Hataraku Maou-Sama

In the recent anime season, there was an anime circling around my social circles for it's opening, plot, and overall goodness. Although I saw it on the airing list at the beginning of the season,I thought it was going ot be some dumb slice of life show,but how I was wrong. When me and my friend started watching this show,we had a ball watching it.

The story follows the Dark Lord Satan and his subordinate Alsiel going to the human world fleeing from the Hero Emilia. The Hero Emilia, follows them to the human world they try and make a living as normal people. The Dark Lord Satan, who goes by the name Maou Sadou works at McDonalds equivalent and his partner,Alsiel, who goes by Ashiya Shirou is a stay home person. Emilia, who goes by Yusa Emi works at a call center. Although they try and lead normal lives, Emilia tries and eliminate the Dark Lord Satan. However, things are not as black and white such as evil vs good or hero vs villain.

I will admit when I first read the synopsis I wasn't that impressed. The set up was just Satan gets a part time job while trying to get back home. What finally got me on board was people talking about this anime and I realized that it was a clever comedy. Yes, the story centers around him mainly trying to get back home,but what made it worth while was the comedy wrapped up in it.

The characters them selves were stereotypes, but they were well done. Sadao is your typical main character and Ashiya is your typical side kick(sometimes wife-y as my friend calls him). Emi falls into the the tsundere roll.  And last,and probably my least favorite, Chiho is the typical flat character but big boobed to try and crush on Sadao. The characters were lovable but sometimes they seemed kinda flat.

The art for the series is good, but not stellar. It is fluid, the characters well drawn except I did not like the design of Chiho. I know that she supposed to be the big boobed character but her design could have been better. The fight scenes were animated decently as well as the slice of life scenes.

Overall, I love this series. Only thing that makes me sad is that I actually can't make a drinking game of it. It's a great slice of life with a hand medling in super natural as well. I would recommend this to anyone that looking for a good anime to watch or to kill time.

Kotoura-san: First Impressions

For some reason, I can never get enough of the supernatural anime. No, I do not mean supernatural in the way of Death Note, or Code Geass, but more in the way of cutesy, not overly over thought, dragged out series. When I saw the synopsis for Kotoura-san, this seemed to be right up my ally, with cutesy animation, good light hearted story, and perhaps a character I could some-what relate to.

Watching the first episode, it was dark in tone, but it gave nice back story to our main character, Kotoura: a psychic girl who can read peoples minds. It started with small things, such as knowing what was for breakfast or beating someone in a match of rock paper scissors. However, as she got older, she started reading into peoples feelings, such as knowing who the girls in her class liked. Her psychic abilities drove a crack through her family as well. Her mother who used to be very nice, now was drinking a lot and got angry more often. Her dad also started cheating on his wife and he never came home that much. Eventually this leads to her getting abandoned to her grandpa, and her mom wishing she had never given birth to her. And due to all the teasing, she decided to transfer schools.

Pretty dark right? Luckily for me, that was only half of the first episode. The second half comes when she meets Manabe, a daydreaming boy in her new class. Although he has no interest in her at first, he learns she is psychic and accepts it, except for the part where he has to keep his perverted thoughts under control. After meeting Manabe, she eventually joins the ESP Research Society, where she has friends and is accepted by everyone.

The story for this is actually pretty good due to the fact it is dark in tone at first, but yet light hearted later on. I can't wait to see how Kotoura develops further because in anime there's a magical little thing called friendship and it has been known to do magical things.

The art and music for this anime are also very cute. In the first part, it was dark and dreary, but when she met Manabe, the tone lightened up instantly. Despite being the character that sticks out the most, Kotoura is well drawn with blonde hair and loli-like. Manabe looks, unfortunately, like any harem male lead, despite this not being a harem. The open theme is admittedly very catchy and light hearted, and the end theme is also very good.

For some reason, I find Kotoura very relateable character. Maybe it is because I was always on the getting teased end at school and can understand some of her pain, but either way, she is well developed. Manabe is your average perverted guy lead, but he is a guy lead focused on making friends with the main character, not getting in bed with her, though it might seem like that at times.

Over all, I hope that this anime can deliver what I was hoping. So far, even though it has only only two episodes released, I am very pleased. If you haven't seen this anime yet, please do. I am almost possitive you will not regret it.