Review of The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy
The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy is a fantasy story with interesting ideas and worldbuilding, but is ultimately let down by low production values and apparent rushing of the story. Animation / Art / General Visuals - 6/10 ----------------------------------------------- While far from terrible, the show lacks any notable animation quality. Action scenes are little better than slideshows and visual effects an absolute bare minimum. The base art and detail is quite solid though, making non-combat scenes quite enjoyable to watch. Sound / Music / Voice Acting - 7/10------------------------------------------
There aren't any notable tunes, but the voice acting and basic sounds are up to modern standards.
Story - 7/10
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Even though it comes off as rushed, the story is more interesting than expected.
Our protagonist is a demon lord who was on the receiving end of the heroes' triumph. Despite admitting defeat, he decided to re-incarnate 1000 years later to get his revenge.
Now, while this isn't an original concept by any means, the story does become a lot more interesting when the world a 1000 years later is in many ways a hyper-scientific one, where natural magic has all but disappeared, and stories of demon lords and heroes can only be found in a few children's books.
What makes matters even more exciting, is the rather recent arrival of mysterious void creatures, that have strange similarities with creatures from a 1000 years ago.
Watching the protagonist re-incarnate into such an alien world and trying to uncover the secrets of the past 1000 years, is quite interesting.
The weak production values and only 12 episodes of content make the journey rather unimpressive, but at its core it is interesting and leaves you wishing they were able to do more.
Characters - 6/10
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The characters aren't particularly noteworthy, but they're likeable enough, and play their roles appropriately within the show.
Our protagonist is a re-incarnated demon lord, but alas ends up stuck in a 10 year old human body. This causes him to develop a degree of social anxiety, having long forgotten what a human body feels like or what interacting with humans is like. Still, he is very powerful and confident, and very skilled with his abilities to achieve his goals.
Secondary characters form a pretty cliche harem around the protagonist, though it's no more than them being some minor fanservice, and setting up some shota jokes. Individually they all have distinct personalities, and some even have some backstory to their names.
The villains are few and get little screen time, but are surprisingly interesting due to the 1000 year timeskip making their existence and motivations a mystery. One worth exploring. Alas, we're left mostly in the dark as the show ends before we discover much anything about anything.
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Total - 6/10
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The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy feels like a missed opportunity. In a world of countless mediocre fantasy isekai stories, this one could have been so much more. Alas, poor production values and mere 12 episodes is not enough to allow the solid core of the show to shine.
A fun little watch for fantasy fans, but ultimately not particularly memorable.