The Evil Iruma era begins.  And it’s off to a pretty low-key start by this series’ standards.  The hijinks are relatively restrained – in fact, this Iruma is a pretty serious fellow.  Sullivan and Opera are the first to surf the wave, and once the initial shock wears off Sullivan’s initial reaction is dismay.  And who could blame him?  His adopted grandson was the platonic ideal of the good boy, and now he’s- well, he’s a teenager.  He was before of course, but this Iruma seems to embrace the label in a more traditional manner.

For the most part, this played out more or less as I expected.  I don’t know it works for actual demons having actual evil cycles (which I think is really just a metaphor for adolescence in the first place) but there was really no way Iru-bo was actually going to be evil.  Sullivan is even thrilled to have Iruma ask (demand) the carriage to go to school for the first time.  But he’s still Iruma – he invites Azz and Clara to join him for the ride.  Sharing is caring.

In effect, this amounts to a demeanor change for our hero, but his essential nature doesn’t seem to be that materially different.  Deferential and humble in his default state, Evil Iruma is disdainful of protocol and not bashful about using his status to his advantage.  And as I expected, everyone pretty much loves this one just as much (and we haven’t even crossed paths with Ameri yet).  Azz is thrilled Iruma seems serious about taking charge.  All the girls swoon over him, Eiko obviously included.  It’s actually a bit more disquieting for Clara than anyone else – she doesn’t have any idea how to deal with this new Iruma-chi.  And his telling her to be a lap warmer is the evilest thing he does in the entire episode.

It’s worth noting that the first thing Iruma does with his new assertive personality is try to demand stuff not for himself – exclusively, anyway – but for the misfit class.  Sure he couches it in terms of the basement classroom/garbage dump not befitting his status, but I think this is Iruma doing what he subconsciously wanted to do all along – fight the injustice of the way his friends are treated.  He marches into the teacher’s room, classmates at his back, and confronts Kallego-sensei about their crappy status.  Kallego isn’t thrilled, obviously, but this Iruma isn’t going to back down.

What this evil cycle thing seems to be – for Iruma anyway – is not turning evil per se, but losing one’s inhibitions.  That’s adolescence in a sense, and the most terrifying thing for the Japanese in many ways.  So we get Iruma doing what he probably always wanted to do but would never have dared – bucking the system to fight for justice.  He demands the school open up “Royal One” – the old classroom of a legendary demon lord, sealed as a forbidden shrine to him for centuries.  He even gets Kallego to involuntarily agree to a deal, albeit with conditions Kallego imagines will be impossible to meet.

I’m not sure how this will all play out, but what I’m kind of interested to see is whether “regular” Iruma inherits any semblance of this persona when he reverts back (or is reverted by Ali-san).  Will he even remember all the stuff he did?  One could make a pretty strong case that as loveable and admirable as Iruma-kun is, he could use a little “evil” in him.  Let’s not forget, this is a boy who’s so congenitally unable to say no that it’s an actual disorder.  He’s kind of having the opposite experience that Ameri had under the spell of the perfume – and in the end, she got something positive out of that experience to be sure.