It’s hard to decide the final rating of Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou. It has a good start. It has a great finish. But it has incredibly mediocre middle part that drags the whole novel down. So, I’ll start with the good parts. Because there are in fact different reasons behind the quality of the start and of the end. First, the start. This novel is a harem one. It doesn’t hide the fac. But being a harem i also not the one thing that’s keeping it marketable. Unlike vast majority of harem fiction, the protagonist here isn’t a blank state that’s cowardly and intentionally avoidshuman interaction that boys his age would naturally crave. No, this time the protagonist is the one that carries the novel. This time the main characters is the main interest. Sure, he does reject advances, but this is not just so the story doesn’t have him pick one of the girls, it’s because he’s present as religious and righteous type of person, so for a change decisions like these make sense for the character of the MC. Worry not though, as that too is a subject of development. Very surprisingly for what is a fanservice harem on a surface, the themes of religion and morality (and cult of personality) are a focus, and critically so.

The ecchi scenes are in contrast of more seriously written more philosophical sections, and as much as I would prefer it without the ecchi parts, this is still at least passable for sure. The novel raises some interesting points about fabricated authority, subjectivity of morals and the difference perceiving by majority could make even if said majority is misinformed. Sure, you might call this a reach and just finding deeper meaning than which was even meant. But given how the last portion of the novel plays out, I believe this was very intentionally written like that by the author.

The ending – it’s difficult to reason about its qualities without spoiling it at least partially. Just the notion that the ending is something else might be considered a spoiler, as I certainly didn’t expect this would be the turn the story takes, and the shock definitely increased my enjoyment. Without saying too much, I’ll just mention that the more interesting conversational part that are spread through the previous volumes are distilled into an undisputedly main focus as the story theme becomes very real and very meta. Especially in context of usual content of novels with the genres of Daimaou, Daimaou ends up a unique work. I’d even call it experimental.

Now, the worse part, that’s unfortunately like half of the novel – the middle. It’s just… not so interesting as the initial volumes that introduce the content or the final volumes that function as the punchline of its themes. Most of the middle volumes I would call even useless, meaningless, just a padding. It is for this reason that I wouldn’t shun those who decide to skip them, skim trough them, just read the synopsis. You’re not missing out on much, but you would be messing valuable content if you dropped the novel completely instead of fast-forwarding to the final portion. As I’ve mentioned, the conclusion is on hell of an experience.

To summarize – interesting start with foreshadowing of what’s to come, boring middle, unforgettable finale.