Sunday, July 14, 2013

Dawnleaf Watches Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist: Episode 1 – I Can’t Tell You to Go to Hell, Seeing as We’re Already There



This is how this episode opens.  Excellent tonesetter, huh?  

I’m going to show you the main character.  Is it just me, or does he look a tad familiar?



Blond hair, green eyes, schoolboy outfit…  Art style’s a bit different, but…  It’s Oz!  They’re even both heirs to prestigious families!  Except one hangs out with a goat butler and the other hangs out with a giant chain-scythe-wielding black rabbit in a dress.  So one’s obviously better.


Okay, jokes aside, besides his appearance, this guy is nothing like Oz (or most other protagonists of the almost-but-not-quite-shounen-ai-with-supernatural-stuff genre).
Most of the protagonists of this genre are very shota, with high-pitched voices, feminine appearances, and a sweet, naïve, innocent demeanor.   While Oz stood out because he had an undercurrent of psychological damage (and also made a Schwarzenegger line at one point), William stands out because he’s almost the opposite of the typical.


Despite his appearance, his voice is actually a lot more grown-up sounding than I was expecting, so he actually sounds like a high-school boy instead of a ten-year-old.  He’s also stuck-up, very commonsensical, and an elitist asshole.  It’s refreshing, really.   He doesn’t believe in magic or anything (he says he’s a man of science), so seeing him try to come up with explanations for all the weird stuff he sees is rather entertaining.  And, again, he’s a bit of an asshole, so seeing him be bossy and dickish to people that most protagonists would be terrified of is fun to watch.
He also has a moe ginger friend, and that gets points in my book.


So, here’s the plot: *takes deep breath* So, because of a series of events involving debt, William and his butler are searching his house for money to pay for his tuition.


They stumble upon a magic circle in the basement and accidentally summon a demon general from Hell.  Despite his method of appearance not suggesting that, William assumes that it means that the demon is a crazy man in a costume that came from some sort of room under his house.


However, William’s pissed because he wanted money, not demons from Hell.  So he has the guy tied up and sashays off to search the basement room some more.  I think that he should’ve put the demon to work at McDonalds, I’ve heard somewhere that they’re pretty good at that.


So, while searching the room, he somehow gets transported to Hell.  There, he meets the demon he summoned’s (Dantalion’s the demon’s name, by the way) butler.  One Hell of a butler, I assume?


That’s either stupid or insanely awesome.  My opinion is leaning a bit towards the latter, though.  I want a goat butler now.
The goat butler tells William that Hell is undergoing a turf war right now, as the current ruler is napping and needs someone to rule while he gets his beauty sleep.  And William is an ‘elector’, which makes him important somehow, which is why Dantalion is after him.  I think that means that he’s somehow fated to pick who gets to rule…?
Then, they’re attacked by this woman.


Excuse me, I’ve got a phone call… That’s male?  But, I mean, look at her!  Long, purple hair, long lashes… okay, okay, I understand now. *puts down phone* They’re attacked by this man, sorry.


He’s totally making the perfect ‘WTF’ face there.
Purple here wanted to kill Dantalion, but, since he’s out, he decides to kidnap William instead.  However, Dantalion’s William senses were tingling, as he somehow makes it back over to Hell and sorts this crap out.


Purple poofs away, and William, unfazed, tells Dantalion to stop fighting right now as he needs to go to school; screw Hell.
However, at school, after learning that a mysterious donation is apparently paying his tuition, William is greeted by a decidedly unsettling sight:


Dun da dunnn!
Great anime?  Probably not, but this was an entertaining romp.  We haven’t seen that sort of protagonist in this sort of show too many times before, so I definitely want to watch a bit more to see how he reacts to stuff in the future.  And the moe ginger friend.  Him, too.

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