Anime: Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou

• Despite its generic setting – overpowered demon lord protagonist in a magic academy – the first episode of Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou made it look like it could have been a fairly decent show, as it was packed with a lot of good comedy, and the animation was well done. Unfortunately, as in many other garbage anime series, the first episode is a trap.
  The most apparent flaw of the show is that the plot is rushed. There is just too much stuff happening for a series of only 12 episodes, and as a result it is hard to follow the story. The pacing is also inconsistent. There are some episodes where the story goes too fast and it feels like random stuff happening on the screen, and others, such as episode 6 (the inevitable beach episode) and episode 8, where almost nothing of importance happens and the plot barely progresses.
  The other major flaw of the series is its randomness: the protagonist’s fanboy becoming a bootleg iron man; ninjas fighting against mages; people dressed like warriors from the japanese middle ages using machine guns; tentacle monsters that look like they come from a hentai; a bad guy who is a masochist; a villain who is a pervert and attempts to rape a child… To sum up: things seem to happen for no goddamn reason. This is even more the case in the few last episodes, which are a complete shit fest. It is pretty obvious that this anime is stupid and random on purpose, but even so, does that make it good? It doesn’t! Randomness isn’t necessarily comical.
  Regarding how magic works in this series, don’t expect anything new or interesting: it is lazy and nonsensical. As in any fantasy series like this, magic is nothing more than re-branded SF elements: telepathy equals magic phone calls, magic circles make a cheap replacement for helicopters as they can make people fly, and there’s even teleportation. What’s next? Magic coffee machines?
  There is little to no explanation as to why magic can do so much. It is also never explained how modern science (or futuristic science, since there are androids) and magic coexist.
  What about the characters, then? Well, sadly, they aren’t that great. Sai Akuto is the stereotype of the naive, kind and idealist protagonist who has all of the girls at his feet but prefers to stay a virgin. Junko is just your typical tsundere. Korone is the archetype of the girl who seems emotionless and speaks in a monotone voice, similar to Arin in Trinity Seven and Re=L in Roku de Nashi Majutsu Koushi to Akashic Records, to name a few other garbage series. Soga Keina is the “genki” girl who is also childish, dumb and annoying. In a nutshell, the characters are boring stereotypes.
  By the way, the female characters aren’t even that cute, which is pretty problematic since this anime is a ecchi.
  The technical aspects didn’t manage to save the show. The production value is very average. The animation is too inconsistent. There are a few episodes where it is alright, but in most episodes it is jerky and ugly, and it gets worse as the show progresses. The only character who has a decent character design is the protagonist, the others are all generic and dull. Magic in this anime looks like what you would find in any other lazy fantasy anime: cheap and shiny magic circles. Smoke and explosions often look like the type of special effects you would find in an amateur youtube video from 2011. The backgrounds don’t look ugly but they are forgettable. There is also some CGI for trains and such, though it isn’t too invasive.
  The voice acting is mostly okay, but some of the characters have irritating voices. Regarding the background music, it is shit. The main theme and its variations that are repeated multiple times throughout the show are particularly cheesy and ridiculous.
  In conclusion, Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou is a failed comedy anime that must be avoided.

Sub-score explanations:

Back in the 90’s there was this OVA anime titled Bastard!! It had a dude with the power of the devil wasting hoards of monsters, blowing up mountains and seducing every girl he meets, all accompanied with just the right amount of drama and humor to make the whole deal not grow tired fast. I liked that show despite the fact it was brain-dead entertainment. And after all these years this anime comes along to somewhat remind me of that oldie. And what a generic piece of trash it is! The lead has the ultimate power and is just a wimp and all the girls around him have clothes made of paper and are frowning him despite his evil destiny. Not because being the bad boy is sexy but because the effort needed to be seduced is around three seconds.

