The Devil is a Part-Timer! Season 2 Part 2

As much as I'd want to go ranting so hard, I'd just refrain from doing so as it's clear to me now, that this entire season (Part 1 and 2) has been designed for younger audiences. And I'm ashamed for denying that for too long. So me wasting my time on this show is all on me. I've got nothing and no one to blame but my Emi-and-Suzuno-simping self xD Obstacles that have been set up since the beginning of the series? Taken care of in a matter of seconds. Characters being kept hostage and/or in a tough situation needing to be saved? Effortlessly saved in amatter of seconds. Long awaited meeting encounters and closures? Undermined by bad execution in just a matter of seconds. It almost felt like the people working on it really just wanted it to end. Can't blame them though. Even I, a viewer of the show felt as such. I see a possible sequel, seeing as the situation with Yusa's mom is still yet to be tackled but, unless they get a different studio that could make this show at least as interesting as the 1st season, I just wouldn't give a flying F anymore. POSITIVES: OP theme NEGATIVES: Wasted precious time of precious lives

This anime only beckons me to ask y'all a very realistic question: How would the shows you loved in the past turn out to be in a few years' time...or in this show's case, 10 years' time? In the span of a decade, the reverse-Isekai fantasy comedy surprise that is novelist Satoshi Wagahara's Hataraku Maou-sama!! a.k.a The Devil is a Part-Timer, went from being a classic relic of the early 2010s, to an absolute sad state of a dumpster fire of the 2020s being no different from just about every other Isekai cash-cow work-turned-anime that has been released over the last few years. As a venerable fanwho loves Season 1 when it aired back in Spring 2013, to see the Les Misérables of an esteemed work continue with a story that sounds indifferent from many contemporaries from its time and even now, it feels like I (and many others) being shamed for the (now false) hope that Studio 3Hz's treatment in 2023 will be a modern version of studio White Fox's impeccable showing. Oh, how wrong we are, and not in a good way. The biggest development when it comes to the entirety of Season 2, has only been the *nudge, nudge* "love" interest of Chiho Sasaki, as now she's completely wrapped in the messy matters of Ente Isla that's the same never-ending war between angels and demons. And guess what, even if the anime has literally adapted the LN to its halfway point as of Season 2's sequel a.k.a Season 2, Part 2 here, I don't think I can stomach yet another season if the same treatment is going to be given for the ludicrous ambition to adapt the LN all the way to the end (which LN readers will already know what's up since it ended in 2020). It's clear that the new faces joining the staff team's reprisal had no idea of how the source material is so beloved, that they did a complete 180 to butcher the anime adaptation to the best of their abilities, possibility ignoring all advice that has been set from its predecessor. I don't really care for nano.RIPE's OP nor Liyuu's ED either, just plain forgettable at best. I think that we, as the anime community, can collectively agree that if there was a show that HAD to be locked up in the past and stayed dead to preserve its fame and recognition, it's Hataraku Maou-sama!!. So much for being a fan who is SO hyped about Season 2, only to see and watch it being a shadow of its former self. No more, just no more. Please, anime gods? Just let Hataraku Maou-sama!! rest in its rightful grave, not the abomination that was resurrected just to destroy people's high expectations. Just pretend that Season 1 only existed and let Season 2 be the forgettable dud, the biggest colossal failure in the history of AniManga.

Season 2 of "The Devil is a Part-Timer", is a series that really needed to have been made a long time ago. Because of the cultural impact that the first season had back ten years ago, it has been put on a pedestal of being a "Classic". If anything the first season, while good, failed to really deliver any sense of continuity in a meaningful way. Yes, it was fun and quirky, and was a herald of the reverse isekai as a genre; but beyond that what did it actually deliver? Nothing of any real substance that couldn't be delivered in one season, while leavingthe viewers with a cliffhanger of an ending that promised a continuity of the story that was delivered far too late to remain relevant. As such, the Second season as a whole, will always fail to deliver on the expectations that people have for something that has been held with such strong cultural regard. Even if the same studio had been animating the second season, even if the second season delivered a truly phenomenal story never before seen by the eyes of any anime fan, it would still be considered some kind of mistake by the people who believe that what they "expect" something to be, is what it "should" be. Thinking about the second season as if there were no decade-long gap between releases, and removing any sense of cultural significance that the first season has, we are left with a strong follow-up season to a pretty strong first season. The story and the characters get the development that is really needed for this kind of story. Beyond that, the themes of the show and what it represents are further driven home and expanded upon. On top of that, we have a trickling of interesting lore being fed to us via the story in a way that is both compelling and keeps things interesting. But, most importantly, above that, we have complex themes and storytelling, and yet, this anime remains what it is supposed to be, a comedy. The laughs were good, and the writing was light-hearted enough to carry it. My critique would be, that at times, the second season seemed to drift and the pacing became a tad too slow in places. That said, that wasn't as big a problem as it could have been, because while the drifting is evident, it's at least enjoyable to watch. I would also have liked to have seen more consistent animating styles between the first and second seasons. While the art was different, it was still good, but at times the animation quality wasn't quite where it needed to be to deliver on some of the more important moments of the story. All in all...this is worth the watch.

There are a lot of mixed feeling about The Devil is a Part-Timer!! out there, with a lot of them being somewhat justified with how long it took to get a second season and it feeling rather disappointing. The story in season 2 part 2 (really hate the part system) has picked up in pace from part 1, and even though it hasn't regained it's full grasp it had in season 1, I had found it to be enjoyable. Whether you continue to watch after this point is hinged entirely on if you're hooked into the story or not, since this seems to be one ofthose stories that seems to do better when its more episodic and humorous as opposed to the over arcing storyline with a grand epic to tell. If these newer seasons don't spark joy, just feel free to watch season 1 again and forget the rest existed. At this point, I'm mostly just watching to find out more about the sephirot that they're drip feeding us and whether it will actually have a meaningful payoff after all this buildup.