The Devil is a Part-timer: FIrst Impressions

  You want to talk about a fun premise?  King of demons, lord of flies, corruptor, and spreader of vilenesses lowered to the position of fry cook?  Really? 

 I tend to be very interested in Christian mythology having studied it quite a bit in my life.  An anime based on "the devil" immediately caught y attention; however I wasn't anticipating too much as I'm regularly disappointed as much anime just grabs the images and names rather than necessarily the themes or settings.  Not to say that I am disappointed in the anime themselves.  And this was true in the case of the Devil is a part-timer.

The first episode was filled with the backstory and was beautifully animated in what you might see a darker or medieval/fantasy style.  You learn that there is an alternate universe filled with demons and the kind of demons: Satan.  Satan aggressively strikes out to conquer the rest of the land, raping and pillaging as he pleases.  The humans are able to strike back and during the final confrontation of The Hero and the Demon King, Satan is forced to withdraw. Opening a gate to another world, the devil flees the scene with one of his last generals, Alciel.  Flees right into modern day Tokyo. 

 So in other words, this ain't yo' momma's Satan, nor story about heaven and hell.  There is no "Yahweh" or true god mentioned, though the humans do have a religion in this alternate universe.  And while you see early on Satan is considered a bad guy, cruel and wicked, there is nothing about the war with the humans that humans havn't done amongst themselves in our reality. Its a fight for land, not for truth and justice or souls. 

  Baffling to all, by the end of the episode we see Satan and Alciel settled down into a very quaint slice of life routing.  The animation style has changed along with Satan's appearance.  The demonic lord is gone replaced by a teenage boy.  The animation keeps its quality but shifts to what you might expect out of a high school romantic comedy.

  So far in the first few episodes the show is paced extremely well, masterfully interspersing comedy and normalness with the mystery and fantasy of the devil's story.  Further
the main characters are engaging, the devil being the most three dimensional of them; though some of his dimension merely comes from the impressions we get of him from the first episode. Its hard to tell how much "changing" has actually gone on, as we don't truly get to see his personality in the first episode. 

  You know I'll be sure to try to find a deeper meaning if you've been reading any part of my blog.  The use of the Christian names and titles for characters has to be for something.  What's more is the seemingly role reversal of the hero and satan. The Hero, Emi, acts like a spoiled brat, psycho ex girlfriend for much of the first episodes and reminds you much of an antagonist, while the devil is this soft, charming guy, dedicated to his work.  Very interesting indeed. 

  The anime has me hooked, and being only 13 episodes I'm sure Ill get through it quickly. Until the full review, じゃまた