Anyways, the excuse of a story is that the generic lead male wants to become a priest but this fate gizmo tells him that he is to become the demon lord in the future. That means all the sexy girls in the world are after him, for some reason or another. One wants to kill him, another wants to protect him, another wants to study him, another wants to abuse his power. Well whatever, the result is always the same, they frowning all over him usually without clothes or with their pantsu all over his face. And of course he is too much of a wimp to do something about it.

I will admit he lead male is not a complete eunuch, as he behaves a bit more mature and his reactions to sexy girls are not completely wimpy. He also doesn’t wear glasses, is not a plamo or videogame fan and likes to wear a trendy suit. All that are basic bad-ass material and if the show was a bit more serious about it, they could have made a decent GAR character out of him. I mean, he is kinda like the lead in Detroit Metal City where he is forced to follow a role opposite to the one he wished for. And yes, both are treated as Demon Lords even if they don’t want to. The thing is, that show was a lot funnier because it was based less on fan service and more on over-the-top situations where the lead is pressed to turn to his dark side for aid. But not here, he doesn’t like it, he doesn’t use it much, and even when he does it is only to cheap-win a battle with zero effort and leave us looking down on a girl with its clothes torn. That is neither smart nor funny after a few times; he remains as nothing but a blunt guy surrounded by chicks. In fact, the chicks matter more than he does.

Now let’s talk about the girls of the show, which for once more are usually treated without respect, as the animators do their best to expose their underwear at the slightest chance. Expected in such a show but they could at least offer something more than just that. Like, you know, character depth? Nothing of that exists; they all have generic date-sim blunt personalities. Thank you very much; I don’t care about them. Not only that, but they hardly seem to have a uniform with the setting in general. They are all random girls with random powers! One is a samurai, another is a robot, another is a witch… All that with zero attempt to explain them existing in the same time, in the same place. I mean, Toaru Majutsu no Index had this rather complicating excuse around magic coexisting with science. Haruhi had a good excuse for time-travelers, espers and aliens to be there (poor one but it did). This anime doesn’t try to excuse anything; it is throwing everything in at once and becomes nothing but downright random sleazy entertainment around ecchi stereotypes.

One would of course wonder why it is so bad to be just random sleazy entertainment around ecchi stereotypes. Well, there is no value in here. You have no reason to rewatch it or remember it in the longrun if it doesn’t offer anything more than the obvious. Furthermore, not even its guilty pleasure is that good as it’s fairly average and commonplace in other similar shows. So ok, it fairs in the bolder ecchis out there and the trolling cooldere robot girl was an eyesore, but still nothing we haven’t seen or will see again.

To be frank, there is a story going on in here, and the finale has an actual major showdown going, something about God and a different dimension and people changing to something else. Well, whatever, it all plays out too light and random and it practically resets the plot to not be truly conclusive, so it is just another generic harem show with some mediocre shounen action and a trolling cooldere robot girl.

And you can forget about at least enjoying the visual and acoustic parts as well because they are quite average in all, with simple coloring and forgettable music pieces. Even the battles end up being half as exciting as they could be, despite the occationally interesting choreography. Helps a lot to forget the show even faster; which in this case it is for the best. A throw away anime and not recommended.

And now for some excused scorings.

Bastard!!
Detroit Metal City

Is it just me, or is the playback rate at 200%?

"Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou", or "The Great Demon King in the Very Back", is set in an elite magic school where aspiring magicians learn to control their mana. The initial setting is very similar to "To Aru Majutsu no Index". One day, a transfer student (Akuto Sai) arrives. New students are required to go through an analysis by the 'artificial spirit', which predicts future occupation with 100% accuracy. Surprisingly, the artificial spirit predicts Akuto will become the next Demon King. Once dreamed of becoming the High Priest, Akuto must spend his school life with the burden of becoming the ultimate evil while his true powers awaken, going through misunderstandings after misunderstandings.

Story: 5/10
I actually found the original setting to be very intriguing. My impression after the first two episodes were... it's good enough that it didn't even have to be ecchi. The setting itself had the fantasy, opportunity for interesting story development, and possible obstacles all built in. It even had a super cool background where Akuto's self-introduction sounded like the real demon king that appeared 100 year ago.

