Dance with Devils

Episodes 1-2

Welcome to the show that is as deliberately dark as a kid just entering the Goth phase...but with catchy musical numbers! Dance with Devils is a reverse harem about the adventures of Ritsuka, a second year high school student who is the granddaughter of a famed folklore scholar who did most of his research on demons and vampires. After his death, her mother is abducted, and Ritsuka finds herself somehow involved with the four incredibly hot young men of Shiko Academy's student council: Rem, Urie, Shiki, and Mage, which is pronounced like it would be in English. Like most student councils at ornate anime high schools, these guys have untold amounts of power, and like most reverse harems, they all have distinct personality types as well, although that may not be a fair statement yet since we've only just met everyone. We do know that they have a weird fascination with Ritsuka and that the verbena sachet her mother insists that she wears prevents them from doing anything...untoward. It's thus far a strange mix of fantasy, romance, and Broadway musical, and so far, it seems to be working pretty well.

Thus far the basic plot is that Ritsuka, after having been summoned to the Student Council office for no discernible reason, goes home to find thugs have broken into her house and incapacitated her mother. She runs for the police (showing more brainpower than the average reverse harem heroine, even if she did stand there staring for a bit first), but when she comes back with them, the house looks untouched. Distraught, she calls her older brother Lind who is doing something that looks suspiciously priestly in England. He tells her he's coming right home and to stay with her friend until he gets there, but she's intercepted by vampires, who are in turn stopped by Rem, who just happens to be driving by.

Rem's saving is the turning point of both episode one and the tone in general. With his intervention, Ritsuka becomes much less inclined to do things on her own, although in episode two she does tell him that she'd rather stay with her friend than at his place and when he takes her to her late grandfather's house she is clearly shown walking ahead of him, rather than hanging back and letting him lead the way, so this may just be a temporary loss of courage. And that would be understandable – after all, she's just seen her mother injured and probably kidnapped, been attacked by vampires, and, earlier in the episode, been come on to by the rest of the student council for what to her must seem like no reason at all. Anyone might suffer some confusion and loss of clarity at that point, and her charge for the fire extinguisher after still more baddies attack Grandpa's house seems to indicate that she's regaining her gumption.

Rem, too, is thus far showing some hints of more personality. At first he came off very much as Stoic Guy, the gorgeous, emotionless president with strangely similar (and tattooed) servants. After escaping the house fire he shows a bit of a crack, though: Ritsuka hugs him in relief and Rem is visibly uncomfortable, from his facial expression to the straightening of his posture. We also see his hand twitch as if he is fighting a different physical reaction before he steps away from her, which leads to a few possibilities ranging from actual emotional attachment to her being some kind of yummy devil food. Whichever it is, you can bet that Lind is not going to be for it. A rivalry between he and Rem is very clearly set up in both the opening and the ending themes, and given that Lind looks like a male version of Ritsuka's deceased aunt, I would be willing to bet actual money that he's really Ritsuka's cousin and therefore a viable (by anime standards) romantic option.

But how about that music? The background music all sounds like it could lead up to a song at any moment, though there are actually only three in the first half of episode one and only one song, Rem's, about eighteen minutes through episode two. They all have titles and performers listed in demonic runes (or we're being cursed; I can't read demonic runes) and all have lyrics that make sense in context, even if I alternately bristled and giggled at this week's tune about how Rem is the Prince of Despair and no one can have Ritsuka but him, paired with the image of her as a fancy baby doll. The songs are also all reasonably catchy, and I do have to commend Funimation for giving us song subtitles for the insert songs; they aren't technically part of the plot, but like all musicals, they definitely add something to the story.

Dance with Devils' first two episodes are a fun cross between a campy musical and a standard reverse harem, and it's a combination that largely works. I suspect that once the rest of the male cast gets more involved we'll really see both plot and romance heat up, and episode two made me think that Ritsuka's friend Azuna might have more going on than being the token buddy, which could really make things interesting. In any event, this is just different enough from others in its genre to be interesting and just weird enough to pique your interest. I think episode three will be where things really get going, and I'm looking forward to where this series is going to go.

Rating: B

Dance with Devils is currently streaming on Funimation.

Rebecca Silverman is ANN's senior manga critic.