denizens of the Demon King’s castle into the human world. With Syalis and her newfound friends’ journey to Endopolis for a therapeutic pillow exclusively available in the human world, it not only gives us insight on what she took from her time hanging out as the kingdom’s princess, but sheds more light on the Demon King Twilight for secretly yearning for a time when humans and demons could see eye-to-eye.

It was a major episode for Twilight because of how he perceived much of the customs that the people of Endopolis embrace. While he was open to strolling around the human world as long as his disguise was passing, he came across far too many cultural items that are painted by their heavy aversion to demons.

During a huge festival, there were snack items and fireworks customized around their desire to see demons destroyed, killed, and crushed. It gives you some info with regards to how it’ll be a challenge to even get started with peace talks when the human side’s current infatuation is ingraining their hatred of demon creatures into even the most innocuous customs like themed festival foods.

At the same time, it depicts a more solemn Twilight who feels defeated and frustrated about how the cards were stacked against him to begin with by escaping the underworld and finding that their new surroundings were in a world where humans wished they would have died and gone away. With the animosity he feels on his own side, it’s easy to see why he has a softer spot for Syalis because of both his curiosity for how humans behave and how she’s the only human he’s come across that hasn’t wanted to see him gone.

Syalis sees this side of Twilight and empathizes with him as she reveals that her time in the human world has had a sense of loneliness with the pre-destiny that had molded a majority of her upbringing. The lack of autonomy that she had under the thumbs of her own royal kingdom paints an overall picture of the melancholic disposition she tends to have when she reflects on her old life.

On the flipside of this, she’s given almost too much autonomy at the Demon King’s castle to the point where she figures that they’ll give her the benefit of the doubt that she’d only be heading to the human world to grab the pillow and come back. Twilight is concerned about the possibility of losing the one human who isn’t repulsed by him, but she personally sees the castle as a much needed safe haven from her responsibilities, allowing her to catch up on rest and live out her youth while she still has the energy to avoid what’s waiting for her once she’s freed.

It builds an interesting dynamic between the two where the animosity between both sides is swept away with Twilight’s open-mindedness towards her treatment and Syalis’ view of seeing the castle as a playground where she can rummage about and do as she pleases until she gets too sleepy to keep it up. And on top of all of this, they both are upset enough by the current state-of-affairs that they are open about the idea of trying to assuage the human world so that both parties can do more to elevate themselves without leaning right into trying to tear each other apart.