The Spring 2026 Anime Preview Guide

Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun Season 4

Suzuki Iruma faces a new challenge with the Music Festival. Bonds of friendship are put to the test when the students are told to get all thirteen members of the Misfit Class to Rank 4. This impossible goal can only be achieved by winning the Music Festival. Upon learning that one of the students is a demon who is not allowed to stand out, they wonder how they can all perform on that stage?!

Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun Season 4 is based on the manga series by Osamu Nishi. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Saturdays.

You've been looking for him for three seasons, carefully scouring each episode for a glimpse of an expressionless face and lilac hair, and now, at last, it's time for the final student of the Misfit Class to make his appearance – Soi Purson! And what an appearance it is. With the Music Festival the last chance for the rest of the class to achieve rank four, it's imperative that Elizabetta and Purson stand out as the remaining second ranks. But that's going to be hard when most of the group doesn't even know that Purson exists…and when his family creed is “don't stand out.” That's absolutely not something that the rest of the Misfits understand. It's no wonder Purson's afraid to even open his mouth when they all suddenly become aware of his existence and pile on him.

While Purson's clearly meant to be a mostly funny addition to the cast, there's also something really relatable about him. That's hardly new in this series; Clara's worries about making true friends and Iruma's trauma both heavily informed the Harvest Festival arc. And Iruma finding a place to belong is a central theme of the series as a whole. While Iruma's past makes it imperative for him to fit in at Babylis and finally live a happy life, Purson's family history means that he feels he can't follow in Iruma's footsteps. His brother is so good at not being seen that Purson has never seen him and has to fulfil his familial obligations as well as his own. No wonder he gets overwhelmed when the full force of his classmates' attention is turned on him…and no wonder he's conflicted about basically everything at school. Adding in his introversion just makes him wildly uncomfortable in a school setting, and I think I'm not the only one who can feel that on a personal level.

What I find most interesting is that Purson calls Iruma “selfish” several times in this episode. That's not a word I would associate with him – Iruma's a lot of things, but his willingness to bend over backwards for almost anyone makes him selfless to the point where he had to learn that “no” is a complete and acceptable sentence. But to Purson, who just wants to fly under the radar, Iruma's insistence that he join the class for the festival so that they can stay in the Royal One classroom is ignoring Purson's own desires. It's a great space, but is it actually necessary for the class? Is it worth ignoring Purson's discomfort (which he explicitly tells Iruma about) or his familial obligations? This may be one of the few times Iruma is going after something he wants, and that means ignoring someone else's stated wishes. On the one hand, that's huge progress for our boy. On the other, yeah, from Purson's perspective, it is selfish, and he's allowed to resent that.

One of the greatest strengths of this series is the way that it can blend truly funny comedy with this sort of commentary. Balancing what the class wants with what Purson is comfortable with is fertile ground for this, in both sub and dub. I tend to prefer the dub just because, well, I don't think I have a solid reason, because the dub is really fine (and both Setsuo Itō and Khoi Dao do a good job as Purson), and fortunately, Crunchyroll manages to translate on-screen text in this one. I'm delighted that this series is back, and I can't wait to see how Purson alters the chemistry of the Misfit Class.

Class is back in session as Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun has returned for a fourth season, and I'm so happy to see it back after such a long break. What started as a humble little comedy series about a boy trying not to get eaten at his new school has since managed to become a surprisingly solid fantasy series in its own right, with each new season doing more to expand on both its cast and its world while somehow never losing the sense of charm or humor that made the early parts of the series such a delight to watch. It's been a really impressive evolution to see play out and now that a new season is here, I'm excited for what's next on the horizon for the members of the Misfit Class.

Speaking of them, this starts off with the dilemma they found themselves in at the end of last season. While nearly everyone in the class has gone up enough in rank to avoid getting them all kicked out of the Royal One classroom, they still have a couple of stragglers left at Rank Bet, with one of them being a quiet boy by the name of Purson Soi. Now if you haven't been paying close attention for the past few seasons, it would be incredibly easy to mistake him for a completely new character who got thrown into the class, but as the show correctly points out, he's been hanging out in the background this whole time (and indeed if you go back to some of the episodes highlighted you can actually see him there) and the others simply didn't notice him because his bloodline ability allows him to avoid detection. It's the funniest way the series could have chosen to put some spotlight on this character while doubling as a clever bit of worldbuilding as to why he's gone ignored up to now, and it's the kind of long con that shows that Osamu Nishi has done a much better job of planning ahead, than would appear at first glance.

As has proven to be the case with much of Iruma-kun's cast though, Purson has a lot more going for him than just this single good joke, and we end up learning quite a bit about him. Despite coming from a family that prides themselves on their ability to stay under the radar, Purson is actually a bit of an awkward chatterbox, which only puts more pressure on him to do as his family says to avoid standing out. With all that in mind, he's not particularly thrilled about the idea of his classmates wanting to put him front and center in the upcoming music festival and does everything he can to avoid them until Iruma discovers that Purson has a talent for playing the trumpet. Being the empathetic kid that he is, Iruma is the only one in the class who realizes that it isn't really fair to ask Purson to stand out if he doesn't want to, but changes his mind after hearing how good of a musician he is. However, rather than wanting Purson to play music for the class, Iruma thinks that Purson should play so everyone can praise him for how good he is, and that he should be able to take the opportunity to act more selfishly. Considering how long Iruma's allowed himself to simply go along with whatever other people told him to do, it's nice to see him taking more chances to act on his own desires, and seeing him inspire someone else to do the same really goes to show how much his experiences in the demon world have helped to change him for the better.

It's a good way to start off the new season and I'm glad to see the show hasn't lost its step. That also goes for the English dub which sees everyone returning to their roles, with the new addition of Khoi Dao who does an excellent job shifting between Purson's generally reclusive attitude, and his occasional outbursts of chatter while keeping them all in a deliberate monotone that manages to come off as consistently funny rather than flat. Unfortunately, there are some caveats with watching the dub, as has been the running theme for this season's Crunchyroll lineup (and frankly every new season of anime for them at this point), there are no subtitles for on-screen text if you're watching the show with English audio, and while it's possible this might be retroactively fixed later, it's a problem that almost never fails to come up whenever Crunchyroll is rolling out any new dubs for their service, and it's frankly inexcusable this keeps happening for a service that's supposed to specialize in streaming anime. Putting that issue aside though, I can otherwise say that Iruma-kun is still as delightful as ever, and now that we've been properly introduced to the entire Misfit Class, I'm looking forward to seeing just what kind of show they'll manage to put together.