How Not to Summon a Demon Lord

Ever wanted to know what it feels like to own someone? I’m not talking about people who you hire or a business partner. I’m talking about if you actually hold ownership of someone like a slave. Taking on the role of a protagonist in a fantasy world is no easy task. Even for a guy like Sakamoto Takuma, he may be an experienced gamer but he’s never been equipped to deal with a life changing event such as being transported into the very game he played. After becoming “Diablo”, he learns that the hard way. Isekai Maou no Shoukan Shoujo no Dorei Majutsu (otherwise known asHow Not to Summon a Demon Lord) is exactly what it looks like – a show about a demon lord who gets summoned into this fantasy world. The juicy part of the show is that the main protagonist possesses a “slave-turning” skill that allows him to enslave others. True to its form, this anime sets off so many damn red flags that it became of those cases of being so bad, it’s almost good. I’m not going to lie. This show glorifies fan service at any chances it gets so be prepared for a whole feast of them. The first few episodes makes it clear that the two main girls – Shera and Rem serves as Ms. Fanservice. It doesn’t help with the fact that around their neck are collars standing as proof of their enslavement status. As a guy with poor social skills, Diablo have trouble building a connection with his two slaves at first. My early impression of Diablo is that he is a joke of himself. Being a Demon Lord with such power is like an unholy gift but he doesn’t truly know what to do with it. Furthermore, Shera and Rem doesn’t know anything about him and vice versa. However, it does show that Shera adores Diablo and is “impressed” by his skills. Then, there’s Rem who shows little respect to Diablo at first but does warm up to him as they get to know each other more. In a stereotypical manner, they grow closer together and seems the two main girls even develop feelings toward their master. Yet, Diablo still has to hold his urges of lust whenever he gets caught into compromised positions. If you’ve seen any Isekai series of similar nature, you’ll know what I mean. As I watched more and more of this anime, it seems the show does take on a more emotional side once it decided to focus more on the characters. Despite his poor social skills, Diablo shows a genuine caring side towards his two slaves. This is shown in later episodes when he decides to risk everything to save Shera. He even begins to enjoy his new life as a Demon Lord and make the best of it without jeopardizing others. His main goal transform from ruling the world to being a trustworthy master to his slaves. By nature, it’s a peculiar sense to develop a character but somewhat works this way because of Diablo’s personality. He’s a haughty guy with a lot of pride on his side but sometimes drops his guard when it involves his two slaves. On the other hand, I think it’s a cheap ploy by the creators to get the audience to like Diablo. Because let’s face it, Diablo is still a generic character that adheres to wish fulfillment fantasies. So many isekai series pulls this trick from the book and it’s impossible to overlook this show’s pitfalls. Unfortunately, I also have to proclaim that it’s very easy to overlook the other characters outside of the main trio. We got characters like the Fallen (Demonic Being) Edelgard making her debut early on. Does anyone actually care about this character? She speaks broken sentences and plays more of the role of a combatant. Oh and I can’t forget how absurd her personality changes from time to time depending on who she faces with. Other characters like Sylvie and Alicia represents archetypes like the guild master and honorable knight you can find in almost any video game. And of course, they had to add Glebsklem into the show so that the cast would be complete with a half-naked loli. That’s not even the worst part. If we look at the antagonists of the series, they are what really holds the character cast back. Every villain in the show are one dimensional characters with their own self-interest and greed. Some even have other sins that pushes the line of the show’s censorship. I can’t fandom how these antagonists were made except perhaps to tests the limits of Diablo’s powers. The obvious result is that Diablo overcomes his obstacles because how overpowered he is. It’s lack of creativity 101 that hardly takes any effort for anyone to make these type of characters. Ajia-Do worked on a variety of genres before but this is their first full TV anime adaptation based on a light novel. By technical standards, it looks vibrant and matches with what an isekai world should look like. The high fantasy elements of the magical creatures and archaic structures are within expectation. Plus, some of the action scenes carries sufficient details to prove what Diablo is capable of. However, be aware of the show’s fan service. In some episodes, it really pushes the envelope with the “action”. Scenes that includes fingering, sexual power restoration, and tentacles made this anime look like a cartoony porn. It’s also impossible to not take eyes off of Shera’s body. The camera plays around her breasts like they have a life of its own. Clothes are also blown off constantly for specific “reasons” that puts Rem to shame. Character expressions often include their screams of passion in moments of ecstasy. Thanks to the talents of the VA, they make those scenes look more lascivious than they should. There’s an unwritten rule where people drop episodes for a show after three episodes or less. For Isekai Maou, it will most likely take one. It’s a break or take for first impression and if you’re coming in with low expectations, then do yourself a favor and hit that drop button. If you make it beyond those passionate screams of our slave girls, then this may be a sexy rollercoaster. The main trio of Diablo, Shera, and Rem carries this anime so get used to that. Does that still make this anime an enjoyable experience in the end? Hell no.

