The Devil has geared up for a fight, and in The Devil Is A Part-Timer Season 2 Episode 12, that is exactly what he and Emilia are going to get. Let’s see who comes out on top in this review!
The Devil Is A Part-Timer Season 2 Episode 12 Overview
Season 2 of The Devil Is A Part-Timer has been a long time coming ever since the series was first released in 2013 and impressed a lot of viewers with its character development and storytelling. The series is adapted from a Light Novel written by Satoshi Wagahara and illustrated by 029. It is also known in original Japanese as Hataraku Maou-sama Season 2 (stylised as Hataraku Maou-sama!!)
Studio 3Hz is producing this season, the team behind Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online and Princess Principal. It is being directed by Daisuke Tsukushi, who has been part of the productions of shows like Higurashi and My Hero Academia. This episode is also referred to as Hataraku Maou-sama Season 2 Episode 12 (or Hataraku Maou sama Season 2 Episode 12). Click here to read the review of the previous episode in the series!
– The Devil Is A Part Timer Season 2 Episode 12 Review does not contain any spoilers –
The Devil Is A Part-Timer Season 2 Episode 12 Review- Messy Is An Understatement
The Chiho situation at the end of the previous episode came from absolutely out of nowhere, made very little sense for the direction the show was headed towards and the story it was trying to tell and was off-putting as it put one of the few characters in the show who are innocent and powerless into the way of harm. The context of the latest episode doesn’t help anything very much, especially as what her role was in this episode could have easily been written to be more relatable and less random.
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This was an extremely weird and confusing episode all around. It did not know what it wanted to be, mixed a lot of different plot points and characters together into a smoothie that tasted like strawberry-flavoured dirt, and made it seem like the writer’s room was all out of ideas. Singularly, there were some decent ideas here, including Chiho’s connection to magic, Emi’s mother, and Maou and Ashia roaming around Tokyo and visiting landmarks, such as the Tokyo Tower. Combine them, however, and you get a whole lot of nothing, followed by some more non-happenings.
The show keeps trying to do grand things and failing at them. The Ente Isla section isn’t as good as the show would like it to be, especially since all that’s used for is to gather villains for Maou and Emilia to beat up. It tried to address some of Maou’s past in this episode, but not enough to matter, especially since anime viewers are going to have to wait a while before the show comes back. The whole payoff didn’t feel worthy of the time afforded to the build-up or the lack of it.
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The comedy and serious segments of the show are usually mixed much better than they were here. It felt like one was watching different shows altogether at different points in this episode. One second, Emilia would be talking about the meaning of revenge and existence with Alas Ramus, and Maou and Ashia will be participating in some dumb, goofy gags the next. The villains would be threatening in one frame and literal children in the next. Consistency is not the strong suit of this show, and it shows.
The only spotlessly good thing about this episode was Alas Ramus, as she was just delightful in the short amount of time we spent with her. Maou and Ashia are still being given back their Demon forms through one random happening or the next and have long since stopped looking as good as they did the first time we saw them. Maybe it was the production or that the story built it up better, but Maou not being cool anymore is emblematic of the series as a whole. This was as big of a fizzling out as we have seen in our review series.
Verdict
The Devil Is A Part-Timer Season 2 Episode 12 was not very good. It tried a lot of things, but none of them ended up working when the show brought all of them together. For now, mediocre remains unachievable for the show.