Review of The Foolish Angel Dances with the Devil
The Foolish Angel Dances with the Devil is when you make an intriguing start, but then take things up a notch with an empty romcom. Children's Playground Entertainment is a relatively young studio, founded in 2010, but it's had a hand in all manner of terrible content, whether it's producing the first season of The Fruit of Evolution, whose quality and content I'll probably keep quiet about, or more recently creating an adaptation of Saihate no Paladin, which was another bad isekai. And now, CPE has decided to redeem itself to the audience by releasing a manga adaptation called The Foolish Angel Dances with theDevil by Sawayoshi Azuma. Surprisingly involved in this whole mess were director Itsurou Kawasaki, one of his past works being the hilarious The Yakuza's Guide to Babysitting, and the three executive producers of Classroom of the Elite, who also became executive producers of this adaptation.
Masatora Akutsu is a demon from Hell, and he arrives on Earth to find a charismatic face to use against fighting heavenly forces. And how unlucky he is to stumble upon Lily Amane, an angel who coincidentally becomes his classmate at school. After revealing her trump cards, a battle ensued, the outcome of which was the angel enslaving the poor demon and putting a collar around his neck. Such a sad and sadistic outcome. From then on, poor Akutsu must obey Amane, or else who knows what will happen to him.
The Foolish Angel Dances with the Devil is accompanied by a lot of jokes and comedy, reminiscent of the other comedy manga "Kanan-sama Is Easy as Hell" where a demoness arrives at school and makes a love contract with a student. But here the jokes completely interrupt the whole plot and they look too ridiculous and vulgar, in addition, they overlap each other because of which you do not understand the situation at all. The humour is spoiled by the fact that it takes place in scenes with the main characters, who are not at all sympathetic. Masatora Akutsu is a demon, but by nature he's a weakling and a heel for Lily Amane - a sadist by nature, and the author, Sawayoshi Azuma, really hopes to evoke sympathy with this? Yes, and not only that, because it's also a romantic comedy. I appreciate the concept of love between two opposite people, such as in the sweet romance Kishuku Gakkou no Juliet, but in Foolish Angel Dances you don't believe in this love between a weakling and a sadistic woman, and because of all the stupidity you stop believing in the existence of funny humour and the rest of the interesting story. The only thing that comes to the rescue of this show is the elements of drama, which at least a little help to cool down the viewer's ardour, but, alas, it's too much.
On the plus side, I'd like to highlight the rather nice drawing and smooth animation. The elaboration of the backgrounds is also done to perfection, especially in the school scenes. Also, the opening "Otowa" by Taiyō to Odore, Tsukiyo ni Utae is quite nice and atmospheric, as if you're plunging into a normal everyday life without demons and angels. Ending "Gift" by Kaori Ishihara is unremarkable, it's quite ordinary.
Children's Playground Entertainment's attempt at redemption may be considered a failure, but based on the events of the source material and the last few episodes, the sequel may be quite good, but the beginning of this romantic story, at least, was worse than average.