If I had a choice to kill off a genre it would be Isekai. Out of all the anime genres, the Isekai genre seemed to be the one to annoy me to end due to how poorly written and pandering most of the shows of the Isekai genre are. Say all you want about ecchi + harems but least they are for the most part dump fun shows that respect its own target audience not to mention most of the ecchi + harems anime are self-aware of how cheesy and for the most part bad they are. However, this self-awareness rarely happens in Iseaki asmost of the shows tried to be more epic and seriously than they are actually are and most of the shows end up failed due to poor writing and direction. How to not summon a demon Lord is no different in fact it's one of the worse Isekai anime I have seen period. While it isn't as offensive as The Master of Ragnarok and Blesser of Einherjar and In a Another World With my Smartphone it's still is a pretty awful anime with hardly any redeeming qualities whatsoever. Now with that said let's dive in into the Isekai rabbit hole. Story. Just with like with every bad Isekai anime the story of How to Not Summon a Demon Lord is non existent at best mainly because instead of telling a story that has a purpose this crap feast decided to be another crappy isekai story that is filled with fan-service and contrived characters arcs that serve no purpose other to show how overpowered the main character while the females act like damsel in distresses. The story, for the most part, is terribly paced as the fan-service as well the action scenes seemed to drag on way longer than they should. The writing of the show ranges from below average at best to absolutely terrible at worst as the show constantly likes to pander to the lowest common denominator of anime fans. It's doesn't help that the comedy in this show is pretty damm bad as not only the jokes got annoying as the series progressed but the comedy itself is unfunny and lame for the most part. The final nail of the coffin for the story is that this show at various times took itself way too seriously for it's good. This was present in the second half of the series where the show was trying to more epic than it actually is and because of that the show became pretty pretentious at various moments. Overall the story is awful. 1/10 Characters. The characters aren't much better as they all boring and uninspired walking cliches. Diaibo is a typical overpowered protagonist that we all seen before and just like many overpowered protagonist that came before him his is bland and uninteresting. However, I will give Diabio this unlike other overpowered characters he can be a bit funny at times but at the same time he's jokes can be pretty repetitive and annoying. The two female characters that follow Diaibo are nothing but fetish husk bait for the viewer. Both are not worth mentioning at all because they do is ride either in the protagonist dick or act like damsel in distress in certain points in the series so that overpowered kun can save them. The same thing can apply for the rest of the female characters in this show. As for the villains they are all SAO levels of bad as all of them are evil for the sake of being evil. Hell one of the villains in the middle of the series looks like a bootleg Sugou from the Althem arc of Sword Art Online. Overall like with the story the characters in How to Not Summon a Demon Lord are awful. 2/10 Visuals. If there was one thing that I consider to be good about this shit show that it would be the visuals. The show is pretty to look at as it's filled with great use of vibrant colours for the character designs as well the background scenery. The actual animation is pretty solid overall that is decently smooth and the fights have pretty decent fight choreography. While the visuals were pretty good I have one complainant with the visuals that certain characters are way too oversexualized. While it's as bad not as The Master Of Rock Bottom where the all of the female characters inducing young children are oversexualized for no reason it's still just an unpleasant sight to see characters that have young looking bodies doing sexual acts on screen. One more thing I can complain about the visuals is how the show used it's fan-service because the fanservice in this show is annoying and dreadful. Not only the fan-service is in all your face all the time but the show simply doesn't all out in the uncensored version where they showed uncensored tits... 6/10 Sound. Like with most Isekai anime before and since the music is very dull fantasy music that we all seen heard and it does nothing to make it special. The opening theme DeCIDE" by SUMMONERS 2 sung by the female main characters was a pretty all right opening theme. The ending theme Saiaku na hi demo Anata ga Suki by Yuu Serizawa is a pretty forgetful ending theme. Now for dub vs sub. The sub is pretty good overall as you expect however I cannot say the same thing about the dub because it's pretty shit and badly acted especially Shera who sounds like she just came out from a hentai production... Overall the if you still want to watch this show stick with the sub. Final Thoughts. How to not summon a Demon Lord is a perfect example of why I despise the Isekai genre as a whole. The story is awful, the pacing is terrible, the comedy is unfunny for the most part, the characters sucked and the fan-service was horrendously annoying. You're just better off watching hentai because least you can get something out of this compare to this piece of shit. Avoid this show like the plague. Final Score 2/10

