I had very little expectations going into this show, but I love it so far. I saw the character PVs, so I was aware of the cuteness factor, but damn this show is just too adorable. Seeing the ending first, literally to the ‘The End’ screen, and then being launched back is a cool touch too. Whether or not we ever get back to that point within the show, at least I know it exists at some point. Also, for a split second, just a split one I swear, I thought I was about to get rick-rolled or something when I saw the credits roll. I panicked very, very briefly to be honest. I’ve been fooled before.
I’m a fan of the aesthetics, I like the combat, I like the characters. What else is there? Usually just being cute in these shows becomes the plot, hence CGDCT. I actually kind of like the idea though that the demon lord was sent to the past from the magic screwing up. On the scale of no plot to plot = cuteness that these type of shows usually have, this might actually have some substance to it. Now, at least, Mao has to try and find a way to prevent Yuusha from becoming, well, a yuusha. Of course, there is the detail that somehow time magic turned what was a pretty not cute demon lord into a toddler, but I think we can ignore that. Time works in mysterious ways after all!
So this first episode was Mao trying to thwart the party from becoming a hero group. That clearly failed this time, but I wonder what she? he? will try next. Even at their full strength, the hero party, they couldn’t really scratch the demon lord and had to resort to forbidden dimensional magic. It’s also not clear how many powers Mao retained after going back in time. Keeping memories aside, is this just what Mao looked like at a young age? Maybe Mao was sent backwards in age too and there’s just some horrible, uncute transformation process to become a full fledged demon lord.
Either way, I’m enjoying the show a lot so far. If I’m not mistaken, they even included some bagpipe music for the town theme song. Like, what? I love it. The rest of the soundtrack was pretty good too, but I don’t normally pay that much attention to the music. Apparently, bagpipes are the exception to that. It certainly caught my ear and made me pay attention for the rest of the episode. So I’d consider that a success.
Seira is clearly the mom of the group, and the comedy between the airheadedness of Yuusha and the rest of the groups dynamics actually made me laugh out loud a few times, which is nice. I feel like it’s when they’re not just cute, but actually have other things going for them that I actually get interested in the show. Mei’s nerdiness about studying the cards is also pretty relatable. It kind of sounds like when I get too into talking about something that no one particularly cares about and they just kind of drag me along as I’m still talking. That sounds a lot sadder when I actually write it out. It doesn’t happen that often!
As far as I can tell, there’s not much to the show overall, but it’s still plenty entertaining. Even the plot summary on MyAnimeList is like, ‘yeah, nothing will probably happen’ but I’m not really holding that against the show. I’m interested to see what other adventures and/or leveling up excursions the class will go on with the demon lord as their teacher. It’d be cool if we can see them gain the experience and spells they later use to battle the demon lord, albeit mostly unsuccessfully. They seem pretty developed as adventurers already so I hope they left room for growth. I can never seem to get into plain Slice of Life, but maybe the hero-adventure tag will be more up my alley. Maybe Mao will end up caring for them in a tsundere kind of way too. There’s a lot of possibilities, but either way I’m excited.
Possibility of Blogging: Pretty low. I 100% enjoy the show and will tune in for next week. This doesn’t seem like the type of series that will have a lot to talk about though. If, in the next episode, there’s some major themes at play or an interesting discussion to be had, then sure! I’m down for it. Otherwise, I’ll just be watching on my own.