Hataraku Maou sama

Hataraku Maou sama or The Devil Is a Part-Timer! aired in 2013. The original source material is a light novel.

This anime can be explained really simple. “What if a heroine falls for the evil of the world?” is the engine that drives this series.

The first half of episode 1 sets up the scene for the rest of the series. We see a fantasy world where an evil lord is being confronted by a group of heroes. The evil lord is powerful but circumstances dictate him to flee into another dimension.

Unsurprisingly, the evil lord and his right hand evil arrive in Japan. Because it is an entirely different world, the laws of nature are different as well, resulting complete drainage of their mana.

Their original plan was regroup and return but the return part is no longer possible as they cannot cast any magic at all without mana.

Hence, their life as humans begin. First of all, they need to make money so that they can feed themselves. What can a man do without any education degree?

Predictable but hilarious. The evil lord also has to come up with a name for himself as well. He names himself Maou Sadao (Which loosely means Evil Sadao).

So, an evil lord’s life as a part-timer begins.

It turns out that some of heroes managed to enter the dimension portal the evil lord created and entered Japan as well. One of them is Yusa Emi (Which loosely means hero Emi).

Just like her evil counterpart, she has also lost mana completely and ends up having to live a life of a normal person although she does get a slightly better job and has a slightly better life overall. Her job is a support person at some company who mostly takes calls from customers.

For the rest of the series, we see them getting beaten up the harshness of the real life while a bond is created between the evil lord and Yusa Emi.

⚖️ My verdict

This anime is hilarious. You will be chuckling a lot. I do like the premise of two entirely different people falling for each other. In this case, it’s an evil lord and a heroine. The former is chaotic evil. The latter is lawful good.

You can also check out its manga which goes further than the anime. The manga has a different feel though, and I didn’t find it as hilarious as anime version. I kind of see why this anime failed to get a second season. The plot gets kind of silly later on.

In the end, I recommend the anime over the manga. I feel the anime ends at a good point. The plot goes downhill from there in my opinion.