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This Week in Anime - Is How NOT To Summon a Demon Lord Worth Watching?


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Northlander



Joined: 10 Feb 2009
Posts: 900
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 5:15 pm Reply with quote
Yeah, I've been having fun with this series too. It's actually kind of nice, and even though the slave angle made me a bit nervous, they haven't really done anything in particular with it so far.

And about that girl in the last screenshot: I had the same reaction, although I was also curious who that was, since I hadn't seen anything of her yet, and she's clearly not the same person as the somewhat tanned spear fighter from the earlier episode. So I went out to search for an answer, and it... left me surprised, to put it mldly. Basically, that's spoiler[Krebskrum/Krebskulm or however you spell her name, the supposed world-ending demon resting inside Rem.] So... yeah, now I'm sorta looking forward to her appearance too, if a bit apprehensively so.
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TasteyCookie



Joined: 19 Jan 2017
Posts: 421
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 6:14 pm Reply with quote
Another thing that I think heavily helps out this show in comparison to other isekai ilk is its production values. Sure it's not a KyoAni production or something mind-blowing but it looks pretty damn good compared to 90% of the other fan service/isekai shows. You can tell the creators actually care about the show and arent making it because they were just paid to.
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Chrono1000





PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 7:12 pm Reply with quote
Demon Lord is the best isekai show since Re:Zero and it is easily the best ecchi isekai show that has been made. It has great characterization, a good sense of humor, and a story with a clear sense of direction. I thought that Smartphone was an okay isekai show, and the light novels are better than the anime adaptation, but it was a tame show and it is rather amazing that we didn't get an isekai show with a moderate amount of ecchi in it until 2018.

Northlander wrote:
So... yeah, now I'm sorta looking forward to her appearance too, if a bit apprehensively so.
I have read the four light novels that have been released in English and spoiler[there is one ecchi scene that includes Klem but I don't know if they would put it in the anime since they did skip the scene with Rem and Shera doing a mana transfer along with a few other things that were in the light novels.]
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seltzermx



Joined: 05 Mar 2007
Posts: 51
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 9:38 pm Reply with quote
"walk into a 69"
Life goals...
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Hiroki not Takuya



Joined: 17 Apr 2012
Posts: 2496
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 9:45 pm Reply with quote
Hey, Hey, Hey, Death March was OK....
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Amuris



Joined: 05 Apr 2016
Posts: 69
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 9:59 pm Reply with quote
It's a little annoying to see them ripping on Rising of the Shield Hero and Highschool DxD. DxD makes some pretty good commentary on Class-ism, better than any other light novel I've seen, anyway. It's just that it's a bit of a subtle point until they start having to deal with the Great King faction more, and they have only just been brought up in the anime with Sairaorg's backstory. It does put some of the stuff about the characters into context.

Calling Shield Hero a "reprehensible follow up to Demon Lord" doesn't make any sense in any terms, even just the 'follow up' part, since it's an old and more popular series. The commentary in Shield Hero is much more substantial and it does make some good points about both readers of Isekai and slavery. Rebecca's reviews on the light novels are also troubling for me as an american. The 13th amendment of the US constitution actually says:

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

hence the proliferation of private prisons, who sell labor, and laws targeting benign behavior to gather "well behaved workers", as slavery was only superficially abolished in the US. So it can be a little irritating to see her comment about how different an experience I should be having because he's willing to "own people for 'their own good'" when his earlier conflict with the spear hero over the matter and his process of buying them and training them in a field of their own choosing, only demanding a minimum about of combat training for self-defense beforehand, with the expectation of releasing them draws a pretty clear contrast between superficially opposing slavery and dealing with it's essence. This feels a lot like when Anime America flopped on their review of Cells at Work because they didn't want the cancer cell to be a tragic villain when portraying them any other way would show a complete lack of understanding of cancer cells and how they interact with the body.


Last edited by Amuris on Tue Aug 21, 2018 10:50 pm; edited 4 times in total
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nDroae



Joined: 26 May 2017
Posts: 382
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 10:00 pm Reply with quote
I'm probably going to rewatch Smartphone before I ever watch Ping Pong The Animation or Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. Oh, but not before I watch Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Priorities!

