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I know I asked for more lore and answered questions in the show but I’m starting to get tired of the onslaught of names that the show sort of throws at me. I know a lot of it is based in Norse mythology or the Bible and you could argue some elements are common knowledge to a lot of people but other names just straight up confuse me. It also doesn’t help that now we’re in Ente Isla where a lot of characters are being referred to by their demon names or their true names so it can be a lot to keep track of at once. I’m complaining about this even though it feels like we finally started getting an explanation for certain questions that I’ve had for a while like who the hell the landlord is even though she just makes an appearance at the beginning of the episode to say that nothing will change and it doesn’t matter. Is it OK if I feel petty enough to think that was a dig at me?
Some interesting discussions are going on in this episode but I’m not sure what my main takeaway is supposed to be from them. The whole conversation between Maou and Emi’s companion on their experiences with demons is interesting. But I don’t feel like we got enough of the backstory to justify the point they were trying to make. It also doesn’t help that it feels like we’re trying a little bit too hard to rewrite history. I questioned how we justify all the people who definitely died during this war but now it feels like we’re opening up the possibility that death was avoided as much as possible because Maou didn’t want the war to turn into a massacre. People still died though, right? They even make a point here that the only people that were killed were those that were aggressive back towards the demons… but what were the humans supposed to do exactly? Not fight back against a force that was still trying to subjugate them? I don’t like this angle because it almost feels like the deaths that took place during the war were justified so that our main cast kind of comes out unscathed on the other end of all this. Not the biggest fan of that or at the very least if they’re going to try to establish this gray area about how war isn’t as it appears then it feels like that should be an overarching plotline handled with a lot more care than what we’re seeing here.
Even Emi’s breakdown at the end of the episode ran a little bit hollow for me because, on the one hand, I get that she is in an impossible situation. She’s learned that demons have feelings and can care as much as humans do, yet she is forced to work under some of the worst humans that she has come to know under the guise of doing the right thing for the sake of the unknowing masses. She is a figurehead and it’s kind of a bastardization of her role as a hero. Plus she is still dealing with all the emotional turmoil of knowing that her father is actually still alive but she’s still unable to see him. That’s all interesting but I think the episode could’ve gone a bit further with that by actually showing some of the things that Emi and the human army have been doing. Almost everything that is being talked about is done off-screen so I don’t get to witness or feel the weight of what Emi is dealing with because the show doesn’t want to animate or properly frame exactly how heavy of a burden this is. It’s the kind of thing that makes sense on paper but in execution, it feels more like I’m being told to feel bad about what Amy is going through rather than getting to see it firsthand. Maybe showing actual war crimes would be too much for the show to get away with visually but then I would question why even bother having a story like this in the first place. It just feels toothless and makes me sit here wishing for more but not in a good way.
Rating:
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!! Season 3 is currently streaming on
Crunchyroll and Hulu
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