The Misfit of Demon King Academy Ⅱ

KANLen09★ 3

Me in Summer 2020: Maou Gakuin's a fire show, with the gigachad of Anos VoldiGOAT, he's rocking asses with a harem and a fan club that adores everything about him, and he respects everyone to the max! Me in Summer 2023: Maou Gakuin's a disaster show, yikes. Aniplex's continued mismanagement of COVID, which saw this show (and Ayakashi Triangle) infamously delayed by almost half a year, and the worst offender of all: VA Tatsuhisa Suzuki's BIGGEST scandal of his life being ousted from the AniManga scene altogether, replaced by Yuichiro Umehara as the gigachad's new VA...that doesn't sound quite right. Back in Summer 2020, when the animeadaptation of novelist Shu's Maou Gakuin no Futekigousha a.k.a The Misfit of Demon King Academy was released, I LOVED the hell outta everything that made the source material gain the notoriety that it did with humongous sales of the LN. It had the classical tropes of an OP MC in the form of Anos Voldigoad (who would become the gigachad GOAT of the fantasy genre); a harem based off sisters of the same blood through Misha and Shasha Necron (that at least acknowledged that Anos cared for the both of them like his own kin); the hilarious but momentful Anos Fan Club of female classmates that would at times be the shining light in the darkness; as well as the Hero Kanon in the form of his reincarnation Lay Glanzudlii with his etched lover Misa. Maou Gakuin was, simply put, a firehouse of awesome (as heck) fantasy for the ages. Despite the aeons of people hating this show, I am still the greatest advocate that Maou Gakuin was a sight to behold back in the day, and I stand by my ludicrious, whack review published 3 years ago. Fast forward to Winter (or rather, restarted in Summer) this year, and we continue with the adaptation of Volumes 4a and 4b of the LN that comprises the rather large story that is the Great Spirit arc, and this is definitely where Maou Gakuin took a full nosedive here. Considering the element of the story that was the epilogue of Volume 3 a.k.a the ending of Season 1, which prompts Anos and the gang to go back 2,000 years in time to learn of what comprised the reveal of the biggest enemy: the fake Demon King that was Avos Dilhevia. This, essentially, brings them back to the mother of their appointed affair: the Great Spirit Leno and Anos's right-hand man, Shin Reglia. Taking classes in the spirit realm, headed by the Great Spirit Teacher Enyunien, Anos and the gang go back to being schooled one more time to uncover and unravel the sequence of events that led to the scenario of the present day. Needless to say, I truly got bored in the whole teaching aspect as it was cumbersome to sit around and see Anos and gang try to learn new things, as well as the history of the places they've been, and more importantly, those who are in rebellion against Anos to dethrone him and make Avos the true Demon King, say the main villain of this arc, NousGalia. As a whole, the Great Spirit arc was both a blessing and a curse to the author, as Shu had to somehow continue the story by pacing it within the same aspects as his/her first 3 volumes a.k.a Season 1, but due to the magnitude of the arc having to be split into 2 volumes with the aforementioned Side A and B, both the pacing and the feels dropped off significantly, which if you add Aniplex's COVID mismanagement,which caused the entire run to be postponed 6 months to August, the story indefinitely would have been forgotten to time, and I had to dig my brains just to remember where we left off with the story. That alone is a double whammy to the anime's production, and with no thanks to the somewhat overly convoluted plot, is no consolation to the testament of the anime at this stage of the story. It's a BIG shame having to lose Tatsuhisa Suzuki for his misforgivings, but no matter the outcome, we all can agree that he is scum for being in an affair after being wed to one of AniManga's biggest music artists (LiSA). Definitely not the kind who is a big 180 from the gigachad's personality. And for the most part, Yuichiro Umehara does a decent job on Anos, though thanks to Season 2's 2nd cour airing next year, we all still have to get used to his voice for yet another 12-episode seasonal run. One of Maou Gakuin's shining moments was definitely with Tatsuhisa Suzuki, and his being ousted means that the anime has lost a critical part of its quality. With the Domino Effect of Aniplex's mismanagement comes Silver Link's production woes, which, despite being still headed by the studio's chief director of Shin Oonuma and his mentee of fellow director Masafumi Tamura, have shown quite the drastic change in quality in becoming inconsistent, which they got too comfortable with after the impressive showing of Season 1. It's not wrong that Season 1 gave them a lot of footing to work on for Season 2; it's just that the priorities were shifted around when the anime got suddenly postponed and came back 3 months prior for the TV broadcast's restart. And while Season 2 didn't look awful by any means, it was clearly a step down from its predecessor, which was made worse thanks to the delay from COVID. My woes with Part 1 of Season 2 continue onto the OST. Obviously, new songs are added to the roster of the OST, and this time, I felt nothing about Lenny code fiction and Momosumomosu's OP and ED respectively. Considering that Season 1 hit it out with Civilian and Tomori Kusunoki's OP and ED songs that are good and banger, respectively, the noticeable downgrade always caused me to skip both songs (albeit a few for the ED) that held nothing of the flare that I remember from Season 1. When all is said and done, the word "disappointment" is truly an understatement to call Part 1 of Season 2 by. Everything was clicking out of place, from the "cannot make heads nor tails" story beats to the lacklustre production, made worse by the decision from Aniplex to postpone the anime, throwing everyone out of whack. It's quite the forgettable 1st half to a sequel season that has its predecessor held to a very high regard, and I pray that Part 2 of Season 2 will hopefully bring us back to the levels of greatness that graced Season 1. Right now, at this very moment, Maou Gakuin no Futekigousha hits a snagging fluke, but will it have a glorious comeback? That awaits to be seen.