TasteyCookie wrote:
Another thing that I think heavily helps out this show in comparison to other isekai ilk is its production values. Sure it's not a KyoAni production or something mind-blowing but it looks pretty damn good compared to 90% of the other fan service/isekai shows. You can tell the creators actually care about the show and arent making it because they were just paid to.

I agree, except... is it actually a matter of caring or pride on the part of the animation staff?
I remember reading (during the Marchen Madchen crisis) that since animators are animation fans themselves, they normally want to put out good work that they can be proud of, even if the material isn't what they'd like. Female animators do ecchi and male animators do yaoi, even though many of them probably aren't really fans of those genres themselves. Isn't the quality primarily dependent on having staff sufficient in number and skill, with enough time to do good work?
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Moonsaber



Joined: 16 Jan 2007
Posts: 342
Location: USA
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 11:18 pm Reply with quote
OMG... the stamp of... not disapproval? "Not as big a piece of shit as it could have been."

I am dying over here, awesome guys, thank you for that review.

I have been watching this show as well, and finishing episodes, and keeping up. Does that mean I like it? Donno, haven't recommended it. Eh?
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jr240483



Joined: 24 Dec 2005
Posts: 4367
Location: New York City,New York,USA
PostPosted: Wed Aug 22, 2018 1:19 am Reply with quote
#854688 wrote:
It's a little annoying to see them ripping on Rising of the Shield Hero and Highschool DxD. DxD makes some pretty good commentary on Class-ism, better than any other light novel I've seen, anyway. It's just that it's a bit of a subtle point until they start having to deal with the Great King faction more, and they have only just been brought up in the anime with Sairaorg's backstory. It does put some of the stuff about the characters into context.

Calling Shield Hero a "reprehensible follow up to Demon Lord" doesn't make any sense in any terms, even just the 'follow up' part, since it's an old and more popular series. The commentary in Shield Hero is much more substantial and it does make some good points about both readers of Isekai and slavery. Rebecca's reviews on the light novels are also troubling for me as an american. The 13th amendment of the US constitution actually says:

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

hence the proliferation of private prisons, who sell labor, and laws targeting benign behavior to gather "well behaved workers", as slavery was only superficially abolished in the US. So it can be a little irritating to see her comment about how different an experience I should be having because he's willing to "own people for 'their own good'" when his earlier conflict with the spear hero over the matter and his process of buying them and training them in a field of their own choosing, only demanding a minimum about of combat training for self-defense beforehand, with the expectation of releasing them draws a pretty clear contrast between superficially opposing slavery and dealing with it's essence. This feels a lot like when Anime America flopped on their review of Cells at Work because they didn't want the cancer cell to be a tragic villain when portraying them any other way would show a complete lack of understanding of cancer cells and how they interact with the body.


uh you REALLY need to read the comments AGAIN!!!!

the WERE NOT ripping on dxd at the slightest. rising of the shield hero yes, but not dxd!

though you do have a point on rising. the problem is not the series itself, its that it tried too much.

it seems that ever since dxd came around and became insanely popular, every single fan in the otaku community more or less have this expectation for any ecchi/harem/fanservice series. its must be in the same level as dxd or its gutter trash! and so far, none have done that excluding shinmai mao no testament & danmachi!

it might change with the arrival of index season three, but it got a massive climb now. for with series like this one, danmachi and dxd , its definitely going to be not easy!
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Amuris



Joined: 05 Apr 2016
Posts: 69
PostPosted: Wed Aug 22, 2018 5:52 am Reply with quote
jr240483 wrote:


uh you REALLY need to read the comments AGAIN!!!!

the WERE NOT ripping on dxd at the slightest. rising of the shield hero yes, but not dxd!

though you do have a point on rising. the problem is not the series itself, its that it tried too much.

it seems that ever since dxd came around and became insanely popular, every single fan in the otaku community more or less have this expectation for any ecchi/harem/fanservice series. its must be in the same level as dxd or its gutter trash! and so far, none have done that excluding shinmai mao no testament & danmachi!

it might change with the arrival of index season three, but it got a massive climb now. for with series like this one, danmachi and dxd , its definitely going to be not easy!


