English Dub Review: How NOT to Summon A Demon Lord “Battle for Legitimacy”

Harem-mon! Gotta enslave them all!

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Outside the city, Alicia meets with Edelgard and Eulerex, pleased that her plan has worked. Inside, Diablo tries talking Klem down, but becomes forced to fight her off with all his strength while Shera goes to heal Rem. He manages to set up traps for a giant spell, Apocalypse Abyss, but even that doesn’t take her down fully. Rem comes to and lets Klem know she’s alright, allowing her to revert back to her child form. The Fallen sense Klem’s depowering, and turn their rage onto Edelgard and Alicia, who make a break for the city.

Sylvie goes to congratulate Diablo for his job well done but makes clear she knows Klem is a Demon Lord and can’t trust her if incidents like this are always at risk of happening. As a solution, Diablo uses the Stone of Pact in order to make Klem one of his servants like Shera and Rem. She’s hesitant, but they assure her that she’s not going to be an actual slave. Emile makes the ABSOLUTE WRONG REACTION TO THIS, and Diablo does the ritual. And of course, he kisses her on the mouth, because the FBI just needs even more reasons to keep an eye on me.

With everything at relative peace, the adventurers finally have a chance to relax in their underwear (yes, hello, Chris Hansen, come on in), but are interrupted by Alicia barging in with an injured Edelgard in tow. Turns out they’ve been working together on this the entire time, but now the other Fallen have turned on them for failing. Klem heals Edelgard, who agrees to stop killing at her lord’s request. Alicia tells of how she became a Demon Lord worshipper, that she had been exposed to corruption and evil amongst her family and the rest of the nobles, so her hatred drove her to demons. Alicia tries to kill herself as penance, but Diablo stops her because he relates to her situation…somehow. Diablo then starts feeling fatigued, so all the girls strip in order to recharge him because we can’t forget what kind of show this is for even a minute.

Alicia decides to walk the earth in search of redemption, Klem and Edelgard begin their lives in the city, and Diablo, Shera, and Rem set out on their next adventure…at least once they decide who Diablo will kiss next. Roll credits!

OUR TAKE

A neat little wrap up to the arc and the season, but hopefully not the show. It was probably an easy bet to make that Diablo would be using that stone to make a pact by the end and that making it with Klem would easily be the most interesting story option, but besides the kiss, I was actually pretty glad it went that way. Having seen many a predictable story in my time, I’ve come to the mindset that even plots I can see coming can be done well as long as it feels natural accomplishes what it sets out to do. It was practically telegraphed when they decided to spend the time to explain how the ritual works, much like how the explanation about Diablo sensing magic in Episode 6 seemed kind of superfluous until it came in hand a couple weeks later. I’m actually pretty interested in how this could lead to one Demon Lord training another in a sort of older brother-little sister way…or I would be if we had not crossed that line the moment Klem showed up and started rubbing her naked child body against him. Le sigh.

Though speaking of Klem, her fight with Diablo was just about as fun to watch as the last few major fights in Episodes 8 and 10, but it felt a bit too brief to me. I guess all it was really leading up to was that giant explosion before Rem defused everything, but I would’ve liked to have seen what a Demon Lord’s powers at full would really be like besides just being a Kaiju. It’s not as boring as the first fight with Edelgard or that other big Fallen in Episode 4, but it’s kind of disappointing end the season on just this one clash and nothing else.

And on the topic of disappointments, Alicia probably fits that bill, at least for me. I was pretty eager to see what exactly shifted her into being such an inhuman monster who so viciously wishes for her species to die, but it turns out it’s just a bunch of vague instances that taught her all humans are evil, even though that’s not how human nature works, and we don’t even find out HOW she got in contact with the Fallen and made this plan, sloppy as it was. She also apparently had a strong enough partnership with Edelgard, who she had been planning with her this whole time and didn’t want her to die, but did want HERSELF to die…and then she’s immediately turned around by Diablo’s cool words of wisdom and is just as quickly stripping for him. Isekai harems, ladies and gentleman.

Still, this was nowhere near enough to sour my overall enjoyment of this episode and the series as a whole. But we’ll get more into detail about that next week.