I’d have to say that was better than the first episode of Hataraku Maou-sama!! (the two “!!” indicate the new version). It still felt a bit wooden to me at times, but the balance of plot and nonsense was better. I do like most of these characters, and as long as they’re given something they do the results should be interesting enough. I don’t get a lot of that light-novel funk which acts like an off note in a poorly-made whisky, either, which is encouraging because after almost a decade my tolerance for it has gone way down.
That said, I’m still a little skeptical about what Alas Rasmus brings to the mix. To be honest crying babs are a rough one for me – there’s little I find more annoying. The rest of the time she plays as your bog-standard anime moeblob, which is better only because the bar is so low. Why exactly is she here? That’s obviously a crucial plot question (the pre-open last week gave us some clues). But it’s also at the heart of where this season is going, since she’s the main difference (so far) with the first one.
If nothing else, Alas Rasmus exposes an interesting dynamic among the main cast. Emi seems pretty useless at the whole mother thing – if she has a maternal bent it isn’t revealed here. Chiho is far more adept (with some adventures in babysitting under her belt) and willing, though she does indeed have an ulterior motive if one is of suspicious mind. Maou is confused by this development and naturally suspicious, but as usual he adapts to the situation and tries to figure out how to make it work.
Speaking of work, things get quite a bit more complicated when Chi and Suzuno take the brat to MgRonald’s for a visit. Maou’s boss was another character I’d kinda forgotten existed, but once she slipped into her lane some of it started to come back to me. In fact if there’s anything about Hataruku that has an LN feel to it, that would be it – the cast all have a lane, and once you figure our what that is it’s easy to figure out what they’ll do because they stick to it. That comfortable predictability is part of the charm of series like this, no doubt, and I’m not totally immune to it myself.
That said, things were definitely livelier under the first season’s production, and it remains to be seen how much shelf life that charm has in its current incarnation. I continue to really like the Maou-Chi relationship and their scenes together are almost always winning. But you never shake the feeling that they’re not the main course with this series, just a side dish, and that’s been a worry of mine since the first season. It’s still way too early for me to guess how this season will hold up, but there’s still enough here to make me hopeful.
