The Misfit King of Demon King Academy – Episode 1

What’s it about? It has been prophesied that the demon king Anos Voldigod, who died two thousand years ago, will soon be reincarnated and reclaim his throne. Now, the Demon King Academy is admitting talented students with the potential to become the new Demon King. A cocky young man enters the ring, so powerful that no one can stand up to him, claiming to be Anos himself. While his brutal magic shocks and horrifies his classmates, Misha knows that deep inside, he is truly a kind person.

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Something about The Misfit of Demon King Academy made me think of the seminal classic, Gundam Wing.

You know that scene in the first episode where Relena hands Heero an invitation to her birthday party in front of the whole school, and he rips it up, wipes the tears from her eyes, and promises to kill her? How that was a signal to her that the boy she found unconscious and vulnerable on the beach was actually super dangerous? And how that led to a confusing relationship between two completely unpredictable loose cannons where they can’t decide whether to kill or kiss each other? Remember how absolutely buckwild that was?

God I love that scene.

I hear you ask, “but Caitlin, why are you talking about Gundam Wing? Aren’t you supposed to be talking about the premiere?”

To that I say, hush, my sweet child, I have my reasons that will become clear soon. For one thing, I never get tired of that scene, even though I’ve watched it probably over a hundred times. For another, I’d really rather talk about anything other than The Misfit of Demon King Academy. But alas, now that I have set up the point of comparison, I must move forward with discussing this accursed premiere.

The Misfit King of Demon Academy starts with a moment that is more or less the opposite of that legendary scene. A blank-faced girl drops an envelope, and a young man picks it up and hands it back to her. This convinces her that he is a kind and good person at heart, even though he murders another student, only to resurrect him and murder him again, ad nauseum, so brutally that even the other students at a school called Demon King Academy are horrified and nauseated.

Remember: a single, very easy act of common courtesy cancels out any awful acts of sadism and brutality you may commit. That is why we should really stop giving cops such a hard time.

I’m being sarcastic. Really. Never forget, ACAB.

Misfit King certainly isn’t alone in asserting this, but it makes my teeth grind all the same. Especially considering literally everything else about Anos.

I called the murders “brutal,” but don’t expect any actual gore along the lines of, say, your average Nagai Go series. This show is way too toothless for that. And while gore sure isn’t my thing, I’d prefer that in a way – it’d be a sign that the show has an actual idea of what it wants to deliver. Even shock value is some kind of value. Here, the animators just kind of splatter red paint around.

“But Caitlin,” you say, “there’s no actual paint involved in anime production these days.”

To which I say, that’s true my dearest darling, my darlingest dear, but nobody likes a pedant so please be quiet.

But that wouldn’t be a big deal, if Anus — sorry, “Anos,” but the mistake is understandable — and Misha, the girl with the envelope, were even slightly interesting or if the script were even vaguely clever, but they aren’t and it’s not. Anos has two facial expressions: blank and smirking. Misha just looks blank. The smirk isn’t even a real proper shit-eating grin, it’s just mildly smug in a way that’s way more obnoxious. The action sequences are just Anos staring flatly at his opponent or smirking slightly; and though Misha is supposedly the second-most powerful student in the school, she doesn’t do anything in this episode except follow Anos like a lost puppy.

This leads to both the episode’s highlight and lowlight. The highlight is meeting Anos’s parents; though they’re not the most interesting of characters, they’re fun and dynamic, bright colors against the show’s scheme of blacks and greys with splashes of red. It’s also revealed that Anos is all of a month old, which is a bizarre choice, even if he was reincarnated with all his memories. His parents dote on him and agree with Misha that he actually is very kind, but they don’t know him. You can’t get to know anyone that well within a month. And wouldn’t his mom mourn missing out on raising him?

“Caitlin,” you say, “aren’t you putting way more thought into this than the writers ever did?”

And I reply, yes that’s true, my most precious angel of all the angels in heaven, but I watched this in the most sleep-deprived state I have in years and unfortunately my writing gets pretty stream of conscious.

The lowlight is, even in the face of bizarre story choices, the conversation between Misha and Anos as they walk back to the dorms. It is the most boring of first date conversations, consisting of such topics as, “Your parents are nice,” and, “Do you have any siblings?” Small talk like this has a function when you’re getting to know people, but it’s what you get out of the way so you can talk about more interesting things, and also dear god I don’t want to listen to other people go through it.

Okay, it’s the next day and, after struggling to sleep more than a couple hours for the last few days seemingly no matter how many kinds of drugs I took and in what quantities, I was finally able to get the night’s rest I needed. I’m attributing this to the effects of watching and having to talk about The Misfit King of Demon Academy. This premiere may not be of any use as entertainment, but as a narcotic? It’s the best thing on the market.