Review of Vermeil in Gold

Harry Potter and the Deathly Mommy Demon with Big Mana Holders. Those who claim to “men of culture” will usually flock to the low-brow, infantile, low hanging fruit isekai that has an isekai protagonist -born in a era where slavery is understood and considered to be one of the worst human atrocities ever committed- buy themselves a slave, proceed to Stockholm Syndrome said slave into falling for him and then proceed to take advantage of the power dynamic he holds over her to have sex with her. Truly despicable. Those who are actual “men of culture” will flock to “Vermeil in Gold”. Set in a magical academy ofwitchcraft and wizardry, honour student and soft-boy Alto Goldfilled almost has to repeat a year for failing to summon his own familiar. Desperate not to be held back he coincidently comes into the possession of an old grimoire and succeeds in summoning a smoking hot, ancient calamity who agrees to become his familiar as a sign of gratitude for releasing her.

A simple show on a surface level. There are many ecchi anime out there like this, but unlike 90% of them “Vermeil in Gold” has actually got a pretty good plot to go with all the “plot”. Unlike most ecchi soft-boy harem protagonists Alto actually has like, a life goal and friends and stuff. All of which are in potential jeopardy with his loose cannon demon familiar passing off as a human hanging around him. I love the way the show keeps reminding the audience how much of a threat Vermeil is, and she always had me on edge thinking ‘when is she going to turn on him?’ thanks to some fantastic animation and scene direction. Same with the student council president who hides the few screws she has loose very subtly to those around her, but not to the audience.
Alto’s also not hounded by a revolving door of women. The only woman who does hound him to the point of looking a bit like a psychopath is his tsundere, pink-haired childhood friend Lilia who has a very obvious problem with Vermeil. She is very fun even though she has the tendency to go overboard, and is a little too willing to get naked in order to commit a breaking and entering. Actually most of the supporting cast is charming. I like Marcus the spoilt nobles kid who’s familiar so a stag beetle called François, his maid Charoless who is infinitely better at everything than him, Rex the cool rival guy who's really into dinosaurs, there’s a lot of big personalities and they’re all really enjoyable.
The only let down are the villains. I won’t spoil anything here, but the latter half of the seasons main villain is very basic in his goals and personality which is a shame.

The animation… it’s a mixed bag. I’d say the first 4 episodes are excellently animated. The wizard duels look really good, especially Alto vs Chris. However there’s a drop in quality until the last three episodes. It’s not a deal breaker, but it’s a shame. That also goes for the ecchi scenes. I’ve always said that if you’re going to do ecchi it’s got to look good, but because of the drop in animation quality some of the ecchi scenes are… awkward to say the least.

“Vermeil in Gold” honestly doesn’t have any right being as good as it is. It’s an ecchi anime so it will by all means not be for everyone and it has a lot of little problems on a production level, but that’s fine. I overall really enjoyed my time with it. The “plot” is good and the plot is good and actually goes somewhere. It does feel a bit simple at times, but simple is sometimes all you need to have a good time.

7/10 Good.