Review of Demon King Daimao

What a miserable downward spiral of infodumping. I don't know anything about the source material, but clearly the producers of this anime tried (and spectacularly failed) to cram like three seasons into twelve episodes without considering what makes the show any good. I wouldn't particularly consider this one a harem story--although there are obvious scenarios of ecchi sluts begging for Demon King railing; rather, this is an OP antihero changing his destiny to become the hero by tossing off the chains of fate. Or, you know, it would be that simple if the writers had stuck to a linear increase in backstory, worldbuilding, and explaining howall this magic/demon king/hero stuff works over the course of the series. But that would require tact and restraint which are obviously complex techniques, so instead we get about eight episodes of cheery magic fun times then four-ish episodes of encyclopedia-cramming by people who get overexcited when approached with the opportunity to flex their nerdity in front of normies.

There are other spoiler-ridden plot reviews here, so I'll just skip past that. What I enjoyed immensely about Ichiban Blah Blah are the characters. The protagonist is an overpowered Harem King Lite while his chief bimbos are a tough ninja with a soft side, a libido-powered lust queen, and a robot with a monotone voice who calls everyone perverts. Pretty cliche stuff. But a lot of people often label cliches as inherently evil simply because they're regularly done in poor taste; Ichiban Blah Blah takes the cliches and makes them enjoyable to the point where it doesn't matter. After all, Tibetan zero gravity cross-stitching tutorials are supposed to be entertaining, and even if there's nothing groundbreaking it can still achieve that benchmark by being well produced. And this one is.

The dub (GASP TIME TO CLICK REPORT DUB EVIL EVIL MUST PROTECT ANIMU INTEGRITY REEEEE) actors all do a great job with the exception of that little shit Miwa whose prepubescent voice feels like getting giant rock dildos shoved into my ears. Animation is all top-tier and smooth, along with the sound effects and music. In reality, Ichiboohoo should get way closer to 8/10 or higher; sadly, the colossal infodump of meaningless and unimportant things towards the latter third of the show is stupid and unenjoyable. Not only that, the "hurr god evil must kill god durrr" plot device comes across as exceedingly edgy in the last episode, kind of like that dumb emo kid in high school who wrote edgy poetry and had a Myspace full of pictures with ketchup smeared on his arms and a butter knife center-frame.

Is it worth watching? Yeah, I think so. Just be prepared for the infodumping. And for fellow *plot* connoisseurs, you will be pleased as well.