Summer 2018 had been a ride of an anime this year. From the unexpected Season 3 of Overlord, the return of a massive anime Attack On Titan, to the anime where summer is all about the fun as well as isekai shows that needed to be judged alot. This summer, we have plenty of isekai to judge on and one of them is "How Not To Summon A Demon Lord." where at first it looks like it is another isekai trash with uncapable of a protagonist, although at least it is not like that. Also, for some reasons, I call this show a lite versionof Overlord. Lets found out why. Story: The anime starts off with your typical MC being so overpowered ingame that I don't even know how many times this scene was repeated on other isekai genre shows. Anyways, overpowered MC got transported to a fantasy world which is base on the game he amounted his life on instead of getting a college degree and get a job. Then his eyes caught upon two girls. An Elf and a Beast (cat?) girl. The girls thought that they summon a beast and that beast will be their "slave" (pet), but it turns out the magic is reflected to the two girls becoming them the slaves of op protagonists named Diablo. There, it starts all the threesome harem that every audience will expect on this show and the conflicts of having a slave that have internal conflicts. Many people call this anime a lite version of Overlord because unlike many isekai shows, in Overlord and on this anime, the protagonist has an objective and personality, both we can see while we are watching. We get to know their interests as well as their uninterests on certain things. Though, this anime and Overlord share good protagonists, the harem and fanservice is still a nuisance to the story of this anime (although its pretty much ok). Unlike in Overlord where there's no fanservice and harem, it focuses more on how the protagonist will conquer the world. Art: Visuals will always be important on a show where harem and fanservice is part of the story. I mean, the whole purpose of fanservice.. is fan.. service... On visual terms, How Not To Summon A Demon Lord is an okay show for it. Its not that bad as well as not that good. The details of the spells are done nicely, as well as the environment, monsters and character outlines. Not to mention, the visuals of the OP and ED matches the show quite a lot. Sound: I, to be honest, not the fan of the OP and ED of the show. I always skip it although it doesn't say its really bad for my taste. It is just not my type of music. However, the background music where the anime runs is quite good. It matches scenes where either a battle is going on, or whether the two girls Rem and Shera cling on Diablo naked and Diablo overreacting on his mind. Character: Now here is the interesting part of the anime. Characters. I mentioned earlier how the main protagonist is similar to the Overlord protagonist where both shows personality that pick our interest to watch the show every week. I'll now talk about the other characters especially the two girls Rem and Shera. What I like about this two girls is that they are also not your typical harem girls to the protagonist. They also have traits and importance to the story that if they are not present, the story will not progress at all. Shera being a very important person to a nation becoming a slave is already a one big conflict to everyone and Diablo. Then Rem holding one of the most hidden secrets across the world that only Diablo and the high mage named Celestine knows. Then we are provided by supporting characters that not only shows the might of Diablo but his willingness to protect these two girls. The fights shows how he is willing to sacrifice himself to the girls knowing some battles are pretty hard for him but he always win anyways. Enjoyment: Isekai shows are not really that enjoyable as they are repeated always. Fanservice is always irritating and the story lacks elements that a story needs to be. However, this show, having a good protagonist, makes the story progress in the right path for the setting of the story. Making it automatically enjoyable for me to watch and making me wait for a week for an another episode. Overall: In conclusion, "How Not To Summon A Demon Lord." is like an upgraded version of your always typical isekai with harem and fanservice cliche that you always want. It's a good isekai to watch on unlike many others that have MC that is boring and have a pointless harem.

