Review of Demon Lord 2099

“Demon Lord 2099” is what happens when you start playing “Shadowrun” with a competent Gamemaster and half way through someone who never played RPG takes his place. This show is divided into two specific arcs. The first one is… acceptable. Its main flaws being that it is rushed and a waste of potential for an amazing philosophical conflict between the demon lord and the hero. The second one is absolute garbage with no story, only plot. Before we start I would like to explain something. I will be talking about “plot” and “story”. Many people use those terms interchangeably. I’m not one of those people, so tomake sure everyone is on the same page…
I use the definitions for “plot” and “story” as Lisa Cron describes them:
“What happens in the story is the PLOT, the surface events.”
“STORY is about how the things that happen affect someone in pursuit of a difficult goal, and how that person changes internally as a result”.

For all their flaws the first 7 episodes are actually interesting. They build a world that Rob Boyle, Robert N. Charrette and Paul Hume wouldn't scoff at. Well… maybe they actually had some problem with it. For starters it is a bit sterile and only shows a very clean version of dystopian violence and brutality. Despite wanting to be a semi-dystopia it shows that a lot of people, even in poverty (like our MC - Veltol and his right hand - Machina) can still live a minimal but acceptable life. I guess they didn’t want to go over a PG13 rating. I guess it still works for the type of show this is, but I’m still counting that as a mist opportunity to create something truly great. If I had to name the world that is created I would probably call it “Shadowrun Light”, but for the type of story those 7 episodes present it work adequate. It’s dark-ish, gritty and at times properly accents the difference in classes. It has some creative ways of integrating magic and technology but if you ever read anything in the Shadowrun universe you won’t find anything new apart from the furnace. Mind You, to be an enjoyable show, it doesn’t have to have new and original ideas, it’s all in their execution. And those 7 episodes do have enjoyable and mostly competent execution.

Now, the plot and story that is present in that world are another bests. The story is about a reincarnated demon lord and his journey to regain his power, status and rule the world. Yeah… the last part is so cliche I’m not even gonna entertain it. That said, that is still a goal and the MC is actually doing something to achieve it and not just goes with the shit flow that happens (like most anime nowadays). Those 7 episodes even end with him having an almost proper revelation about himself and his past defeat by the hand of the hero. It’s not anything groundbreaking but I would call it solid.
The plot is… well, it’s a mixed bag. There are some really good ideas situated right next to fillers that are there only to pad out the runtime. That said, the fact that the OP MC at the start isn’t worth much, is prideful, full of himself and gets his ass handed to him by the main antagonist of the first act is good. It would be better if in the prologue we could see how powerful he was and how that power scales to everyone around him, but that would require the writer to think of a logical way that the hero defeated him in the first place, and that plot point is absolutely nonsensical in the first place.
If his power is related to people who "believe" (I’m gonna use that loosely) in him, as in know that he exists (at least that the conclusion I got from what’s later shown and told), and the whole damn world knows about him, then there is no real reason for him to lose to the hero. On top of the fact that the whole immortality shtick isn’t properly explained. In the very first scene we see an immortal lose his head and about ⅓ of his torso and just… shrug it off. So why did the demon lord, who is implied to be more powerful, die by the hero’s hand? I need answers to that, because that one point destroys the view about the MCs power. A lover rank immortal is able to walk off “lethal” damage and the most powerful immortal can’t (and he’s supposed to be in his prime mind You)? I hope the source material has an explanation for that, and that the studio that adapted it just didn’t give a damn, otherwise this whole setup just positioned the author as incompetent for me.

As for the rest of the plot of the first act it has some amazing moments that are destroyed and never followed. The main is the moment the Demon Lord asks the Hero for help. It starts well. The Hero is rightfully pissed at the MC for what he did 500 years ago and has some reservations about helping. He ultimately does because this would be net positive for the whole city. That’s actually not bad. But then it fumbles hard. In the next scene they start to bicker like good old friends. It is far too early for this kind of relationship between them. Now it’s the moment for them to have their philosophies challenged by the other side. Now they should try and position themselves on a higher moral standing than the other side. The fact that it’s never stated who started the war or what was the reason for it gives the writer a lot of space to create the core driving forces for both characters. But we don’t get any such thing. All we get is that the hero does what he does because he’s a hero and the demon lord wants to rule the world to bring peace. Eff off with that. That’s the most basic garbage anyone could think of. We could have, and should have, a proper battle of morality and philosophy. Instead we get the equivalent of white bread. And not even the good one, the american shit that pretends to be bread.

At least we get a somewhat satisfying ending to the BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy). Shame it required the MC to pull out a trump card out of his ass without any proper setup but I’ll take what I can get. On top of that, the MC and his right hand woman do confess their feelings for each other, something I did not expect, so I call it net gain.

Now for the last 5 episodes…
Yeah. Skip them. If the season ended after the first arc I would have been happy and give a higher score. But we do get 5 episodes of utter garbage so let’s talk about it.
If You ever watched “The Irregular at Magic High School” or “The Misfit of Demon King Academy” You don’t have to watch this part. It’s just copy and pasted, “special” highschool nonsense. There isn’t one thing that is original in this arc. Everything is predictable, flat and because of the type of show this is, there are no stakes, no one dies and everyone has a happy ending. Utter garbage. Why do writers copy high school shit from the worst possible sources? Neither Misfit or Irregular are good shows. They are just self jerk fests. If You want to copy a highschool motif do it the way “Soul Eater” or at least “Myriad Colors Phantom World” did it. Those at least have interesting plot points to them and integrate most characters into most plot points.

That’s another thing this show has in common with most anime of the last decade and more. The supporting cast is useless. Yes, they do have scenes in the beginning where they are competent and needed but the longer the show goes on, the more useless they become. To the point that the last 5 episodes barely show the supporting cast doing anything but being background noise. They are not needed at all. Barely anything would change if they weren’t around so why keep them?
This is a sci-fi magic world and one of the support cast members is a damn magic hacker. In this type of world she should be one of the most prominent actors. Especially that the MC is still learning about magic technology. But no, in the last 5 episodes she does absolutely nothing except eat and play video games. What a waste. She had her moments in the first arc but for some reason the writer decided to change her from a competent asset to just background. Why create a pretty solid character with a nice design if you're not going to use her? The same could be said about the MC’s right hand woman. Apart from being his intro to the new world she’s practically useless. Waste of potential in both cases.

Is this a bad show? No, not really. It’s a waste of potential but I have seen much worse in the last few years. The execution of mediocre ideas is solid so I understand how someone who doesn’t care much about writing would find enjoyment in it. One word of advice. Skip the last 5 episodes. You will have a much better experience.