Review of Demon King Daimao

Demon King Daimao Completed March 2023 TV, 12 episodes, dubbed Not Recommended >>>>>Let’s make this one quick, seeing as we both have better things to do than waste any more time on this extremely budget anime. It passed the three episode test, albeit barely, so I felt the need to power through and finish it to see if it goes anywhere. Yeah... It doesn’t.VISUALS [ 3 / 10 ]

>>>>>While I was never personally offended by Daimao’s presentation, I was disappointed; often. The two major letdowns were the character designs and the fight scenes. Both were barely animated, consistently. While being budget doesn’t necessarily ruin a show, it does make it noticeably worse than it otherwise would have been; in the case of something like Daimao, massively so.
>>>>>Ecchi isn’t a genre known for its intelligence; quite the opposite, in fact. So when the viewer is presented with something that is neither eye candy nor food for thought, it kinda kills the anime before it even starts. Characters are off-model so often it’s hard to tell what they’re supposed to really look like. I used the OP for reference, and even then I was mildly disturbed at just how often someone was drawn either badly or outright wrong. A shame, really, as Daimao could have managed to look passable at the very least, going by the handful of good scenes that do exist.

SOUND [ 6 / 10 ]

>>>>>Another case of good voice actors being forced to run with a bad script. For a few of the later episodes, there practically was no script: the english VA’s were basically just reading direct translations off a used gas station napkin and praying the editors could clean it up in post; they couldn’t, of course. I don’t imagine the sub is much better, but at the very least I doubt they had to scrounge around in translation notes looking for usable words.
>>>>>All that said, the cast themselves were actually decent and the score was inoffensive. Decent song choice for the OP, which was weirdly better than anything else in the entire production. I still can’t believe that talented voice actors were wasted for multiple episodes in a row... but just judging the quality, it’s far above average when the scriptwriters actually decided to show up that morning.

SETTING AND PLOT [ 2 / 10 ]

>>>>>Welcome back to Generic Not-Really-Magical City, Japan. If not for a couple interesting dungeon locales featured in some of the middle episodes, this would have easily achieved absolute failure. The background artists knew how to set the tone, at the very least. That’s about as much credit as I can give them, given the extreme lack of originality, creativity, ingenuity... anything that makes a light novel adaptation palatable, really.

>>>>>The plot is your standard run-of-the-mill Deepest Darkest Web of Light Novel Conspiracies. In normal english, a convoluted mess of loose plot threads that tries to batter you with so many random side plots and pointless side characters that you get lost and confuse the writing for something actually deep and well thought out.
>>>>>With more effort from both the original author and studio Artland, something decently written seems possible. As you likely guessed, this isn’t it. The plot just kind of jumps around, throwing in random episodes dedicated to one particular character or just outright filler. Almost nothing of worth actually happens, and when it does it’s either at the beginning or the end of the viewing experience. Daimao could have been a comfy, goofy little OVA with better planning and far fewer episodes. Sadly, it was greenlit for a full twelve episode TV anime run. If this anime was toast, the butter would be stretched so thin you’d just be eating bread. What a nightmare.

CHARACTERS [ 5 / 10 ]

>>>>>For everything bad about this anime, at the very least the main cast isn’t a total trainwreck. About half the harem, including the demon king Akuto Sai himself are actually quite likable. These characters may not be well-written but at the very least they seem like alright versions of the archetypal cliche anime tropes every viewer is familiar with.
>>>>>Main guy Akuto actually has some decent motivations and really is just a standup kind of guy, which is nice to see in a genre plagued by sad, miserable helpless loser protagonists with no identity. If you’re the kind of viewer that likes deadpan loli characters, there’s a decent one here in the form of Korone, though I don’t think you should sit through this hot mess of an anime just for one side character. Everyone else is either one dimensional or zero dimensional; as in, the character does not in any way deviate from their tv tropes page. Wonderful. How did I even get here? Ah right, a power outage. Moving on.

PACING AND PRODUCTION [ 1 / 10 ]

>>>>>It would be quicker and easier to just beat your screen to death with a rock than it would be to sit through an episode of this godforsaken anime. The pacing moves at such a painfully slow crawl that at times you’ll be wondering if the animators just fell asleep at the keyboard, or if your friends are alright, or what the weather is like tomorrow; then you’ll snap back to reality and the same boring scene is still playing at the same boring locale. Then you’ll sit quietly for a moment wondering what the hell you’re doing with your life; maybe even get up and make yourself a sandwich. That is the true Daimao experience; and it is truly an unpleasant one.
>>>>>When the show isn’t wasting your time with elongated, nothing dialogue scenes, it’s aggressively cliche. When it’s not cliche, it’s disappointing you with a poorly animated action sequence. Sadly, there are few redeeming factors anywhere in this anime. It’s easy to see why studio Artland went bankrupt; it was undoubtedly lackluster productions such as this one. What a sorry state of affairs.

[ Analysis section redacted due to spoilers ]

OVERALL [ 3 / 10 ]
- Visuals are painfully budget.
- Characters are often off-model and rarely drawn well.
- Fight scenes are poorly done as well.
- English VA’s were good.
- The script ranged from terrible to nonexistent.
- Setting is almost completely barren.
- Plot is messy with many loose ends.
- Characters are a mixed bag; some likable, some not.
- Peter is best girl. Korone is second.
- Pacing and production were both appalling.
- Writing was so generic you could sell it on a shelf at Walmart.

For recommendations, you’re mainly looking at Campione, which is more or less leading the charge for good ecchi harem anime. Tenchi Muyo War on Geminar is another solid recommendation. Everyone will send you in the general direction of High School DxD, which you’ve probably already seen. In all honesty, it’s hard to recommend good fan service shows because there are so few of them. As always, good luck with your animu.