I'm referring to them calling it's plot basic, which doesn't reflect the story as a whole, just what you would see from a cursory look at the beginning.
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GhostD



Joined: 07 May 2016
Posts: 998
PostPosted: Wed Aug 22, 2018 7:14 am Reply with quote
jr240483 wrote:
it seems that ever since dxd came around and became insanely popular, every single fan in the otaku community more or less have this expectation for any ecchi/harem/fanservice series. its must be in the same level as dxd or its gutter trash! and so far, none have done that excluding shinmai mao no testament & danmachi!

it might change with the arrival of index season three, but it got a massive climb now. for with series like this one, danmachi and dxd , its definitely going to be not easy!


Thats what happens when the bar is set a little too high...

I did say before that I believed Demon Lord to be underrated so Im glad that its getting more popular in the west. This season only covers the first 3 out of 10/11 volumes so I'm hoping it becomes more popular. Enough to get a 2nd season.
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ultimatehaki



Joined: 27 Oct 2012
Posts: 1090
PostPosted: Wed Aug 22, 2018 7:22 am Reply with quote
#854688 wrote:
jr240483 wrote:


uh you REALLY need to read the comments AGAIN!!!!

the WERE NOT ripping on dxd at the slightest. rising of the shield hero yes, but not dxd!

though you do have a point on rising. the problem is not the series itself, its that it tried too much.

it seems that ever since dxd came around and became insanely popular, every single fan in the otaku community more or less have this expectation for any ecchi/harem/fanservice series. its must be in the same level as dxd or its gutter trash! and so far, none have done that excluding shinmai mao no testament & danmachi!

it might change with the arrival of index season three, but it got a massive climb now. for with series like this one, danmachi and dxd , its definitely going to be not easy!


I'm referring to them calling it's plot basic, which doesn't reflect the story as a whole, just what you would see from a cursory look at the beginning.


They weren't ripping on Shield hero either. He said "possibly" reprehensible which shows he clearly haven't read the novels or manga but just put it there since it's the next noteworthy isekai to be coming out. Also index isn't a ecchi or fanservice show.
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I_Drive_DSM



Joined: 11 Feb 2008
Posts: 217
PostPosted: Wed Aug 22, 2018 10:14 am Reply with quote
I feel what I'm enjoying about this series so far having not read the light novels is how unique the characters are, especially the female ones. Rem and Shera tip both extremes of the female character design scales and they're not boring. An issue I have with harems or isekai is how cookie-cutter characters tend to be. Even the much lauded HS DxD suffers a bit from this in it's character designs; you get different personalities and colors but that's kind of it. I'm liking that a lot of recent isekais are getting better at these unique characters (Overlord, Gate, to name a few).

Considering isekai often relies on a lot of otherwordly stuff like magic and such it's not a huge surprise the production value is fairly high. I'm also not seeing a lot that would be need to be cleaned up in a BD release but I'm sure like most every series it seems in recent memory there will be eventual clean up on the home releases.
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Shay Guy



Joined: 03 Jul 2009
Posts: 2073
PostPosted: Wed Aug 22, 2018 2:09 pm Reply with quote
#854688 wrote:
Calling Shield Hero a "reprehensible follow up to Demon Lord" doesn't make any sense in any terms, even just the 'follow up' part, since it's an old and more popular series.


They're talking about the anime, which hasn't debuted yet.
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MiloTheFirst



Joined: 10 Dec 2014
Posts: 429
PostPosted: Wed Aug 22, 2018 6:22 pm Reply with quote
hey come one now. The shield hero treats slavery way more seriously and mindfully than anything else referenced in this article, not that it is without its issues but still. in that novel a main character buys a slave out of pure selfishness and not once he ever lets himself forget how much of douchebag he is for it, even after he actually ends up caring for the slave as a parent (because of course the story had to go that way) he remains conflicted about that decision thoughout the story. In the shield hero the slave gimmick isn't the cliche "look how benevolent this character is to people he could take advantage of" but "this guy was treated so poorly by the world that he decided to play by those rules and make himself the exploter rather than the victim, however the world hadn't still taken all the kindness out of his heart despite him not wanting to admit it himself"
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