Level 1 Demon Lord and One Room Hero

“Level 1 Demon Lord and One Room Hero!” is what happens when You dial up a bromance up to 11. The Hero Max and his companions are able to defeat the Demon Lord. Ten years later the fiend reawakens. In the body of a small androgynous child. Eager to fight his adversary again he quickly tracks down Max. Unfortunately the last decade wasn’t kind to the former hero. He became a lazy slacker neet. After the initial shock the Demon Lord decides to move in with Max and get him in shape both physically and mentally so they can have their rematch. Not gonna lie, the premiseis the reason why I watched this. It sounded awesome. The reality… isn’t as interesting. For starters let’s have a look at the characters that matter for the plot: Max - The Hero who led the team, then defeated the Demon Lord a decade prior. Today he’s washed-up, lives in a small one room apartment, and has plenty of scandals under his belt. He acts like he doesn’t really care but he still holds on to his old, holy sword and even talks to kids about his adventures proving he is, at least to some degree living in the past. He tries to avoid trouble but he gets dragged in anyway. Maou - The reborn Demon Lord. Despite being quite masculine in his previous incarnation he now has a body of an androgynous but still rather feminine child. He has the ability to transform into a young woman and doesn’t seem to want or can change into other human forms. He has an unhealthy obsession with Max. Like really unhealthy. Instead of taking care of his domain, maybe preparing for the reawakening of the demon king, he decides to take care of Max. Not in a Hitman: Code 47 kind of way but more like a mother or wife way. He cooks, cleans and tries to get the former hero on his feet. He even gets flustered when Max says something nice about his cooking or is looking at his adult female form stunned. Zenia - officially a secretary of the Demon Lord. She’s the reason why he’s wearing a sailor’s uniform with a skirt. Unofficially practically everything that the demon lord needs. She’s proficient at gathering information doing that for the last ten years so that the Demon Lord would be up to date. She can’t really hold her liquor. She got drunk and caused a commotion and trouble for Max after just one beer. Let’s be honest, she’s in the show as eye candy and little more. Despite that I think she’s the most underutilised character in the show. Fred - no, not the barber Fred from “Courage the Cowardly Dog”, this time we have a cleric Fred. He’s one of the members of the Hero team that kicked the Demon’s Lord ass. Friend to Maou and Leo even though he has a strange way of showing it at times. He serves as Chief Secretary at the Royal Bureau of Magic aka a government slave. He’s competent, skilled, confident and likes to have an upper hand when “negotiating”. He cares for his friends but shows it in a very tsundere way. Leo - Another member of the heroes party. Leo was the tank of the team. Strong, loyal and always having a positive attitude with sometimes infuriated Fred. After the Kingdom tried to swindle his people out of natural resources on their land he was forced to declare independence and with that started a civil war. He did that but made sure to not kill any soldier on the opposite side. He’s strong, like to fight and is loyal to his friends. Of course that doesn’t mean he’s not more than willing to get into a fight with them. The cast is pretty strong with most characters having some pretty good motivation to their actions. If I have to be honest, the worst one is Max. He’s the only one without any true motivation or goal. It seems like everyone is doing something except the hero. Well… that’s not entirely true. He does reject both his friends when they try to involve him in their conflict. He’s as passive as passive can be. A reborn Demon Lord moves in with him? Cool. He’s practically kidnaped and forced into a “field trip” to another nation? No problem. I get he’s supposed to be a washed-up loser but come on. That’s overkill. He does bare minimum, just to keep himself alive. It takes a war for him to stop being pathetic and even then it’s pretty much a stretch to call him a hero again. When it comes to the plot itself it’s a weird mix. The show starts off as a comedy but as the show progresses it begins to show a bit of political thriller and at the end it’s almost a full on political action thriller. I don’t really mind that. I have a soft spot for well written political thrillers. This one.. Is not it. The problem is mixing comedy and politics. The comedy doesn’t really hit with all the conniving and manipulations and the politics isn’t a good match for the type of characters Max and Maou are. Despite Maou sometimes acting like a proper demon lord and trying to recruit the hero and other characters to his side, he mostly acts like a wife or girlfriend. It kills the drama for me. Especially that some of those moments are played completely straight. World building has some problems as well. The part that I truly don’t get is why the war with the demons even happens. There is a point when we see the Demon Lord instruct his minions to not kill humans mindlessly as they do not reincarnate. That shows that Maou cherishes life. So why the war? Why would someone who doesn’t want to kill humans go to war with them? The only reason I could think of is that it’s the result of humans benign humans and feeding people some bullshit to get the riled up and forcing demons to defend themselves. It’s a huge hole in both world and character building. Apart from that the writing isn’t anything special. It’s just a middle of the road comedy that plays with some romcom tropes. To be honest it did get me to chuckle now and then and the relationship between Max and Maou is a pretty interesting one. Threading the line between a bromance and a full on romance at times. I liked it. It took cliche tropes that got old a decade or two ago and put a nice twist on them. All in all it’s not a bad show but it’s not great either. The potential is there and the show ends in a way that promises more things to come and those things could be more political in nature. I wouldn't mind that to be honest. If the writers would do a better job at balancing the politics and type of comedy this could be a really solid show.

