Demon King Daimao

Summary: >

Akuto Sai is transferring to a magic academy in hopes of some day being a high priest. This requires a person to be honorable and kind, which Akuto certainly is. During the first day at school, it's customary to get a fortune telling. It's said to be pretty accurate in determining the future occupation of students. Akuto's future job? King of demons. That's not exactly a high priest.

As Akuto attends school, he finds that he does possess power that surpasses that of normal people. He also gains the attention of the government, and various other organizations which are interested in what the future demon king might be like. Is being the king of demons his destiny? What exactly does the "demon king" do anyway?

Thoughts: >

Demon King Daimao is one of those anime titles with excessive fan service (especially in the panties department). What caught me off guard is that it's not particularly stupid at all. There are a lot of risque tendencies, but it's not particularly lecherous either. It could have easily made it to the finish line maintaining it's level of action and comedy, but then there was the disaster ending. I'm getting ahead of myself though.

Take a guy who only wants to be noble and good and point him down the road to being the king of demons. That's the general idea. Akuto is a big part of why this show works as well as it does. He's generally a good person, but constantly misunderstood due to his good intentions backfiring, or people simply assuming the worst of him. In a similar way, Akuto ends up framed as a pervert despite his best efforts to be a good guy. Akuto isn't just Mr. Nice Guy though. In the heat of things he really does take pleasure in kicking ass.

The other character which helps out Demon King Daimao is the android Korone. She's a surveillance agent sent to keep an eye on the future demon king at all times, but also ends up with ulterior motives - particularly tempting him sexually for his "education". Korone's stoic presence, with dead pan dialog delivery, paired with her tempestuous actions and Akuto trying his best to be a good guy despite always in suspicious pervert situations makes for some great comedy. The rest of the characters try to work in comedy as well, but none of them interact as well as Akuto and Korone. Probably because they're not even remotely interesting.

This anime has a lot going for it, and it looks like it's going in a very good direction. It does REALLY well until episode 9, when Damon King Daimao decides to get serious, and becomes a total mess. The school becomes an apocalyptic battleground out of feudal Japan between demons and ninja. Out of nowhere an air battleship appears, shoots a bunch of lasers at the demon king, then crashes. There is drama between two girls who are suddenly revealed to be from rival ninja clans. There's a sacred sword, the student counsel fighting android-puppets, and a guy made of rubber trying to destroy some artifact which controls the demons. None of this was even so much as hinted at before episode 9. It's all invented out of nowhere. The best part? None of it is relevant AT ALL to the end plot.

The end content addresses the true purpose of the demon king, and the nature of "god". The series had taken a slow but well paced progression in this direction, but the way it playes out at the end is terrible, and feels very forced and unconvincing. Aside from the half baked philosophical stuff, there's a battle to save the world (don't even get me started on how dumb and poorly thought out that turns out to be), after which the show hits a big reset button like nothing ever happened. For a comedy with some action, this isn't as offensive as it sounds and I didn't feel like there was any harm done with the result. It does bring up the question: why did this anime screw up these last 4 episodes so badly? I have no idea.

If you want to watch an anime for some laughs, some cool action (although not exceptionally animated), and a decent concept; then Demon King Daimao isn't that bad. You'll have to be forgiving with some of the more tired ideas like all the girls having feelings for the protagonist, and a train wreck of an ending. It's a fair watch if your expectations aren't high, and doesn't feel quite as tired as many titles with a similar setup.

Screen Caps: >