I haven't read the light novel or the manga series, but from the anime, it seems like the title "The Great Demon King in the Very Back" comes from the fact that Akuto was given the seat in the very last row of his classroom. Sadly, the title of this anime series foreshadowed the pattern of story development... You would think Akuto will slowly become a dark presence in the back of his classroom while he tries to clear all the misunderstandings right? Think again. If I'm not mistaken, he hasn't sat in his seat since episode two. And so, the story jumped from one direction to another, random new organizations and villains appeared out of nowhere, and it eventually became mindless fights before the series ended, leaving me completely clueless. It actually got so bad at one point that Akuto threw a monster egg out of a window during breakfast, and the next cut was the crew outside at night in front of the monster egg, which grew exponentially. Really, it's one of those 突っ込み所が多すぎて "I don't know where I should begin pointing out the flaws".

Just like that monster egg, the story seemed to have an exponential acceleration in terms of pacing. The first two episodes had good pacing as introduction of the surroundings. Up until episode 7 was fast paced, but acceptable for slapstick comedy, but the final 5 episodes were packed with random events and explanations that seemed to go on and on without giving the audience time to comprehend the story. The characters in the latter half actually started verbally describing the situation, and it wasn't even a deliberate slapstick joke -.-

I have to say the ecchi element was applied very effectively in this series though. Sometimes ecchi scenes were forced, like repetitive explosions stripping Junko or Keina getting naked every time she becomes transparent, but somehow they were funny every single time. Other ones happen more spontaneously, from skirts too short and creative camera angles that seem to focus on their panties. If there was a cameraman for this show, he was a major perv. This show is probably the closest to hentai category as an under-18 show can possibly get. It goes as far as giving a sea cucumber hand job until it squirts sticky white goo on another girl's face in certain episode, and 'classic tentacle hold' (you know the one I'm talking about if you've even seen an action hentai series) where one tentacle almost goes all the way in.

In the end, the story was a mess, and there were way too many loose ends and question marks unanswered.

Animation: 4/10
Extremely inconsistent.

The character designs are very good. Akuto has the obvious 'mark of the Demon King' below his eyes, but it keeps his appearance somewhat original, and he has that cool look and confidence that will eventually attract all the girls and create his harem. The girls are all hot, and there were abundance of fan service. Action scenes are pretty cool, and early episodes had really nice CG effects with magic circles and spectacular spells.

Unfortunately, they try to be "So bad it's actually good" with Brave and villains similar to something out of "Needless" or even "Scryed" about half way though, and fails miserably. Monsters attracted by Akuto's powers looked like they're from late '90s demon hentai anime.
Perhaps it was caused by deadlines or budget, the animation quality noticeably degrades as the show go on.

Sound: 5/10
Voice acting is decent. All the characters sound like they should, and none particularly annoying. Considering the (presumably) low budget they had, they gathered a decent cast as voice actors.

Music score is disasterous. Although none of the pieces were out of place, the back ground music completely lack originality, and made absolutely no impact to the viewing experience.

OP/ED were average. They fit the series pretty well, but not especially catchy.

Character: 5/10
All the main characters were extremely likeable, and had unique backgrounds. However, very few of them actually developed as the show had hazardous pacing problems. Junko remained an archetype tsundere to the end, and Fujiko was a SM queen who we don't know if she was a 'S' personality who wanted to control Akuto or a 'M' personality who wanted to serve under him. I feel Akuto and his henchman Hiroshi were somewhat well-developed, but the pacing made it impossible to pursue such deep issues such as responsibility, justice, morals, and all those things they wanted to explore.

I really liked Korone's character. An android with sense of humor done right is rare, and the character developed as much as an android could in a 12-episode-long series. She was also a very effective comedic device, and I liked how she gave Akuto the hardest time with her sexual approaches.

