Maou Gakuin no Futekigousha II: Shijou Saikyou no Maou no Shiso, Tensei shite Shison-tachi no Gakkou e Kayou

So… I kind of knew during season 1 that this show was bound to be a flash in the pan. It’s the kind of show that survives on power fantasy as a way to both hook and maintain an audience, and I thought it worked pretty well S1. The humor was pretty solid, especially when it came to reactions to our lead character Anos Voldigoad. But the cracks were starting to show even then as the opponents ramped up and absurd abilities became increasingly more absurd. That’s kind of the point, but there’s only so far you can take it before it all starts torun together. And that’s the note S2 starts on. Admittedly, it’s not a bad start, with some pretty solid mind games to push our characters in a different way before a series of “I knew you would do that so I had this planned from the beginning!” starts and just… doesn’t end. It becomes really monotonous. I wouldn’t mind so much if the answer to every issue was “Anos will solve it.” To some degree, it lets other characters fight their own battles, but even then it only feels like the end result is either going to be some BS table flip or Anos saving the day. That would only push this so low (I knew what I was getting into), but then they had to throw in a series of episodes that took place in the distant past and use them to… confuse the fuck out of everything in order to set up more table flips. It really did not help that this portion of the anime was interrupted while it was airing and continued only recently in this season without any recap, so I was lost immediately at the start of episode 7. The ending few episodes are just more of the same overpowered characters fighting ridiculous battles with a couple of visually striking scenes, but beyond that aspect, I can’t say I enjoyed this season. Doesn’t help that some CGI trees with faces make the damn Deku Tree from the N64 Ocarina of Time look good. There came a period in this season when I was sitting there wondering why the hell I was still watching, and that’s a bad sign. I was bored well before it ended. I’m sure if I rewatched these episodes back to back and really thought about all the absurdly long-term setups of the time travel portion (2000 years in the past), I would appreciate more of the ways in which they made this happen. But I don’t, and I won’t. Last time I remember being this frustrated with a sequel season of a series I previously enjoyed was Log Horizon S3, and while it’s not that bad (now THAT was a slog of a season), it’s not great that that’s the comparison that springs to mind. Worst thing I watched this season by a good bit.

One-Misfitted Man. The first season of The Misfit of Demon King Academy balanced a fine line between the satire of the overpowered magical high school chunibyo light novel protagonist just like what One-Punch Man did for Shonen battle manga, and just more mediocre light novel bollocks that must be taken seriously by the viewer. I couldn't tell the difference and I genuinely enjoyed the complete and utter “Did you really think stopping time is enough to stop me?” nonsense of Anos Voldigoad. Unfortunately, season 2 answered my question and the answer is mediocre light novel bollocks that the viewer must take very seriously because this is nowa serious story for serious people. The charm of the first season has been replaced with po-faced melodrama and a mystery plot involving a mysterious hooded character and a mysterious armed knight made so obvious I could feel my intelligence being insulted in real-time. Okay, real-time is a strong term of phrase considering it took over a year for studio Silver Link to deliver a twelve-episode season due to covid circumstances. I’m not entirely against the idea of fleshing out the world and exploring the origins of the false demon king, Avos Delhevia. I’d argue that was one of the first season's biggest strengths. Someone had messed with time over the two-thousand-year period it took for Anos to reincarnate himself and we were naturally introduced to world-building elements during the time Anos was beating dudes up with just his heartbeat. Exposition dumps were made interesting in the first season because it was usually Anos delivering it whilst correcting someone, usually a pure-blood demon supremacist, who just assumed something about the world or the magic system. However, a good portion of season two is dedicated to flashbacks between a great fairy spirit and your average shut-in Redditer and the exposition being dumped over the viewer delivered by the generic “God” villain. Anos is barely involved and when he is, instead of picking up a castle with one hand, spinning it on his finger and then lobbing it across a field just to prove a point, he's sitting and taking a test given by an ugly CGI Deku tree. Now I will admit, the spirit's power system and how not only their powers but their existences are governed by the lore that is written and shared about them is unique and interesting. I also liked how the story explores the system whether that be writing new lore to create or fix spirits and the complications that come with creating a hybrid. But none of that involves Anos punching the metaphorical symbol of racism in the face whilst his backing choir sings about how great he is, does it? And there's a lot of racism again this season which Anos spends most of his time hiding from. That's the difference between something like One-Punch Man and The Misfit of Demon King Academy. If your main character who can win a fight or solve a problem by flicking his finger isn’t in the spotlight, you need to have a supporting cast who can carry the story and unlike One-Punch Man, Misfit doesn’t have that. Honestly, I don’t even know what his circle of waifus were even here for this season. The harem could’ve been cut down by two or three people and nothing would change. I think I knew deep down The Misfit of Demon King Academy was another mediocre light novel fantasy series in reality, but chose to believe that it was actually satire due to how fun it was to watch Anos beat the snot out of racist demons or humans with all the bravado of chunibyo light novel protagonist. I’m not mad that season two pulled the rug out from under me, I’m just disappointed. 4/10 Disappointed.

