The Devil Is a Part-Timer!! Season 2

Episode 9

I gotta say, if it wasn't for some of the teases and revelations at the very end of this episode, I would almost consider this filler. I could've sworn that last week's episode was setting up that there were other supernatural elements going on around this farm and that the menacing aura the bear gave off implied that it wasn't just a regular bear. But turns out my expectations were subverted because not only was it just a regular bear, but the actual plot and inciting incident for this episode was surprisingly mundane compared to what we had seen before. It's literally about setting up how important the farm is and then the team protects it from thieves. You could argue that's part of the appeal of the show; having supernatural characters interact in more normal, everyday situations but I don't think this episode is played up for comedy as much as previous circumstances work. If anything, it plays the situation incredibly straight and while it is nice to see the gang work as a team, it did feel like we were dragging our feet to fill in the episode.

It's not all bad because if there were other supernatural events that happened in this episode, then I would probably be complaining for a different reason. I do want to praise the episode for having a lot of heart. We get little glimpses about how this whole experience has sort of left Maou reflecting on the guilt of his actions, from realizing that maybe there was another way to unite the demon realm outside of just conquering, to feeling like he's in this world as some sort of punishment for his past actions. It's not overtly in your face and can just be summed up in two or three lines in the episode but I like that. The problem is that everything in between just feels so uninteresting compared to the bigger threats and circumstances that are going on. Even the explanation for how Maou got his powers at the end feels a little bit tacked on and the foreshadowing about how there apparently used to be people with powers on earth back in the day felt too sudden and quick to really sink in. It feels like this whole situation could've been condensed and maybe in the original light novels, it was supposed to be more of a carefree emotion filled transition from one arc to the next. Admittedly, maybe I'm just a bit impatient because the show is almost over and it already took us so long to get more of this series and I don't want to have to wait another 10 years. I just hope that some of the little things that were brought up in these past two episodes do end up playing a role in future events because then maybe I can look back on the situation a bit more fondly.

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The Devil Is a Part-Timer!! Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.