English Dub Review: How Not to Summon a Demon Lord Ω “Head Paladin”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Diablo and crew arrive in Zircon Tower City, a desert city, for their quest and meet a bunny girl named Horn. Diablo learns that a dungeon he created in the city also got summoned with him, but that has to wait as he also fights off a giant sandworm and learns that the city is being heavily taxed which is keeping many of the people from getting healed of a disease going around. Battuta, the head paladin, is at odds with the leader of the city, Fanis, because Fanis is an atheist. Battuta invites the party to his house, where bathing shenanigans ensue, but Lumachina also discusses something with him in private.

OUR TAKE

Okay, we’re officially taking this arc outside of the more standard RPG town that the first season primarily took place and now entering a desert location that more involves Lumachina, as well as this tiny bunny girl Horn and possibly someone with twin tails, both of whom are featured notably in the OP. Where the latter two place in the story would be beyond me at this point, as we seem to be getting quite a bit more focus on Lumachina, which is fine because Rem and Shera look to be pretty removed from events going on at the moment. Not that we need them involved at all times, it’s just that the first season was pretty good at giving them things to do that progressed their characters, whereas here they are taking a backseat a bit and just being their tropes instead of actual characters. Diablo is in a bit of a similar boat, though he still maintains some importance as the main character and most likely has some reason to look into a dungeon he designed showing up in the city. We’re still learning how exactly this world does and does not match with the game he used to play before coming here.

The plot so far is not super intriguing, though I imagine there’s plenty more to get into regarding the issues between the paladins and the city’s leader. At the very least, we do know that both Battuta and Fanis are comparable in strength to Diablo, as he needed their assistance to defeat the giant sand worm. This is sufficient foreshadowing that one or both of them will probably be fighting him at some point, which could be interesting. Upon my rewatch of the first season, I noticed the normally overpowered Diablo can still be placed in interesting fights against human sized characters, even those with little magic ability, so it should be fun to see him go up against these two. Battuta is a paladin which is pretty antithetical to Demon Lords, but Fanis is some sort of magical sniper, meaning their fight is going to be pretty different. And that’s assuming they are the only ones Diablo and friends are going to have to fight. So, while it doesn’t seem like this is the most interesting set up for everything going on, I am at least somewhat interested in what will happen based on how I’ve seen this series handle these sorts of things before.