English Dub Review: The Misfit of Demon King Academy “Like a Single Stroke of a Sword”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

The Forest of the Great Spirit Aharthern. Anos, who has transformed into his younger form, takes on the fake name Anoshu Polticoal and decides to stay to investigate for a while. They watch over Shin, who was tasked with being a bodyguard of the Great Spirit Leno by Anos prior to his reincarnation, and then appears the Blaze Death King Erdomaid, who claims to have brought information regarding the gods… 

Our Take:

The second season of Misfit of Demon King Academy started rough with its sophomore cour this year. No, I’m not talking about its quality, as it has plenty of enjoyable moments that got me interested in the fantasy series, such as the animation and a shocking surprise involving one of Anos’s allies. Let me remind you all that this is based on my experience with the season’s first six episodes. I’m talking about the show’s release schedule, which was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Long story short, the pandemic caused the series to postpone the remaining episodes of season two for a while. By that, I mean a few months, which is quite a long time, especially when things started to get good for me.

After countless months of waiting, we’re finally back on course to continue Anos’s second step of becoming the Demon King. Yes, I did say “continue” because I recently rediscovered that the series’s second season is a split-cour season, with the second part confirmed to be released next year. So, it looks like we’ll be stuck in Anos’s past far longer than I thought. Besides that, how was my second trip back to the world of Demon King Academy? Well, let’s just say it wasn’t as exciting as the previous episodes, especially since they still haven’t upgraded the poorly rendered CGI tree faces. However, that doesn’t mean it didn’t give me something to look forward to in later episodes.

The episode continues where we last left off, with Anos being a young child and the crew encountering the Great Spirit Leno and Shin. However, it doesn’t progress the seasonal story with the main characters. Instead, it mainly focuses on the forest spirit/bodyguard duo, as Leno attempts to teach Shin about love while confronting Blaze Death King Erdomaid. Of course, Anos and the crew are still present in the episode, searching for the missing page of a book detailing the spirit, Fran, and watching the action from afar. There’s not much to say about it except that it’s a cute and subtly heartfelt approach to the chemistry we’ve seen a thousand times in movies and shows. Leno continues to be an upbeat and generous forest spirit, while Shin is a cold and serious bodyguard who prefers gratitude over love. However, that could change as we progress the season, assuming we have no more delays in the release schedule.