Review: Demon Lord, Retry!

(non-spoilery)

Season Aired: Summer 2019 - 12 episodes

MAL Link: Demon Lord, Retry!

I watched it at: Funimation

Review:

This show is another entry into the "Isekai" anime genre which has become popular in recent years.

The premise in an Isekai show is that the main character is transported to some parallel universe or fantasy world.  Often it involves being transported to the world of a game they are playing. 

Demon Lord, Retry! has an Isekai premise which doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

In Demon Lord, Retry! the main character is indeed a game player, and does have a powerful game character called "The Demon Lord".  This "Demon Lord" character exists within a high-tech, futuristic video game.  However, the world the player gets sucked into, as his character, is a pure Medieval Fantasy type world.   And apparently he got there because some evil priests were trying to summon a "Demon Lord".

Now, how do summoners in another world end up summoning some random dudes video game character when they are looking for a demon lord? 

In fact, as there are actual demon lords within their fantasy-based world, this seems completely contrived and ridiculous that they would somehow miss summoning one of those and instead some summon random dudes video game character called "Demon Lord".

Anyway, all that goes down in the first five minutes of episode one, so you know the series is going to have plenty more contrived and ridiculous things to show you over its twelve episode run.  

 The Plot in a Nutshell:

"Demon Lord" dude, who looks like a reject from a hair-metal band that went corporate, shows up in a generic fantasy world with his suit, tie and a never ending supply of cigarettes he chain smokes though twelve episodes.

Also he has amazing futuristic powers.

His primary goal in this fantasy world with all his futuristic powers is to... build a hot springs resort?

Yeah, I've got nothing. That's pretty much it.

My Verdict:

Demon Lord, Retry! is, objectively, a very terrible anime.

The art and animation is about as low budget as it comes.  It is laughably bad at times and you can see the animators cutting corners at every opportunity that was presented.

The story is pure cliche. The characters are two dimensional with bizarre motivations and over the top personalities.  The plot is mostly non-existent and very little that happens in the series makes much sense.

And, of course, there are two bunny-human characters who must end every single sentence by exclaiming "Hop!" or "Bunny!"

In fact, Demon Lord, Retry! is so bad that it comes back around to being entertaining. 

You can tell that everyone who worked on this series in the Art and Story departments knew that they were given no budget or opportunity to  produce something good.  So they put their tongues in their cheek and leaned hard into the cliches and the futility of it all.

I had to laugh a few times at just how ridiculous and awful it all was.  It's a train wreck that knows it's going to be a train wreck and embraces it.

SCORE:

Score: 2 out of 5 (objectively)

Score: 3 out of 5 (so bad it's good)

Review Rating Scale:

5     Brain wildly entertained. Neurons saturated with entertainment.

4.5  Brain extremely entertained. Neurons firing regularly. Outside world forgotten.

4     Brain entertained. Neurons well stimulated. Brain wants to look for the blu-ray.

3.5  Brain in Neutral. Neurons a little stimulated. Brain generally pleased.

3     Brain in neutral. Neurons flat lined. Meh, brain pleased just enough.

2.5  Brain in neutral but occasionally displeased.

2     Brain displeased and not entertained. Brain thinking about doing something else.

1.5 or less - Brain suffered through the show so it could tell you not to.