Value/Enjoyment: 5.7 (1:2 weight in favor of enjoyment for ecchi comedy)
"Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou" had a great potential to become something special. The show started out pretty strong, and had the slapstick comedy seemed to be working at first, but it was a downward spiral from there. As mentioned many times before, the pacing is far too fast, even for slapstick comedy series. They tried to pack 20 episodes worth of material into a 12-episode, 1-season long series. Everything seemed to be twice as fast as they should be. I tend to read subtitle as future reference for fansubbing, but I gave up halfway because the characters were babbling nonsense at an absurd rate. Also, if you blank out for 3 seconds, chances are you missed an important explanation of the plot, a cool action scene, or even worse, a panchira.

Perhaps it would've been better if they added some more material and extended to a 2-season long series, but then again, it would've been even longer painful viewing experience unless they made major modifications to the story. Despite the worthless production value of this show, it's an enjoyable series if you shut down half of your brain because the characters had the charm and it offers good laughs from many ecchi jokes and misunderstandings Akuto had gone through in the first half of the series.

I feel the major problem was that "Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou" tried to be too many things. There was ecchi, comedy, drama, and tried to tackle the issue of right and wrong. The producers should've simply made it an 12-episode long ecchi-driven slapstick comedy, or 25-episode long action drama with a philosophical touch. Not both.

Note: This review is based on RAWs



Originally written as a series of light novels by Mizuki Shoutarou and later adapted to an anime by Watanabe Takashi (Ikkitousen, Shakugan no Shana II) Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou[/b] is an odd mix of fantasy, action, harem and, of course, lots of ecchi. It follows, or at least tries to follow, the story of a young boy Sai Akuto, who enters a prestigious magic academy dreaming to become a high priest, only to end up having his future occupation predicted as "Demon King". Obviously not many people want to be friends with a would be demon king and Sai Akuto ends up isolated from pretty much everyone. It doesn't stop the show to create a harem setting, however, with girls getting attached to Akuto for various reasons, like just wanting to take a revenge or liking black magic in general. Main character himself is actually pretty kind and innocent for a demon king, thus the show ends up spending more time on ecchi things and funny situations at leisure pace in the first half than it does on introducing setting, characters or doing anything steady whatsoever. Starting from episode seven, however, the pace triples, ecchi is almost discarded and the show finally gets on its rails... or that's at least what you'd think. Because, frankly, with direction like that I wish it had never become serious at all.

While the first half of the show, despite being almost scenario-free, is entertaining to an extent, the second half, when the plot supposedly becomes serious is downright terrible. Characters you never knew jump into screen one after another, old characters who had never been given any backstories start hinting at their pasts you never knew... New organizations, wars, conceptions get introduced and discarded in the matter of minutes, people start talking about things that don't make sense unless clearly explained, characters start using magic techniques you've never heard about before, hell, it's a complete mess. I mean, in the last episode Akuto starts shooting laser beams out of his eyes out of the blue, for fuck sakes, were the people behind the adaptation drunk or something. Anyway, leaving the problems with the plot aside, the characters of Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou are surprisingly entertaining, it's too bad hardly anyone gets a full-fledged backstory, but the charm is definitely here and I actually ended up liking many of them... to an extent. Production values are pretty pathetic for the show of this age, animation is full of deformations and soundtrack consists of mostly bland songs followed by a few nicer pieces which end up repeated over and over. The funny thing, I kind of got the feeling that the original work of this anime might have been pretty good. At least it has potential. Adaptation, however, is an utter mess of things that are nearly impossible to understand and even stop making any sense whatsoever near the end of the show. What I also noticed, however, that even being such a mess, Daimaou is still entertaining to some extent, that is, if you can turn your brain off. If you can just stop thinking and enjoy your ecchi and senseless action on the screen, you might end up having lots of fun with this show. I mean, it does indeed have its cool moments piled under this mess somewhere.