I've been a fan of this manga for a while, so I was pretty excited to see that it was getting an anime adaptation; and they didn't disappoint with it. I don't really know what more to ask for. The story is fun, the characters are likable. The action scenes were animated really well. The voice acting for the JP side was superb. I'm giving this a perfect score for what it is: an extremely well executed dumb, fantasy comedy with an interesting premise. I recommend it, especially if you're a fan of the Isekai comedy genre (though I guess this isn't really an isekai,just feels like one). I'm sure the echi fan-service bits will put some people off, but as long as you get past that, it's a strong series and a great show.

Gender Chaotic. Possibly the hidden gem of the season, Level 1 Demon Lord and One Room Hero is the second coming of The Devil is a Part-timer that White Fox denied us and that Studio 3Hz’s mostly failed to deliver unto us. Max the hero and his companions have defeated the Demon Lord and saved the world from destruction. Unfortunately, in times of peace and a rapidly evolving society -which goes from a generic medieval fantasy world to modern-day capitalist Japan in ten years- there is no need for a Dragon Quest-esque hero. After the ancient Demon Lord resurrects in the body of a gremlinso it can enact revenge upon its greatest enemy, he’s disappointed to find Max hungover and lying in his own filth. Thus the Demon Lord vows to help Max out and get him back on his feet so they can fight it out again with the help of a swimsuit-clad demon secretary who's just as stupid as the two of them combined. Despite the relatively simple premise, the execution is genuinely hilarious. There were multiple times Level 1 Demon Lord and One Room Hero had me laughing my ass off. Max finding the courage to rise above his cynicism for the human society that cast him aside and defamed him with scandals with the Demon Lord's help goes as well as you can imagine. From a drunken street brawl with a drunk demon lady wearing nothing but brass knuckles that don’t chuckle, to becoming a shitty content churning Youtuber and getting banded after he tries to get his non-binary Demon Lord friend who can transmogrify between an androgynous gremlin and a sexy woman wearing a lewd high school uniform, exactly Max’s type, to take off its clothes on a live stream, it’s a long, arduous and weirdly sexually tense journey for Max becoming a responsible member of society. Meanwhile, Max is constantly being pestered by his former party member Fred to help intervene in a potential war between the Kingdom and a rising Republic led by another of his former party members that he wants nothing to do with. I’m genuinely impressed at how well Level 1 Demon Lord and One Room Hero is animated. Studio Silver Link has always been quite good at making engaging anime out of little resources. Some of the fight scenes (especially the final one of the season) are much better than they have any right to be. That can be said for the entire anime. It's way better than it has any right to be. Sure it’s a bit trashy, the underlying conspiracy happening in the B plot is a bit tedious and the show’s pacing takes some time to get going, but overall I really enjoyed Level 1 Demon Lord and One Room Hero. It’s funny, honest and a lot of fun. 7/10 Good.