Review of The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy
This anime begins with a Demon Lord named Leonis Death Magnus using a spell that would resurrect him a thousand years in the future. However, the resurrection is only partially successful, and he returns in the body of his 10 year old self. Furthermore, his goal of conquering humanity is made much more difficult by the fact that the world has changed considerably to the point none of his old assumptions apply. To put it simply, he comes from a world of fantasy but was resurrected into a world of magic powered sci-fi. Furthermore, the threat to humanity is no longer demons, but rather someextradimensional force known as Voids and humanity no longer fights directly with magic, but rather with special weapons known as Holy Swords.
Leo’s first order of business is to gain a better understanding of human society, and as a part of that he ends up joining a platoon of Holy Swordmen, or rather Holy Swordswomen considering they’re all cute girls. At this point this anime sound a lot like a typical isekai, but that’s not quite true. Rather, this falls squarely into the harem battle academy genre that was really popular in the 2010s but has since gone out of fashion. The world building is pretty typical for one of those, with a mysterious force that only teenagers are capable of combatting and everything else is centered around supporting and expanding on that premise.
The plot too for the most part is proceeding how such series usually go for the most part. There’s some grand mystery that is slowly being chipping away at, but as of yet it hasn’t made all that much progress. The ending to the season does try to give a finale type feeling and does produce an ending that’s somewhat satisfying, but as is unavoidable, the season ends with loads of plot threads very openly hanging unfinished. It’s an interesting enough plot, but nothing special. The only particularly noticeable thing when it comes to the plot is the pacing. The first arc which corresponds to the first light novel takes up six episodes and feels pretty slow. On the other hand, the second arc which corresponds to the second light novel takes up only two episodes and felt rushed. And the last arc which corresponds to the third light novel takes up four episodes, and felt properly paced. That unevenness was definitely a misfire.
Still, at this point in such series the plot doesn’t really matter all that much. The focus is moreso on the characters. This anime does a well in that regard, though it’s handling things a bit differently from most battle academies. A single cour is enough for most similar anime to get through introducing all of the main heroines, providing some background on them, and starting their character arcs. This anime goes in a different direction. It does start off the stories of two of the heroines, Riselia and Regina, and each have a solid enough introduction arc and come out reasonably likable. But it provides essentially nothing on the other two, Elfine and Sakuya, who as of the ending are a complete mystery.
Instead of the heroines, Leo has a much larger focus with his background and motivations being explored much deeper than they usually are at this point in most such anime. Overall, he’s a pretty fun MC. He is a combination of the intelligence of a wise old man but the instincts of a ten year old boy, which manifests in lots of amusing ways. Of course this includes how he interacts with the heroines, but also includes some of this other antics, such as as his attempts to portray himself as a demon lord ending up feeling very chuuni-ish. He’s also making progress in a simple but clear character arc centered around him coming to care for the humans around him.
He also has pretty solid relationship development with Riselia, though nothing much with the other heroines. The biggest issue is that he’s keeping who he is a secret from the rest of them, and even when his hand is forced by needing to explain things to Riselia, he dances around the truth and doesn’t really tell her much. I actually like such mechanics most of the time as I love characters that play the fool. However, here it felt underutilized in terms of adding anything of value, but did serve as a roadblock for things to progress in terms of relationship development.
The art and animation are decent enough, but with some major caveats. The biggest is some really bad 3DCG in the last few episodes. There was 3D CG earlier on as well, but it fit in better and wasn’t as noticeable comparatively. The designs overall are decent enough, but none of them are particularly memorable. The OP and ED are also pretty solid in terms of the songs and visuals but nothing too special. The soundtrack also worked well enough but isn’t particularly remarkable.
tl;dr: A solid but typical start to a harem battle academy series.