Animation: 5/10

Animation done by Artland, compared to the other shows of this season, is hardly even average. Actually, if you were to say that Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou was made in early 2000s you'd be able to fool about anyone. Backgrounds are not particularly detailed and overly bright color palette only makes things look less realistic. It's not that there is anything bad with the drawings, but the show flows by without any actual eye-candy and it kind of makes it look cheap. Character designs are not an exception either, while Akuto and the girls do indeed look cool and attractive, constant (though slight) deformations and exaggerated use of needless ecchi during wrong moments makes the show look even cheaper. I mean, Keena spends more time without any clothes on than she does dressed, and given her intelligence I ended up perceiving her as some sort of peculiar animal rather than a human being (and I'm pretty sure that wasn't the creator's intent).

What's worse is that the actual animation, as in movements and the flow of things, is amongst the worst of the season. I didn't know they still made action anime with visibly unnatural movements in this day and age. Well, it's not really as bad as I ended putting it (except for episode 7, that was disastrous), and it's still plenty smooth if you compare it with anime from five years ago, but you know, eye candy is what counts nowadays and Maou doesn't have any of it. In the end, the only thing Maou actually has it going for is the character designs, but, at least in my opinion, the way it used its lewd stuff screwed that little good as well. Geez, if you are doing ecchi at least try do things erotic, not pornographic, making female cast run around completely naked in each episode makes you wonder if you are not in a zoo of some kind.

Sound: 6/10

Save for the cool firing up opening song Realove: Realife performed by Sphere there is virtually nothing worth mentioning in the sound department. ED is a sucky childish song which only works to screw up the atmosphere and background music is as memorable as a white wall. There are a few nice tracks in the show, but even those end up getting overused to an extent you end up hardly discerning them from the silence in the later half. Well, they still do work for an atmosphere, however, and even if you don't remember them some scenes are pretty nice thanks to the sound stage.

Can't say anything either particularly bad or good about the seiyuu. They did they job, but noone stood out at bit. I suppose it was okay, but I'd rather have an anime with voiceactors I can notice. Itou Shizuka's performance was likely the best, pompously evil leader's of the girls' dormitory role kind of suits her voice well. Nakata Jouji also had the role of the dragon, but, unfortunately, he didn't have enough lines to fully exhibit his awesomeness.

Story: 4/10

Ichiban Ushiro no Daimou ended up as big bundle of disappointments thanks to horrible realization of otherwise a pretty neat idea. The whole concept of magic setting and demon king history was way too far fetched (though interesting) for a show which could only spawn twelve episodes. And it seems the guys who wrote the script noticed that as well and rather than concentrating on solid things just started to pile up a whole lot of random crap to excuse their soft porn. I've finished watching the show and I still don't know a thing about how magic works or what was that oh so scary demon king guy doing 100 years ago. I mean, if anyone would have even tried to justify the plot, the anime would have gotten twice as good as it ended up being now. I myself am a big fan of main characters with a spine and ambition, and I could do nothing else but to shed tears for Akuto whose otherwise great dream was pilled under tons of ecchi, silly demons, half-baked heroes and other dump. I mean, seriously, while the first half of the show still does its things coherently, in the second half Akuto starts using super powers he has never learned before, characters without a speck of background get introduced, twists completely stop making sense (wedding? what?); the whole show just starts going down the garbage bin. My suspension of disbelief was completely shattered starting with episode 7 and everything what followed was already painful to watch. You have to be a damn seer to understand what's going on in the last few episodes... Nonetheless, I still can't deny I actually enjoyed the first half of the show and the pain I felt during the second was because I actually had expectations for the it. Hell, it was more fun than half of the average sneeze-inducing harems I've seen, however much of a wreck it ended up to be.

Overally, Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou isn't exactly a horrible anime. It just managed to fail at every single opportunity to actually become good, ending up as something below average. It's still fun if you can turn off your brain and just enjoy your shows for tasteless ecchi, and some action as a side dish.