amf85★ 6

I liked the first season, but the second season took a nosedive. It went from pretty good Overpowered MC anime to just nonsensical in season two. The whole rumors and traditions thing seems confusing and arbitrary, and in the end really seems like it was more created to drive the plot than to plausibly explain how an entire race works. It's possible that this is the reason that the spirit race appears to only actually be a handful of entities, though there is no explanation for why only those rumors and traditions were personified. They spend a TON of time in the time travelarc, most of which feels wasted. It's a significant number of the total episodes, just to start one rumor so that they can lean even further into this implausible idea that spirits can just be erased from existence if you tweak their rumor, or if they deviate from it at all. Similarly, they can pop right back if you tweak it the other way, apparently. Again, zero explanation for how this works on a societal level for an entire race of people, who should essentially be popping in and out of existence non-stop in a chaotic and utterly unsustainable maelstrom of endless creation and destruction, except...there are only 5 of them? (mother, tree, misa, 3 little flying spirits, that's it) The Gods make no sense. Either there is no reasoning behind the Father God's desire to destroy the world, or it's incredibly poorly explained. Also, where are the other gods? The only other one is the God of Destruction, which is apparently a sword...except it's also a castle? And it doesn't switch, it's apparently both at the same time? And it can destroy anything even reality...except when it can't, with no explanation? Also, Anos could have claimed it at almost any time he just...lets Avos have it anyway? I guess it's fine, because despite being all powerful, it's actually meaningless? Also, can the Father god please make up his mind? He's trying to destroy the world, while complaining that Anos is going to destroy the world because he stopped the father god from destroying the world? When Anos' minions turn against him it was because...why? I guess it was just time for it to happen? A few people resisted, because of their belief/faith in Anos, except...his most powerful and closest lieutenants didn't? It's either not explained, or poorly explained. Also, don't they have an army of killer clone girls? Why didn't they use them? Whatever. No explanation also seems to accurately describe all the various powers and power levels in the show. There was some mention of the fake demon king having some kind of innate power, but it was immediately forgotten. Other than that, powers appear to just be floating circles that either work or don't based on...something. I mean, yeah, we know Anos is going to win, but the battles meant absolutely nothing, because none of the attacks meant anything. It was just random color that accompanied the small amount of conversation. Shin has a bunch of swords, but I defy you to tell me what their significance is, since they all seem to do/not do the same thing, which is nothing, most of the time. There's a whole lot of mind control, with little explanation for how it works or why it stops or why a few people are immune to it despite not being near Anos, or why he can't break it, until he can, etc. Season two pretty much turned into 12 episodes of "this happens because it's time for it to happen and none of it needs to make any sense or be explained." I can't really explain it properly, but Anos went from "not worried about what other people did/thought because he was so incredibly powerful that nothing mattered" in Season 1 to "wandering aimlessly and not really doing anything, or doing random things for no real reason" in Season 2. Obviously he's never in any danger, and he can win at pretty much any time, but there is very little explanation for why he wanders around doing various things this season instead of just fixing the problems, which he obviously can do (and DOES, at the last minute). While it is hard to really explain the difference, it FEELS different. Season two just didn't have whatever season one had. Disappointing. Though it's kind of appropriate that they spend the last few minutes of the season with the characters literally telling each other that they don't understand what happened and can't remember how they got there. Yeah...me neither.