Well, this was the penultimate episode of How Not to Summon a Demon Lord Ω. I’m not going to say this season ruined the show for me. Like I might watch another season if one comes out. But It wasn’t a great season by any means. And one more episode isn’t going to change that.
At least, I can actually see a nice little conclusion that works for the arc. There’s that. Although Red Head and the other Demon lord would have ultimately been pretty much useless. Kind of a waste of time…
Yeah, as much as this season has been ‘meh’ they are at least making an effort to up the emotional stakes in time for the finale but honestly it is a bit too little too late. So much of this season has ended up being meandering or pointless. I mean, it is nice that Diablo’s trip to the other dungeon did result in the various artefacts they’ve used being acquired but otherwise most of everything that has happened including introducing the gun wielding lord has been fairly meaningless.
I won’t lie, the episode started out as a collection of my pet peeves. I don’t expect any anime to cater to me personally but hey, I’m reviewing it and it just hit so many things I don’t like.
First, we got Horn as the main and point of view character. I’m not a fan of little kid characters. There are lots of exceptions but it’s not my favourite. So already, that was a bad start.
Right off the bat, we get a new character in the second to last episode, (always a good idea!) and it’s an out-of-place valley girl! I guess Babylon was fine. She annoyed me more by virtue of not being good than really being bad. Let’s be clear, she wasn’t a good character. Surprise me K, tell me you loved her!
She was totally out of place and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what the show was hoping for by introducing her. I mean, sure How Not To Summon a Demon Lord likes to subvert expectations. Klem, the previously scary and big-bad demon lord was subdued by cookies in the end so it isn’t as though the show doesn’t like to be fairly absurd. But Babylon was just so misplaced from costume to mannerisms in the established world that it made it hard to even believe I was still watching the same show and then she just kind of hung around for the remainder of the episode even though she served no purpose.
But then, yay, a golden shower joke. I am NOT a pee fetishist. It’s not my thing guys. This is followed up by Horn getting a pedo beam as a reward for willingly becoming a slave?
In practice, it meant that a small girl got to run around and seduce grown adult men by flashing her privates while openly whining that it was disgusting and she wanted to die. But at least she got to be violently mauled by a monster. So she gets her wish?
Wow. That was harsh. A fairly true recount of what happened but it sounds so much worse when you put it that way (and it was pretty bad to watch in the first place).
I think my bigger issue comes from the fact that the random villain girl (who seemed to just pull whatever out of her books to the point where it ceased even having meaning) was right in that everything Horn went through was utterly pointless. And, who put Diablo and all his friends together and didn’t take away their equipment? What logic is at work here? Quite rightly, Diablo and co could have just walked out of that room whenever they felt like it so literally Horn went through all of that and got unceremoniously cut down by a monster for nothing. And Diablo trying to make her feel better by saying her idiocy (actions) inspired him to action doesn’t make it any better.
I think the paladin was a dude. Not that it changes anything but Diablo mentioned it for some reason.
The second half was some sort of plot thingy. Evil paladin, we killed him (apparently). A scene of Diablo’s plan going horribly wrong, which would have been funny if I wasn’t sort of over the episode. Still, I think the idea of Diablo having talked himself into genocide because Luchamina is just too slow on the uptake is worth a giggle.
And then just set up for the final boss. Am I leaving anything interesting out? How about anything at all?
Every single plan went wrong this episode. Horn’s plan to use the grail for a power-up failed forcing her to use the slave thing that she’d already turned down in a previous episode. Even then, despite getting to Diablo, she failed to rescue anyone. The random evil girl’s plan to crush them all failed when Diablo crushed her with a really slow moving rock (still wondering how that actually happened). Then head-priest girl just accepts Diablo’s bluff that killing all the worshippers is somehow a plan utterly undermining Diablo’s true intentions. Honestly, this could be comedy gold except that the tone is all over the place and nothing really comes off as funny so much as just kind of happens.
It sounds like I’m skimming through it and in a way, I am. But there really wasn’t much more to the episode. It was mostly action-driven and not that much of interest happened. I mean Horn became level 80 which makes her close to Diablo I guess but in practice, it changes nothing because she got owned by the first actual obstacle and the other girls seemed just as powerful as her.
Yep, for all that Horn is now apparently level 80 she still seemed pretty fragile. Though maybe that’s lack of experience? Or perhaps just being an unnecessary side-character in an already over-full harem anime? Who knows. What I do know is that this one is more just kind of a case of stuff happening and kind of a build up which may result in a conclusion to a lacklustre season.
So tell me Karandi, any final thoughts here? Want to sing the intro song?
“Everybody…” You know, I still love the intro despite how much I am not into the rest of this show.
But no, no final thoughts. Realistically I think from the minute Diablo agreed to try to confront the church peacefully (which was stupid) the fate of this season was sealed and any real hope of it reaching even half the entertainment value of season one fell flat. Worse, they haven’t really done enough to make me care about Vishos as a final big-bad and there’s really nothing else other than the random monster he unleashed left to face. Maybe next episode will surprise me but mostly I’ll be happy if it remains mediocre and doesn’t actually fall into being terrible.
Previous Posts
- How Not to Summon a Demon Lord Ω Ep 1 – God and Demon Lord
- How Not to Summon a Demon Lord Ω Ep 2
- How Not to Summon a Demon Lord Ω Ep 3 – Death Knell
- How Not to Summon a Demon Lord Ω Ep 4
- How Not to Summon a Demon Lord Ω Ep 5 – Spring Cleaning
- How Not to Summon a Demon Lord Ω Ep 6
- How Not to Summon a Demon Lord Ω Ep 7 – Krem Biscuit
- How Not to Summon a Demon Lord Ω Ep 8
This show is all over the place to be honest. It has it’s moments but I feel like other shows have gotten my attention. I’ve recently started binge watching both the Saint is Omnipotent and Full Dive ! I know two totally different shows in tone , but I think they’re way better than Demonlord atm .
Episode 9 seems to be Significant for a lot of anime.
I guess a lot of shows set up their conclusion around episode 9