Characters: 6/10

It has been bothering me from the very first time I've seen her... but, what was the point of that girl character who could only speak "Guga"? Seriously, the new ways of moe terrify me sometimes, I mean, the girl's level of intelligence was below that of toddler's. Anyway, save for this odd exception the cast of Ichiban no Ushiro no Daimaou is nothing particularly new in the realm of ecchi driven action anime. Well, the show does trick you to believe that the main character, who for a change is intelligent, individualistic and ambitious, is a dose of fresh air in the usual lineup of dull harem leads, but even the way he is, he still ends up inadvertently peeking on naked girls and getting 'rewarded' for that in almost identical fashion. As for his ambitious part, the scenario of the show never let's him do anything with it, so it's pretty much as good as non existent at all. However, I still must commend the fact that he can stand up for himself and debate himself out of situations in which any other harem lead would just end up getting beaten up to a pulp. Oh yeah, and his name, Sai Akuto, is actually a pun, it has the same pronunciation as 最悪党, which means "the utmost villain".

There is a whole variety of girl characters and only two other males, including the main villain of the show. We have a carefree (or rather mentally challenged) red haired girl who becomes attached to the main character for no reason. There is a completely emotionless girl without any common sense whose work is to observe Akuto 24/7. My favourite, however, is the purple haired girl with impressive proportions, who acts extremely kind outside and is trusted by everyone, while being a black witch of most rotten personality inside; naturally her aim is to make Akuto into her love slave. Then there also is a brash student council president who looks more like a boy and a green haired girl of spunky manipulative personality, both lack screen time to get fleshed out completely however. Oh yeah, almost forgot the stuck-up class president who clashes with Akuto for every single trivial matter but ends up eventually falling for him anyway (for some reason). There are more characters, like the previously mentionted "Guga" girl, but since there is no deep meaning behind their existence I suppose there is no reason to mention them. Hiroshi who works as our Maou's underling is a guy with so little individualism you'll end up constantly forgetting him, and the villain is so badly introduced you will hardly get what he's doing, much less what he's thinking.

In the end, the characters of Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou, while seemingly charming from the first sight soon fall flat without getting any chance to flesh themselves out. They are still fun to observe, and you might find your favourites, but if you are looking for deep personalities you sure wont find them here. Akuto had the potential to become something great, but, oh well, it was a mistake to expect anything from a show of this genre anyway.

Myers-Briggs personality type indicator:

Korone - ISTJ (D)
Sai Akuto - INFJ (C)
Etou Fujiko - ENTJ (C)
Teruya Eiko - ENTJ (E)
Lily Shiraishi - ISTP (E)
Soga Keena - ENFP (D)
Hattori Junko - ISTJ (E)
Miwa Hiroshi - ESFP (E)
Yamato Bouichirou - INTJ (F)

Show Spoiler

Value: 6/10

Actually I feel a little tempted to re-watch this mess to see if I could make more sense out of it with a consecutive watch, but the lack of originality kind of cools me down. I'll keep this show in my collection just to remind myself how nice stories can go straight down the garbage bin thanks to horrible realizations and also, for some nice scenes where Akuto is going cool (even if it doesn't make sense I can still call it cool, right?!).

1. Conclusion[/u]:[/b] Rated as R+, Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou had the premise to become a really nice and entertaining 26 episodes long fantasy show, but ended up crashing down like a shot down helicopter thanks to its 12 episodes limit. The way it stands now it's a half-baked ecchi harem show with a serious part which is utilized so badly it's almost impossible to understand, much less suppress your disbelief. Check it out if mindless ecchi and action without any solid explanation is your thing... but stay away otherwise. The only single thing this show has it going for is this mild brainless fun. If you like ecchi comedy check Love Hina or Seto no Hanayome, which are much better. And if you like magic setting and don't mind some mess in the plot, then I get the feeling you'd also like Zero no Tsukaima... Otherwise, just go for Harry Potter.

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