The Spring 2026 Anime Preview Guide

Mistress Kanan is Devilishly Easy

Kanan, a female demon, infiltrates a high school with the goal of devouring some delicious human souls. She sets her sights on the perfect target, a teen boy named Kyogi Yoji, and goes for the kill—only to somehow end up in a relationship with him instead. Kanan's never been in love before, and this oddly innocent demon creates absolute chaos as the two venture into romance with a first date and beyond.

Mistress Kanan is Devilishly Easy is based on the manga series by nonco. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Saturdays.

I'm almost embarrassed to admit how much I enjoyed the joke at the center of this series. Kanan literally wants to eat Youji—flesh, bones, and soul. However, her statement is so outlandish that Youji takes it in the metaphorical sense: that she wants to have sex with him (and reacts accordingly). However, that's not the series' actual core joke. Rather, it's that now, after that misunderstanding, Kanan assumes that Youji is always talking about sex—that everything he says is either directly about the subject or a euphemism.

Of course, while Youji is 100% DTF at the drop of a hat (like most adolescent boys), he's never talking about that initially outside of the inciting incident. He's legitimately trying to be a good boyfriend to Kanan—to do the things a boyfriend is supposed to do. Kanan's misunderstandings and overreactions make her look like the sex-obsessed weirdo in the relationship—which she might actually be when it comes down to it—and that is the framework for the series' humor.

And honestly, while incredibly predictable in the humor department, the romance story itself comes off as rather heartfelt. Kanan is a selfish glutton, seeing humans as livestock and thinking only about cultivating her next meal. Being with Youji shows her there's more to life than can be found through interpersonal connection. It's often who you're with rather than what you eat that makes a dining experience enjoyable. Even a subpar meal can be more memorable than a lavish banquet when with someone you love.

I also want to point out my favorite joke of the episode. Unable to get over the embarrassment of holding Youji's hand, she instead ties a leash around them. The joke ends with her running off in embarrassment as usual. However, just because we cut to the next scene doesn't mean that he still isn't literally tied to her—and I won't lie, the reveal that she'd been dragging him along on the ground got an actual laugh out of me.

Now, all that said, will I continue to watch this show? No, probably not. For the length of an episode, the jokes work fine. However, an entire season based on this premise? Thanks, but no. I'll pass if it's all the same to you.

Aoi Koga seems to have fallen into something of a niche: girls who act cool and on top of things, but are actually shy and easily flustered underneath. At least, that's the type she's played in three out of the four series she's had a non-incidental role in that I've watched. She's good at it too, as shown in Kaguya-sama: Love is War, where she effortlessly switches between Kaguya's icy exterior and her maidenly internal monologue.

I want to give her credit where it's due, because her performance in Mistress Kanan is Devilishly Easy made me want to throw a brick through my television. That's not entirely her fault, because the dialogue is absolutely dire. Nearly every exchange consists of her or Youji jumping to contrived wild conclusions based on clumsy double-entendres or making logical leaps that would challenge an Olympic high-jumper. As Kanan works herself into a lather, her voice climbs to a pitch that would drown out a fire siren. It didn't help my antipathy that, other than her epicureanism, Kanan is a total stock character as the girl who acts confident but is secretly super shy about sex. Staple on a pair of huge gongagas, and you have a perfect case study of a character who is sexualized while also being propped up for her maidenly purity. Yuck.

And the thing is, I don't actually hate Youji. Yeah, he's yet another good-hearted but dull teenage boy who ends up with a busty goddess for a girlfriend through happenstance, and he's no less stock than Kanan, but consider this: his voice doesn't give me a migraine. Also, he stands apart from the rest of his ilk in that, when he thinks Kanan is trying to seduce him, his response is to say, “Hell yeah,” and start taking off his clothes, rather than getting flustered himself. And at the same time, he's super respectful of Kanan and is just excited to spend time with her. I'd totally watch a better series with him… Wait, that already exists, multiple times over.

Mistress Kanan is Devilishly Easy is Studio KAI's third series of the season, and it appears to be the unloved stepchild of the bunch compared to The Ramparts of Ice and Snowball Earth. What a treat that the series with the worst story is the one that gets neglected, when usually the reverse is true!

