English Dub Mid-Season Review: Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-Kun Season One


Based on the ongoing Japanese manga series by Osamu Nishi, the story follows the adventures of a 14-year-old Japanese kid named Iruma Suzuki, whose only character flaw is refusing polite requests, from anyone but is a hard worker who supports his dismissive and despicable parents. One day he is suddenly kidnapped and forcibly taken to the Netherworld by the demon disguised as an old man name named Sullivan after Iruma’s parents sold his soul unwillingly without his knowledge or consent. Sullivan wishes to adopt Iruma as his beloved grandson since his friends Levy and Belial always boast about their grandsons which drive him to jealousy.

Iruma agrees and eventually plays along with this, and is enrolled in an otherworldly supernatural school for Demons where he must keep his human identity secret through magical means or risk being eaten by his classmates. And this is where I stop with the main plot, otherwise, I’ll go into spoiler territory.

From a technical standpoint, the art style and animation are vibrant and colorful and the characters and situations are properly conveyed with both comedic and sometimes violent moments balanced out with a “Slice of Life”-like feel to the proceedings. The character designs all have their distinct look, feel, and atmosphere with the school’s environment itself also has a level of character. While many of the characters themselves within this universe are diverse, and colorful and develop over time, they also fall victim to the frequent and cliche anime tropes that often make this show feel like it’s stealing concepts and ideas from other anime shows such as the only human living in a school of monsters while keeping a low-profile, (Rosario + Vampire) being in a class full of misfits that nobody likes or respects, (Black Clover) while being an oblivious moronic object of other women’s affection (Every harem-anime and manga ever made!).

 English dub itself does a good job capturing the essence of every character, more specifically, Laura Stahl’s portrayal of the titular Iruma in capturing his carefree and sometimes dopey nature to Kyle Herbert voicing Sullivan in an almost unrecognizable performance to the flamboyant Alice Asmodeus who is voiced by Billy Kametz (Josuke from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable and most recently, Naofumi from Rising of the Shield Hero).


Our Take

While the first 15 episodes fall victim at times to these predictable tropes and ripped-off story ideas that keep me from giving this a higher rating, the show does have some glimmers of redeeming moments with some episodes conveying subtly, lessons about the value of friendship (which is a concept that even the Demon world is foreign to), learning to have ambitions and the desire to better yourself. I also think that this Sullivan character may have ulterior motives for adopting Iruma and making him part of his universe that we have yet to be revealed…

At the time of this review, this season isn’t completely dubbed due to our current pandemic that has affected every industry out there and by-extension is keeping the rest of this season from being completely dubbed, but It’s recently been announced that a Season 2 is in the works for Spring 2021.