Me in Summer 2020: Maou Gakuin's a fire show, with the gigachad of Anos VoldiGOAT, he's rocking asses with a harem and a fan club that adores everything about him, and he respects everyone to the max! Me in Summer 2023: Maou Gakuin's a disaster show, yikes. Aniplex's continued mismanagement of COVID, which saw this show (and Ayakashi Triangle) infamously delayed by almost half a year, and the worst offender of all: VA Tatsuhisa Suzuki's BIGGEST scandal of his life being ousted from the AniManga scene altogether, replaced by Yuichiro Umehara as the gigachad's new VA...that doesn't sound quite right. Back in Summer 2020, when the animeadaptation of novelist Shu's Maou Gakuin no Futekigousha a.k.a The Misfit of Demon King Academy was released, I LOVED the hell outta everything that made the source material gain the notoriety that it did with humongous sales of the LN. It had the classical tropes of an OP MC in the form of Anos Voldigoad (who would become the gigachad GOAT of the fantasy genre); a harem based off sisters of the same blood through Misha and Shasha Necron (that at least acknowledged that Anos cared for the both of them like his own kin); the hilarious but momentful Anos Fan Club of female classmates that would at times be the shining light in the darkness; as well as the Hero Kanon in the form of his reincarnation Lay Glanzudlii with his etched lover Misa. Maou Gakuin was, simply put, a firehouse of awesome (as heck) fantasy for the ages. Despite the aeons of people hating this show, I am still the greatest advocate that Maou Gakuin was a sight to behold back in the day, and I stand by my ludicrious, whack review published 3 years ago. Fast forward to Winter (or rather, restarted in Summer) this year, and we continue with the adaptation of Volumes 4a and 4b of the LN that comprises the rather large story that is the Great Spirit arc, and this is definitely where Maou Gakuin took a full nosedive here. Considering the element of the story that was the epilogue of Volume 3 a.k.a the ending of Season 1, which prompts Anos and the gang to go back 2,000 years in time to learn of what comprised the reveal of the biggest enemy: the fake Demon King that was Avos Dilhevia. This, essentially, brings them back to the mother of their appointed affair: the Great Spirit Leno and Anos's right-hand man, Shin Reglia. Taking classes in the spirit realm, headed by the Great Spirit Teacher Enyunien, Anos and the gang go back to being schooled one more time to uncover and unravel the sequence of events that led to the scenario of the present day. Needless to say, I truly got bored in the whole teaching aspect as it was cumbersome to sit around and see Anos and gang try to learn new things, as well as the history of the places they've been, and more importantly, those who are in rebellion against Anos to dethrone him and make Avos the true Demon King, say the main villain of this arc, NousGalia. As a whole, the Great Spirit arc was both a blessing and a curse to the author, as Shu had to somehow continue the story by pacing it within the same aspects as his/her first 3 volumes a.k.a Season 1, but due to the magnitude of the arc having to be split into 2 volumes with the aforementioned Side A and B, both the pacing and the feels dropped off significantly, which if you add Aniplex's COVID mismanagement,which caused the entire run to be postponed 6 months to August, the story indefinitely would have been forgotten to time, and I had to dig my brains just to remember where we left off with the story. That alone is a double whammy to the anime's production, and with no thanks to the somewhat overly convoluted plot, is no consolation to the testament of the anime at this stage of the story. It's a BIG shame having to lose Tatsuhisa Suzuki for his misforgivings, but no matter the outcome, we all can agree that he is scum for being in an affair after being wed to one of AniManga's biggest music artists (LiSA). Definitely not the kind who is a big 180 from the gigachad's personality. And for the most part, Yuichiro Umehara does a decent job on Anos, though thanks to Season 2's 2nd cour airing next year, we all still have to get used to his voice for yet another 12-episode seasonal run. One of Maou Gakuin's shining moments was definitely with Tatsuhisa Suzuki, and his being ousted means that the anime has lost a critical part of its quality. With the Domino Effect of Aniplex's mismanagement comes Silver Link's production woes, which, despite being still headed by the studio's chief director of Shin Oonuma and his mentee of fellow director Masafumi Tamura, have shown quite the drastic change in quality in becoming inconsistent, which they got too comfortable with after the impressive showing of Season 1. It's not wrong that Season 1 gave them a lot of footing to work on for Season 2; it's just that the priorities were shifted around when the anime got suddenly postponed and came back 3 months prior for the TV broadcast's restart. And while Season 2 didn't look awful by any means, it was clearly a step down from its predecessor, which was made worse thanks to the delay from COVID. My woes with Part 1 of Season 2 continue onto the OST. Obviously, new songs are added to the roster of the OST, and this time, I felt nothing about Lenny code fiction and Momosumomosu's OP and ED respectively. Considering that Season 1 hit it out with Civilian and Tomori Kusunoki's OP and ED songs that are good and banger, respectively, the noticeable downgrade always caused me to skip both songs (albeit a few for the ED) that held nothing of the flare that I remember from Season 1. When all is said and done, the word "disappointment" is truly an understatement to call Part 1 of Season 2 by. Everything was clicking out of place, from the "cannot make heads nor tails" story beats to the lacklustre production, made worse by the decision from Aniplex to postpone the anime, throwing everyone out of whack. It's quite the forgettable 1st half to a sequel season that has its predecessor held to a very high regard, and I pray that Part 2 of Season 2 will hopefully bring us back to the levels of greatness that graced Season 1. Right now, at this very moment, Maou Gakuin no Futekigousha hits a snagging fluke, but will it have a glorious comeback? That awaits to be seen.

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