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I started watching Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist largely because I wanted a short, fun fantasy series to binge through, and as far as fulfilling that goal went the series worked extremely well. The story follows William Twining, an arrogant, wealthy, Victorian English fella whose family goes bankrupt suddenly, leaving him unsure of how to pay for his next semester at the extremely prestigious university he attends (I assume it was a university because the Church was on campus and most of the guys seemed like young adults, but then Isaac seemed like he was possibly a teen so I...am actually unclear on which it was). Anyways, he rushes to his estate to look for something to sell to fund his tuition with the aid of his loyal butler, Kevin, but instead finds a demon summoning circle. Accidentally summoning the demon Dantalion, who tells him he is the chosen Elector who can decide who will rule Hell while Lucifer is in a coma, William goes into hard denial mode, as he is a realist and does not believe in demons. The series follows William as demons such as Dantalion try to convince him to elect them as ruler, going undercover at his school to earn his good opinions, while he vehemently denies any responsibility for Hell's government whilst being targeted by Heaven and Hell alike to be used or taken out.
The aesthetics of the anime (visuals, voice acting, and music) were all amazing, the characters generally had fun designs and I just really loved the animation. The plot was fun, and at certain points quite interesting (the various lore around the angels and demons, and biblical figures like Solomon were all really cool fundamentally), but the series hit some serious pacing issues in the last two episodes. Before that, things were moving fairly slowly, the epic fantasy plot taking the background to the general school-demon shenanigans, which worked just fine to keep the viewer interested while allowing them to have fun seeing the characters interact and fight various enemies, but in the last two episodes they tried to explain too much while still having some big-scale climax, which didn't work very well as it felt unearned and left most of the already introduced plot and character points wildly unaddressed. This could have been easily resolved by doubling or tripling the length of the series, since all the right pieces were there for a really incredible and fun fantasy story, but most of them didn't go anywhere satisfying.
The character relations suffered a similar fate; I found all the main characters fundamentally likable and/or interesting, and I appreciated the general lack of emphasis on romance, but because of the slower pace for most of the series we only see the relationships develop superficially. I could tell William was growing fond of his demon classmates because of how much time they spent together and he would show concern whenever one got injured in battle, and that was kind of fun/charming in a way, but we didn't get to see a whole lot of real conversations between them that could have gone a long way in developing that friendship. The side relationships had it worse because while they were interesting when introduced, they didn't get to do much or have any kind of resolution (is the fact that Sitry serves an abusive uncle ever going to be like...addressed? Or the whole thing with Kevin and the angels? Who knows). And then Solomon was a character I just couldn't get a good grasp on, and likewise his relationships with his 74 demon pillars felt pretty unclear (I joke about Solomon being in a 74-way poly ship with them, but really most of the individual relationships were left super unclear/underdeveloped). Largely this was because we only saw brief glimpses of him in flashbacks in the series, so when they info-dumped his backstory in the last two episodes it made it feel incomplete and harder to follow or feel invested in. It felt like a lot of details were still left out somehow.
So all in all, I'd say the series is both a lot of fun and very flawed. Did I enjoy watching it? Yes. Was it ultimately satisfying? No. For just a lighthearted binge it's perfect, but trying to get into any more deeply than that leaves with a whole lot of questions that probably won't ever be answered. I do intend to read the manga to see if/how much it expands on the story or what it handles differently, since the show was certainly intriguing, but as a standalone anime it isn't super strong even if it is quite entertaining.
The aesthetics of the anime (visuals, voice acting, and music) were all amazing, the characters generally had fun designs and I just really loved the animation. The plot was fun, and at certain points quite interesting (the various lore around the angels and demons, and biblical figures like Solomon were all really cool fundamentally), but the series hit some serious pacing issues in the last two episodes. Before that, things were moving fairly slowly, the epic fantasy plot taking the background to the general school-demon shenanigans, which worked just fine to keep the viewer interested while allowing them to have fun seeing the characters interact and fight various enemies, but in the last two episodes they tried to explain too much while still having some big-scale climax, which didn't work very well as it felt unearned and left most of the already introduced plot and character points wildly unaddressed. This could have been easily resolved by doubling or tripling the length of the series, since all the right pieces were there for a really incredible and fun fantasy story, but most of them didn't go anywhere satisfying.
The character relations suffered a similar fate; I found all the main characters fundamentally likable and/or interesting, and I appreciated the general lack of emphasis on romance, but because of the slower pace for most of the series we only see the relationships develop superficially. I could tell William was growing fond of his demon classmates because of how much time they spent together and he would show concern whenever one got injured in battle, and that was kind of fun/charming in a way, but we didn't get to see a whole lot of real conversations between them that could have gone a long way in developing that friendship. The side relationships had it worse because while they were interesting when introduced, they didn't get to do much or have any kind of resolution (is the fact that Sitry serves an abusive uncle ever going to be like...addressed? Or the whole thing with Kevin and the angels? Who knows). And then Solomon was a character I just couldn't get a good grasp on, and likewise his relationships with his 74 demon pillars felt pretty unclear (I joke about Solomon being in a 74-way poly ship with them, but really most of the individual relationships were left super unclear/underdeveloped). Largely this was because we only saw brief glimpses of him in flashbacks in the series, so when they info-dumped his backstory in the last two episodes it made it feel incomplete and harder to follow or feel invested in. It felt like a lot of details were still left out somehow.
So all in all, I'd say the series is both a lot of fun and very flawed. Did I enjoy watching it? Yes. Was it ultimately satisfying? No. For just a lighthearted binge it's perfect, but trying to get into any more deeply than that leaves with a whole lot of questions that probably won't ever be answered. I do intend to read the manga to see if/how much it expands on the story or what it handles differently, since the show was certainly intriguing, but as a standalone anime it isn't super strong even if it is quite entertaining.
