Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun Season 3

Episode 5

As the narrator says, there are several important elements to succeeding in the Harvest Festival. But the one that he doesn't name is quite possibly the most important to Jazz and Allocer's success: cynicism. Each of the Misfit Class' special tutors took a very different approach to training their little darlings, and while Balam didn't necessarily see his method as particularly harsh (that's just part of his charm), Sergeant Fur Fur knew exactly what he was doing to his boys, and that makes him easily the most demonic of the demons we've met in this series. After all, what kind of monster takes high school boys to a club, deliberately gets them to spend huge amounts of money, and then sells them to pay for it?

On the one hand, it's kind of hard to fault Fur Fur for doing what it says on the tin: he's a demon, and he even looks like a stereotypical one. Hell, his shirt (we'll call it that for ease of reference) even says “disaster” on it, so we can't accuse him of not being honest with the audience. But on the other hand, even Kalego tends to ultimately do the slightly kinder thing when it comes down to the wire, something Fur Fur apparently has zero interest in doing. When he says that if Jazz and Allocer don't win the Harvest Festival he'll continue with their slave labor, I really think he means it. That's not really a sympathetic look, and while it's definitely lit a fire under the boys, it also feels meaner than Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun typically is, and I can't say I like the change all that much.

But boy, have those kids ever learned their lesson about the value of cynicism in daily demon life. Jazz especially has taken Lady Macbeth's words about looking like the innocent flower but being the serpent under it To Heart, and he's getting pretty good at using his already less-than-upstanding power to do what he has to in order to come out on top. Allocer perhaps had it easier: he's already got a face that's hard to read (or even tell if he's awake, as this week's Sukima shows us) and he's got the brains to back that up. He's still the quieter of the pair and willing to let Jazz take the lead, but as we see when he tricks the Diabotany guy, he's more than capable of guiding someone exactly where he wants them. The Misfit Class was a force to be reckoned with before, but now everybody will know it.

That said, I'm glad that we're about done with catching up on what everyone was doing during their training. It's not uninteresting, but it also has had the feeling of information we need for what's to come rather than a naturally unfolding story, and that's a major step down from how the show has operated in past seasons. It is very nice to know that Keroli now has confidence in her non-devidol persona, and seeing her as the new queen of the jungle (move over, Sheena) was visually a delight, but I'm ready to see the plot get moving again. This arc has dragged a bit, something that hopefully the return of the Clara and Iruma duo next week will change. At least now we know for certain why Iruma is the main character – the rest of the cast is great too, but without Iruma to balance them out, they're just not as fun as they could be.

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Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun Season 3 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.