Review of Dropkick On My Devil!
A snake demon, medusa and a minotaur walks into a teenager's apartment room... Jashin-chan Dropkick is to be honest, a fairly typically slapstick comedy anime, with all the knicks and running gags you'd expect. If there was a likely comparison LA would put on Jashin-chan Dropkick, then it would be in a similar comedic genre as Gabriel Dropout, heck they even have the entire angels and demon thing, character degrading jokes, just swap out the main protagonist wanting to have a NEET life with the main protagonist now wanting to kill her summoner in order to go back to hell and failing every chance she gets.Both animes really have the slapstick comedy down just that Jashin-chan Dropkick being in the more physically violent compared to Gabriel Dropout's more verbal insults.
OK, so comparisons out of the way, so how is Jashin-chan Dropkick's comedy as a standalone, well with many comedies, have their running gags and much like Gabriel Dropout, runs it's running gags to the ground, be it in different settings you KNOW where the gags are going once it initiates itself every time. Jashin-chan Dropkick also is meta as many of it's characters KNOWS it's an anime and gives jokes about it knowing it's an anime whenever it wants the main user being Jashin-chan herself. Really Jashin-chan Dropkick's comedy runs the gambit of comedy tropes within the setting of "demons or monsters + slapstick comedy", like honestly the comedy isn't that horrible, LA did laugh at it's jokes but only when the jokes were one-off witty banter and outside the typical running gags. Jashin-chan Dropkick's comedy is mediocre but typically competent mediocre comedy nonetheless.
LA really didn't go into it's characters so let's move onto that. The titular Jashin-chan voiced by Aina Suzuki is the butt monkey of the anime and for one of the main protagonist...yeah it's a slapstick comedy alright, the summoner and one dishing out the dirt to Jashin-chan being Yurine Hanazono voiced by Nichika Oomori and she's the stoic snake killing-eating no sell lolita teenager. Other cast members are Medusa voiced by Miyu Tomita, a shy, naive and gullible character that is an utter pushover towards Jashin-chan, Minosu voiced by Chiaki Omigawa as the hyper genki, active character and Pekora voiced by Yurie Kozakai, a fallen angel who's now in poverty and is also the other butt monkey of the anime, but not has harsh as Jashin-chan but Pekora falls under the character with just bad misfortune, Jashin-chan on the other hand is a total idiot all the time and all her troubles is it's mainly her OWN FAULT. Ultimately, the entire cast are cookie-cutter with their quirks and not much else besides most of their running gags driving alot of the quirky plots that appears, sometimes by Jashin's self-made situations.
There are three minor characters beyond the main cast, which is the in-universe narrator Devil himself giving little tidbits after or in-between skits, Kouji and Yusa voiced by Miko Terada and Kazusa Aranami, two yuki-onna's where Jashin-chan's superiorty complex kicks in and boomranged, they also make kakigori jokes because...their yuki-onna's, Mei Tachibana voiced by Natsuko Hara, a police officer, obsessed with having Jashin-chan in her *ahem* collection and will abuse her power as an officer to ger her way and finally Poporon voiced by Rico Sasaki, an angel and once subordinate of Pekora but she's not exactly a pure angel and that's her joke once Jashin-chan gets involved. Much like it's main cast, they all have their stereotypical hijinks and personalities and running gags that they use whenever they appear.
With that being said, Jashin-chan is an utter troll of a main protagonist, narcissistic and having a superiority complex to the point of harassing low-level demons. But Jashin-chan has her moments showing she is sympathetic in some sense, this is mainly focused on Medusa and in the final episode to Yurine to re-focus it's efforts back onto the main premise and everything, but to the rest of the cast..not so much but still seeing another side of Jashin-chan is a good thing. Nonetheless Jashin-chan is the narrative drive of the anime, both of being the main protagonist and the hoist of her own petard alot of the time, creating many of the skits at least having her actions leading to consequences...mainly death by Yurine and then forgotten the next episode...because of course it does.
In terms of animation by Nomad, well the animation was expected moe and chibiness for the more comedic styled moments, but due to Jashin-chan's deaths being a thing, well many of the animation does get gory...or in this case for slice of life comedy, immensely bloody to say the least. Really, the animation was just decent for such a slapstick comedy, no hyper craziness but instead it downgrades and goes the chibi route for it's overreactions just adding in the blood factor which it becomes intentionally censored because comedy. Character designs are of course distinct because of the entire angel and demons thing and Yurine is being one of the only exotic character but with most of the minor characters being unhinged and slapstick crazy in some sense as well, makes many of the characters blending in, yet knowing what their running gags are. Nomad nonetheless had some good yet expected animation for a violent slapstick comedy.
Voice acting was both a blend of new blood voice actors (like Pekora's VA Yurie Kozakai) and idol (anime or real life) like Aina Suzuki and Miyu Tomita. Well LA is seeing a trend with "it's joke" VA due to LA watching Jashin-chan Dropkick which is that Aina Suzuki has been typecasted as the no shits-given psycho character like Rina Shioi from Mahou Shoujo Site and now Jashin, only she's dialed down because comedy. Overall, the voice work was to be expected and for what LA expected from such a slapstick comedy and where many of the character voices matched their characters but the cast is expected even with their line deliveries, but not much else however. At least because Jashin-chan Dropkick is meta in a sense...and yes they go meta jokey on it's voice cast too...especially towards Miyu Tomita.
Jashin-chan Dropkick is a mediocre yet still funny slapstick comedy, LA won't put it past it's characters and their running gags but nonetheless, it's running gags are run down the ground, Jashin-chan shot herself on the foot almost every chance she gets, Medusa is always naive, Minosu is always hyper active, Pekora is always poor and Yurine will always beat the shit out of Jashin-chan whenever she does something wrong. It's predictable as hell and it's meta jokes are fine but not groundbreaking and through this, it just makes Jashin-chan Dropkick just...fine yet predictable, not a great comedy through taking risks much like Asobi Asobase from the same season, but not utterly horrible because of it's constant running gags. Jashin-chan Dropkick really does deliver what it's premise is front and center and not much else but still it was a comedy that LA still watched all the way through but not wanting more.
Since LA only watched 3 comedies during the Summer of 2018, it was definitely the weakest of the trio but being the "weakest" doesn't resort to being horrible and that just where Jashin-chan Dropkick landed for LA's judgment towards it...mediocre, yet fun...but not much else.