How's your tolerance for heroines who shriek constantly? If the answer is “low,” steer clear of this one, because Kanan goes between maintaining a cool, superior tone and shrieking like a sugared-up toddler in pretty much every scene. It's all in service of the humor, of course – as the daughter of Beelzebub, Kanan has come to Earth to consume human souls, and she's going to seduce her way into that snack…or at least sound like that's what she's doing. Only it backfires spectacularly when she reels in Youji, her first victim and possessor of a juicy soul, because all of her sexy talk ends up sounding like plain old sex talk to him. Before she quite knows what's happening, Youji's ripping off his shirt and ready to do the deed.

In the show's defense, the minute he realizes he read things the wrong way, he backs off. He continually makes her flustered, if not outright uncomfortable, but he doesn't push it, and she does agree to date him, even if she's not entirely sure why. And as the episode goes on, she seems to get farther and farther away from her goal of consuming Youji's soul and more caught up in her own romantic inexperience. The poor girl can't even bring herself to hold his hand, instead tethering his wrists to her with a rope as a safer method of “joining hands.” It's not precisely my sense of humor, but it's far from mean, and I could see it tickling someone else's funny bone.

I think this also may have its heart in the right place. When Kanan goes to her dad and asks to visit Earth because Hell's food is no longer tasty to her, he asks if she's been eating with anyone. She brushes him off, but by the end of this episode, Youji buys her a croquette and insists they eat together…and wouldn't you know it, it's the best thing she's tasted in a long time. Kanan isn't hungering for human souls; she's yearning for companionship, and that's really quite sweet. Another plus is that some thought clearly went into the visuals, with her pigtails turning into her horns when she resumes her true appearance, which almost offsets the fact that her breasts appear to have their own gravitational field.

If Kanan hadn't been so shrill, I suspect I might have liked this at least half a star more. I don't think it's going to be a ground-breaking romcom, but if you're looking for something light, it should fit the bill.

You only have to take one look at the title of Mistress Kanan is Devilishly Easy and the curvaceous design of its titular (heh heh) character to figure out what this anime is all about. Kanan is a demon who is out to devour the souls of the hapless humans on Earth, but she is completely caught off guard when she runs into a boy who doesn't even need to be hypnotized to be lured into the demon's trap. Youji is an avatar for this show's target demographic after all, which means he will gladly let himself be consumed body and soul by a busty anime schoolgirl with demon horns.

“In other words”, this is an ever-so-slightly more salacious-than-usual spin on the usual sitcom setup, with the elevator pitch being, “What if the sexy succubus was even more of a hopeless virgin than her human boyfriend?” The jokes remain squarely within this wheelhouse for the duration of the premiere. Kanan is supposed to be a sultry dominatrix, but she gets a nosebleed when she thinks about…holding hands! Kanan is supposed to be an assertive demon from the pits of hell, but she gets terribly flustered…when she tries to address Youji by his first name. Do you get it? The show is running with a premise that is inherently perverted…except this time, it's wholesome.

If you're a helpless sucker for formulaic rom-com shenanigans, then sure, I can see how this show might be appealing, at least in a “Nothing else is on, but I really need to kill twenty minutes before that doctor's appointment” sort of way. I, however, was unmoved by Mistress Kanan's adorkable hijinks. The show doesn't look very impressive, for one, despite the occasional camera flourish that seems to indicate some effort is being made to look like more than a glorified motion comic. Shows with such predictable jokes like this one rely on sharp presentation and eminently likeable characters to remain engaging, but Mistress Kanan is Devilishly Easy excels on neither of those fronts. All of the human characters are about as exciting to watch as a bunch of slices of plain bread that have just fallen out of their bag, and Kanan herself is basically just a stock romance lead stuck in demon cosplay and burned by a bust that must surely be murder on her back.

I didn't hate the premiere of Mistress Kanan, but it is a prime example of an anime that is destined to be completely forgotten by its audience within minutes of finishing an episode. Unless you've got a serious fetish for demonic dorks with double-d dahonkaladoos, I recommend that you reserve your hard-earned free time for a series that is trying just a little bit harder.