Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist – 10

Iron Chef: Hell Edition

…I don’t know if this anime is helping me like Chiaki Kon as a director or not. On one hand, this is keeping my interest effectively (though that could just be the magic of the source material), and on the other…

Obligatory Engrish screencap.

Yes, let’s forget about the plot entirely and have a completely unrelated cultural festival instead. Suddenly, 19th century England has cultural festivals (that sell doujinshi), Sytry has a fan club (though he is the most feminine person around, considering that this is an all boys school and females who aren’t demons or plot devices don’t exist), and screw Gilles working for one of the (many) people trying to kill William, he’s now making a business in selling pictures of Sytry. I guess the whole Baalberith thing and the fact that Gilles was angsting about Jeanne the last episode is just water under the bridge now. Also, he apparently joined the student body at some point. …I’m not entirely sure when that happened. It was kind of fun to watch William be devious for once, though. He had his harem dancing in the palm of his hand in throwing the butler (maid?) cafe together (oh right, apparently 19th century England had those too). Isaac was pretty much threatened into cooperating, but William knew exactly what to say to convince Sytry and Dantalion to work with him. I kind of feel sorry for them, but you’d think they would have learned by now. …Again, I’m not entirely sure how or why Gilles was part of that too, considering that William didn’t say two words to him, but he joined in for some reason. Maybe he was lonely.

I had given up on the episode containing anything plot relevant to at this point, so then Dantalion’s two bats and his butler all have human forms for some reason. Also, Sytry has a sheep butler, and OF COURSE Dantalion and Sytry’s butlers don’t get along. I’m kind of surprised that the plot here even remembered that William was the elector, considering the rest of the episode, but I should have known that choosing the temporary king of hell and judging a cooking battle go hand in hand. Of course they do. And yet, even with all of his effort and coldly manipulating everyone he knows into working for him, William STILL lost against whatever Camio was doing. Well, I’m pretty sure we all saw this coming anyways, so oh well.

It’s about time.

But wait! Maybe Gilles IS doing something besides joining in with the other characters, because Baalberith is totally ready to start something, finally. Maybe he’s doing a poor job of watching William or something. I’m kind of wondering what took so long, considering that William isn’t exactly hiding. Baalberith’s last move was quite a few episodes ago and we’ve never seen him really doing anything besides sit on his throne, utter threats, and give menacing glances at people occasionally, but maybe he was being nice to Michael and giving him a chance to go after William. Or maybe that throne is just REALLY comfortable.

On a completely unrelated note, I kind of half read about the Makai Ouji game, and it looks like one (two?) of the characters created for that made a cameo this episode. I just thought that was interesting, and I haven’t looked it up, but I think I recognized Sugita Tomokazu as one of them. It’s a shame that I’ll most likely never play the game.

Well that was rather… something. Like I said before a dozen times, it seemed like it had absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the plot and felt rather filler-ish, and yet, it was still levels above that episode about that goblin fairy thing. At least this had character development and focused on a topic other than William acting like a diva. …LOL okay, that’s totally a lie. But at least William was slightly more tolerable this episode, and it actually featured the characters doing things they’re good at as opposed to ignoring them for the sake of giving William more screen time to reject everything that isn’t science. Luckily, the next episode looks WAAAAAAY more promising, since Baalberith and Michael both look like they’re going to show up.

Oh, plus William is wearing Solomon’s ring and can apparently fly. That might be important.

About Karakuri

University student and the one at Metanorn who's known for wearing glasses. Likes blood, insanity and plot twists, but also plays otome games and adores cute romance anime. It balances out... somehow.