English Dub Review: Demon Lord, Retry! “All or Nothing”

Overview:

The Satanists summon a Prince of Darkness.

Our Take:

So Kunai switches to Zero, and Zero instantly one-shots the monster after saying a couple of cool one-liners. Whoop. See, this is a problem that has come up in this series, and I don’t see it changing anytime soon. I don’t mean the fact that the animation looks shoddy (it does) or that Zero is pretty uninteresting (he is), but no, the problem lies far deeper than that.

The prince is very obviously set up to be powerful; he can easily dispatch one of the Holy Maidens with a relic, fight back against the most powerful of the sisters, and even go up against an extremely powerful adventurer. It costs the lives of what looks like a whole group of Satanists to summon him, and he’s noted to be a demon of extremely high rank. And Zero just… punches him a couple of times for him to go down. Yay, I guess?

I get that isekai is supposed to be the overpowered hero in a fantasy world, but that’s boring if it’s only that. For example, in Slime, Rimuru is absurdly powerful, but the threats he faces don’t go down so easily. Most times, he’s forced to solve his problems using external means beyond combat, and when it does come down to combat, he needs to think of the opponent’s often obscure weak points and use strategy to win. It isn’t just raw power, but intellect and knowing how to use said power. There isn’t any sort of strategy used here, just switch characters and one-punch. By comparison, this fight is leagues less interesting.

If Kunai-Zero really is that powerful… then what’s the point? What’s the danger? Is there any real obstacle in this world that can’t be solved just by him punching it a couple of times? Is there really anything that he can’t get through punching that isn’t at the forefront? The previous episode showed Kunai expanding his business via cozying up with the nobility, and that was interesting because that’s not something that can be done via force. But we’re right back to the same old.

Without any sense of danger, Kunai isn’t interesting. He can just punch his way through to the endgame, and so there’s no struggle. If there’s no threat to him, beyond looking silly for a couple of minutes, then there’s no reason for us to fear for him. If there’s no obstacle, then there’s no reason for us to care. It’s like halfway through the season now, and I don’t see this problem getting solved in a meaningful fashion.

Also can we please stop introducing girls only for them to fall for the main character, I saw the little demon and thought “I bet she’s going to fall for the mc”, and sure enough!