How not to Summon a Demon Lord is a near textbook example of how to properly execute an ecchi anime. And let me tell you, it’s about freaking time. Call me perverted if you will, but sometimes I just want to sit in a secluded location and listen to 2D girls moan in pleasure as they’re put in ridiculously lewd and comical situations. Of course, I’m not so shallow as to completely disregard all other aspects of an anime and call it “da best evah!” just because it has a few cute babes and sexy scenes. The characters have to be bearable to watch and,now I know I’m asking a lot here, an ecchi anime with a decent plot wouldn’t hurt, right? Unfortunately, modern ecchi anime just haven’t been cutting it for me for a variety of reasons. I just don’t get that satisfying BOOSTO anymore, if you know what I mean…anyway, Demon Lord on the other hand is actually pretty good for what it is, and I’m here to tell you why. Not only is this show an ecchi, but it’s an isekai anime as well, because we definitely don’t have enough of those! And you can tell that creators are running out of fresh isekai ideas, because this anime’s first episode alone stole so many things from other isekai anime that I’m not actually sure whether it was intentional or not. You got references to KonoSuba, Re:Zero, Overlord, and so many others. I actually found this to be rather ridiculous, yet quite amusing. And we now arrive at one of the primary reasons as to why I like this anime: it’s actually pretty funny! Now I know that taste in comedy varies from person to person, but for me, the lewd humor and Diablo’s plain awkwardness were relatively enjoyable to watch. I found myself laughing during every episode, which for me was just refreshing. Now here comes the question that I’m sure is the most important to you: are the ecchi aspects of this show any good? Well, I can happily tell you that they most certainly are. You got the bouncy boobs, slimes that melt clothes, naked in bed scenes, fondling of breasts, and so much more. In fact, there’s a really memorable scene in episode 10 (If you’ve watched it, you know what I’m talking about ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ), that goes to borderline hentai levels of lewdness. And I really dig that. There are two primary girls in this anime. Shera is a large chested, blonde elf princess with sparkling eyes who likes to rub her breasts up against the protagonist. Yep, we got a winner here! Though she’s actually not a one dimensional character like you might expect her to be, and I ended up thoroughly enjoying her story arc, despite its simplicity. Rem is a flat chested animal girl with long, charcoal hair, fluffy cat ears, and a petite body. Right off the bat viewers are presented with Rem’s tragic secret, and I honestly started feeling an emotional attachment to her from there on out. Also, thanks to this anime and Re:Zero, I discovered that characters named Rem are doomed to unjust torment. I won’t spoil anything, but just know that being named Rem is suffering. The differences between these two characters’ physical traits are like night and day, and they’re each obviously designed to appeal to different fetishes. But you know what? I ended up appreciating both of these girls, and not just for their features, but for their character depth as well. Diablo is your typical overpowered isekai protagonist who crushes all opposition. However, unlike Kirito and his army of clones, the writers gave this guy some personality which made him enjoyable to watch. Diablo’s socially awkward nature combined with his attempts to role play as a demon lord resulted in some pretty comedic moments. And viewers even get a glimpse into his past to see why he is the way he is, which helped increase his relatability for me. But let’s not forget his most important trait: he’s a total chick magnet! All of the girls love him, and he’s wise enough to understand the merits of both large and flat chests. What a prophet. I also loved how this anime handled the Demon Lord Glebsklem. Instead of just making her into a giant final boss monster for Diablo to dispatch of with his hax protagonist powers, after her theatrical summoning, she was revealed to just be a kawaii loli with twintails. And she freaking loves biscuits. Plus she wants to go on a quest to consume all of the world’s biscuits. I can’t express in words how freaking amazing I find this to be. My only problem is that biscuit loli wasn’t introduced earlier in the anime so that she could get more lewd sce- uh, I mean character development. Visuals are generally quite standard, though they do one up similar shows in several regards. For one, they actually have some pretty great monster designs, with the hydra being the standout one for me. Sure, it wasn’t around for long, but it looked great and had fluid movements, which is a stark contrast to the poorly constructed and uninspired monsters from other isekai anime. Also, the visual quality improved dramatically during some of the ecchi scenes, which are OBVIOUSLY the most important moments in the anime. During these sacred moments, the girls got animated in very seductive ways that FIRMLY GRASPED my attention. The instrumental portions of each of the two theme songs played what I thought to be really catchy melodies. The songs’ vocalists had a nice cute sound to them, probably because they were performed by the show’s female seiyuu. The voice acting is about what you would expect. Diablo talks in a deep, menacing voice, but sounds a lot less intimidating when viewers hear his thoughts. Rem has that cute, soft voice that I simply adore, and Shera has a higher pitch, ditsy sort of voice that sounds adorable. While this show isn’t even close to top tier when compared to all other anime, it does manage to be one of the finest isekai anime that I’ve seen, as well as the best ecchi anime that I’ve watched in awhile. Where it excelled at for me was its sheer entertainment value. There was never a dull moment in the anime, and I both laughed at the comedic antics and felt for the characters during the more serious moments. The anime flows quite well, and it’s a perfect concoction of ecchi and story elements. All I can do now is hope that future installments in both the ecchi and isekai genres follow a similar path to How not to Summon a Demon Lord.